Engineering topics

Hunter, Craig A.

Publications and source records attributed to Hunter, Craig A..

29 records · Page 2

NASA NTRS2004

Liquid Rocket Propulsion for Atmospheric Flight in the Proposed ARES Mars Scout Mission

Flying above the Mars Southern Highlands, an airplane will traverse over the terrain of Mars while conducting unique science measurements of the atmosphere, surface, and interior. This paper describes an overview of the ARES (Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey) mission with an emphasis on airplane propulsion needs. The process for selecting a propulsion system for the ARES airplane is also included. Details of the propulsion system, including system schematics, hardware and performance are provided. The airplane has a 6.25 m wingspan with a total mass of 149 kg and is propelled by a bi-propellant liquid rocket system capable of carrying roughly 48 kg of MMH/MON3 propellant.

Kuhl, Christopher A.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Experimental, Theoretical, and Computational Investigation of Separated Nozzle Flows

A detailed experimental, theoretical, and computational study of separated nozzle flows has been conducted. Experimental testing was performed at the NASA Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel Complex. As part of a comprehensive static performance investigation, force, moment, and pressure measurements were made and schlieren flow visualization was obtained for a sub-scale, non-axisymmetric, two-dimensional, convergent- divergent nozzle. In addition, two-dimensional numerical simulations were run using the computational fluid dynamics code PAB3D with two-equation turbulence closure and algebraic Reynolds stress modeling. For reference, experimental and computational results were compared with theoretical predictions based on one-dimensional gas dynamics and an approximate integral momentum boundary layer method. Experimental results from this study indicate that off-design overexpanded nozzle flow was dominated by shock induced boundary layer separation, which was divided into two distinct flow regimes; three- dimensional separation with partial reattachment, and fully detached two-dimensional separation. The test nozzle was observed to go through a marked transition in passing from one regime to the other. In all cases, separation provided a significant increase in static thrust efficiency compared to the ideal prediction. Results indicate that with controlled separation, the entire overexpanded range of nozzle performance would be within 10% of the peak thrust efficiency. By offering savings in weight and complexity over a conventional mechanical exhaust system, this may allow a fixed geometry nozzle to cover an entire flight envelope. The computational simulation was in excellent agreement with experimental data over most of the test range, and did a good job of modeling internal flow and thrust performance. An exception occurred at low nozzle pressure ratios, where the two-dimensional computational model was inconsistent with the three-dimensional separation observed in the experiment. In general, the computation captured the physics of the shock boundary layer interaction and shock induced boundary layer separation in the nozzle, though there were some differences in shock structure compared to experiment. Though minor, these differences could be important for studies involving flow control or thrust vectoring of separated nozzles. Combined with other observations, this indicates that more detailed, three-dimensional computational modeling needs to be conducted to more realistically simulate shock-separated nozzle flows.

Hunter, Craig A.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Development of a Jet Noise Prediction Method for Installed Jet Configurations

This paper describes development of the Jet3D noise prediction method and its application to heated jets with complex three-dimensional flow fields and installation effects. Noise predictions were made for four separate flow bypass ratio five nozzle configurations tested in the NASA Langley Jet Noise Laboratory. These configurations consist of a round core and fan nozzle with and without pylon, and an eight chevron core nozzle and round fan nozzle with and without pylon. Predicted SPL data were in good agreement with experimental noise measurements up to 121 inlet angle, beyond which Jet3D under predicted low frequency levels. This is due to inherent limitations in the formulation of Lighthill's Acoustic Analogy used in Jet3D, and will be corrected in ongoing development. Jet3D did an excellent job predicting full scale EPNL for nonchevron configurations, and captured the effect of the pylon, correctly predicting a reduction in EPNL. EPNL predictions for chevron configurations were not in good agreement with measured data, likely due to the lower mixing and longer potential cores in the CFD simulations of these cases.

Hunter, Craig A.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Creativity and Creative Teams

A review of the linkage between knowledge, creativity, and design is presented and related to the best practices of multidisciplinary design teams. The discussion related to design and design teams is presented in the context of both the complete aerodynamic design community and specifically the work environment at the NASA Langley Research Center. To explore ways to introduce knowledge and creativity into the research and design environment at NASA Langley Research Center a creative design activity was executed within the context of a national product development activity. The success of the creative design team activity gave rise to a need to communicate the experience in a straightforward and managed approach. As a result the concept of creative potential its formulated and assessed with a survey of a small portion of the aeronautics research staff at NASA Langley Research Center. The final section of the paper provides recommendations for future creative organizations and work environments.

