Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Schey, Oscar W.
A method of constructing fins of nearly optimum proportions has been developed by the NACA to the point where a cylinder has been manufactured and tested. Data were obtained on cylinder temperature for a wide range of inlet-manifold pressures, engine speeds, and cooling-pressure differences.
The NACA has conducted an investigation to determine the performance that can be obtained from a multistage axial-flow compressor based on airfoil research. A theory was developed; an eight-stage axial-flow compressor was designed, constructed, and tested. The performance of the compressor was determined for speeds from 5000 to 14,000 r.p.m with varying air flow at each speed. Most of the tests were made with air at room temperature. The performance was determined in accordance with the Committee's recommended procedure for testing superchargers. The expected performance was obtained, showing that a multistage compressor of high efficiency can be designed by the application of airfoil theory.
The comparative performance was determined of engines using three methods of mixing the fuel and the air: the use of a carburetor, manifold injection, and cylinder injection. The tests were made of a single-cylinder engine with a Wright 1820-G air-cooled cylinder. Each method of mixing the fuel and the air was investigated over a range of fuel-air ratios from 0.10 to the limit of stable operation and at engine speeds of 1,500 and 1,900 r.p.m. The comparative performance with a fuel-air ratio of 0.08 was investigated for speeds from 1,300 to 1,900 r.p.m. The results show that the power obtained with each method closely followed the volumetric efficiency; the power was therefore the highest with cylinder injection because this method had less manifold restriction. The values of minimum specific fuel consumption obtained with each method of mixing of fuel and air were the same. For the same engine and cooling conditions, the cylinder temperatures are the same regardless of the method used for mixing the fuel and the air.
Factors are obtained from semiempirical equations for correcting engine-cylinder temperatures for variation in important engine and cooling conditions. The variation of engine temperatures with atmospheric temperature is treated in detail, and correction factors are obtained for various flight and test conditions, such as climb at constant indicated air speed, level flight, ground running, take-off, constant speed of cooling air, and constant mass flow of cooling air. Seven conventional air-cooled engine cylinders enclosed in jackets and cooled by a blower were tested to determine the effect of cooling-air temperature and carburetor-air temperature on cylinder temperatures. The cooling air temperature was varied from approximately 80 degrees F. to 230 degrees F. and the carburetor-air temperature from approximately 40 degrees F. to 160 degrees F. Tests were made over a large range of engine speeds, brake mean effective pressures, and pressure drops across the cylinder. The correction factors obtained experimentally are compared with those obtained from the semiempirical equations and a fair agreement is noted.
An investigation was conducted to obtain fuel-consumption curves for a single-cylinder engine with a Wright 1820-G and Pratt & Whitney 1340-H cylinder at varying speeds, manifold pressures, and air-fuel ratios. The 1340- H cylinder was tested at speeds from 1,200 to 2,400 r.p.m. and at manifold pressures from 21 to 38 inches of mercury absolute. Less than extensive tests were made of the 1820-G cylinder. The results of the tests showed that the minimum brake fuel consumption was obtained when the engines were operating at high torques and at speeds from 60 to 70 percent of the rated speed. The fuel consumption increased at an increasing rate as the torque was reduced; and, at 45 percent of maximum torque, the fuel consumption was 20 percent higher than at maximum torque when the engines were operating at 70 percent of rated speed. Minimum specific fuel consumption was obtained at the same air-fuel ratio regardless of compression ratio. No improvement in fuel consumption was obtained when mixtures leaner than an air-fuel ratio of 15.5 were used. The leanest mixture ratio on which the engine with the 1340-H cylinder would operate smoothly was 18.5 and the spark advance for maximum power with this mixture ratio was 50 degrees B.T.C. A method is discussed for reducing the amount of testing necessary to obtain curves for minimum brake fuel consumption.
This report presents the results of cooling tests conducted on a calibrated GR-1535 Pratt and Whitney Wasp, Jr. Engine installed in a Vought X04U-2 airplane. The tests were made in the NACA full-scale tunnel at air speeds from 70 to 120 miles per hour, at engine speeds from 1,500 to 2,600 r.p.m., and at manifold pressures from 19 to 33 inches of mercury absolute. A Smith controllable propeller was used to facilitate obtaining the different combinations of engine speed, power, and manifold pressure.
Several electrically heated finned steel cylinders enclosed in jackets were cooled by air from a blower. The effect of the air conditions and fin dimensions on the average surface heat-transfer coefficient q and the power required to force the air around the cylinders were determined. Tests were conducted at air velocities between the fins from 10 to 130 miles per hour and at specific weights of the air varying from 0.046 to 0.074 pound per cubic foot. The fin dimensions of the cylinders covered a range in pitches from 0.057 to 0.25 inch average fin thicknesses from 0.035 to 0.04 inch, and fin widths from 0.67 to 1.22 inches.
Flight tests of a Grumman Scout