Wood, Richard M.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Advanced Aerodynamic Design of Passive Porosity Control Effectors

This paper describes aerodynamic design work aimed at developing a passive porosity control effector system for a generic tailless fighter aircraft. As part of this work, a computational design tool was developed and used to layout passive porosity effector systems for longitudinal and lateral-directional control at a low-speed, high angle of attack condition. Aerodynamic analysis was conducted using the NASA Langley computational fluid dynamics code USM3D, in conjunction with a newly formulated surface boundary condition for passive porosity. Results indicate that passive porosity effectors can provide maneuver control increments that equal and exceed those of conventional aerodynamic effectors for low-speed, high-alpha flight, with control levels that are a linear function of porous area. This work demonstrates the tremendous potential of passive porosity to yield simple control effector systems that have no external moving parts and will preserve an aircraft's fixed outer mold line.

Hunter, Craig A.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Static Performance of a Fixed-Geometry Exhaust Nozzle Incorporating Porous Cavities for Shock-Boundary Layer Interaction Control

An investigation was conducted in the model preparation area of the Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel to determine the internal performance of a fixed-geometry exhaust nozzle incorporating porous cavities for shock-boundary layer interaction control. Testing was conducted at static conditions using a sub-scale nozzle model with one baseline and 27 porous configurations. For the porous configurations, the effects of percent open porosity, hole diameter, and cavity depth were determined. All tests were conducted with no external flow at nozzle pressure ratios from 1.25 to approximately 9.50. Results indicate that baseline nozzle performance was dominated by unstable, shock-induced, boundary-layer separation at over-expanded conditions. Porous configurations were capable of controlling off-design separation in the nozzle by either alleviating separation or encouraging stable separation of the exhaust flow. The ability of the porous nozzle concept to alternately alleviate separation or encourage stable separation of exhaust flow through shock-boundary layer interaction control offers tremendous off-design performance benefits for fixed-geometry nozzle installations. In addition, the ability to encourage separation on one divergent flap while alleviating it on the other makes it possible to generate thrust vectoring using a fixed-geometry nozzle.

Asbury, Scott C.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Effects of Convoluted Divergent Flap Contouring on the Performance of a Fixed-Geometry Nonaxisymmetric Exhaust Nozzle

An investigation was conducted in the model preparation area of the Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel to determine the effects of convoluted divergent-flap contouring on the internal performance of a fixed-geometry, nonaxisymmetric, convergent-divergent exhaust nozzle. Testing was conducted at static conditions using a sub-scale nozzle model with one baseline and four convoluted configurations. All tests were conducted with no external flow at nozzle pressure ratios from 1.25 to approximately 9.50. Results indicate that baseline nozzle performance was dominated by unstable, shock-induced, boundary-layer separation at overexpanded conditions. Convoluted configurations were found to significantly reduce, and in some cases totally alleviate separation at overexpanded conditions. This result was attributed to the ability of convoluted contouring to energize and improve the condition of the nozzle boundary layer. Separation alleviation offers potential for installed nozzle aeropropulsive (thrust-minus-drag) performance benefits by reducing drag at forward flight speeds, even though this may reduce nozzle thrust ratio as much as 6.4% at off-design conditions. At on-design conditions, nozzle thrust ratio for the convoluted configurations ranged from 1% to 2.9% below the baseline configuration; this was a result of increased skin friction and oblique shock losses inside the nozzle.

Asbury, Scott C.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Experimental Investigation of Convoluted Contouring for Aircraft Afterbody Drag Reduction

An experimental investigation was performed in the NASA Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel to determine the aerodynamic effects of external convolutions, placed on the boattail of a nonaxisymmetric nozzle for drag reduction. Boattail angles of 15 and 22 were tested with convolutions placed at a forward location upstream of the boattail curvature, at a mid location along the curvature and at a full location that spanned the entire boattail flap. Each of the baseline nozzle afterbodies (no convolutions) had a parabolic, converging contour with a parabolically decreasing corner radius. Data were obtained at several Mach numbers from static conditions to 1.2 for a range of nozzle pressure ratios and angles of attack. An oil paint flow visualization technique was used to qualitatively assess the effect of the convolutions. Results indicate that afterbody drag reduction by convoluted contouring is convolution location, Mach number, boattail angle, and NPR dependent. The forward convolution location was the most effective contouring geometry for drag reduction on the 22 afterbody, but was only effective for M < 0.95. At M = 0.8, drag was reduced 20 and 36 percent at NPRs of 5.4 and 7, respectively, but drag was increased 10 percent for M = 0.95 at NPR = 7. Convoluted contouring along the 15 boattail angle afterbody was not effective at reducing drag because the flow was minimally separated from the baseline afterbody, unlike the massive separation along the 22 boattail angle baseline afterbody.

Deere, Karen A.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Computational Investigation of Fluidic Counterflow Thrust Vectoring

A computational study of fluidic counterflow thrust vectoring has been conducted. Two-dimensional numerical simulations were run using the computational fluid dynamics code PAB3D with two-equation turbulence closure and linear Reynolds stress modeling. For validation, computational results were compared to experimental data obtained at the NASA Langley Jet Exit Test Facility. In general, computational results were in good agreement with experimental performance data, indicating that efficient thrust vectoring can be obtained with low secondary flow requirements (less than 1% of the primary flow). An examination of the computational flowfield has revealed new details about the generation of a countercurrent shear layer, its relation to secondary suction, and its role in thrust vectoring. In addition to providing new information about the physics of counterflow thrust vectoring, this work appears to be the first documented attempt to simulate the counterflow thrust vectoring problem using computational fluid dynamics.

Hunter, Craig A.↗

NASA NTRS1996

A Passive Cavity Concept for Improving the Off-Design Performance of Fixed-Geometry Exhaust Nozzles

An investigation was conducted in the model preparation area of the Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel to study a passive cavity concept for improving the off-design performance of fixed-geometry exhaust nozzles. Passive cavity ventilation (through a porous surface) was applied to divergent flap surfaces and tested at static conditions in a sub-scale, nonaxisymmetric, convergent-divergent nozzle. As part of a comprehensive investigation, force, moment and pressure measurements were taken and focusing schlieren flow visualization was obtained for a baseline configuration and D passive cavity configurations. All tests were conducted with no external flow and high-pressure air was used to simulate jet-exhaust flow at nozzle pressure ratios from 1.25 to approximately 9.50. Results indicate that baseline nozzle performance was dominated by unstable shock-induced boundary-layer separation at off-design conditions, which came about through the natural tendency of overexpanded exhaust flow to satisfy conservation requirements by detaching from the nozzle divergent flaps. Passive cavity ventilation added the ability to control off-design separation in the nozzle by either alleviating separation or encouraging stable separation of the exhaust flow. Separation alleviation offers potential for installed nozzle performance benefits by reducing drag at forward flight speeds, even though it may reduce off-design static thrust efficiency as much as 3.2 percent. Encouraging stable separation of the exhaust flow offers significant performance improvements at static, low NPR and low Mach number flight conditions by improving off-design static thrust efficiency as much as 2.8 percent. By designing a fixed-geometry nozzle with fully porous divergent flaps, where both cavity location and percent open porosity of the flaps could be varied, passive flow control would make it possible to improve off-design nozzle performance across a wide operating range. In addition, the ability to encourage separation on one flap while alleviating it on the other makes it possible to generate thrust vectoring in the nozzle through passive flow control.

Asbury, Scott C.↗

NASA NTRS1995

An approximate theoretical method for modeling the static thrust performance of non-axisymmetric two-dimensional convergent-divergent nozzles

An analytical/numerical method has been developed to predict the static thrust performance of non-axisymmetric, two-dimensional convergent-divergent exhaust nozzles. Thermodynamic nozzle performance effects due to over- and underexpansion are modeled using one-dimensional compressible flow theory. Boundary layer development and skin friction losses are calculated using an approximate integral momentum method based on the classic karman-Polhausen solution. Angularity effects are included with these two models in a computational Nozzle Performance Analysis Code, NPAC. In four different case studies, results from NPAC are compared to experimental data obtained from subscale nozzle testing to demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the NPAC method. In several cases, the NPAC prediction matched experimental gross thrust efficiency data to within 0.1 percent at a design NPR, and to within 0.5 percent at off-design conditions.

Hunter, Craig A.↗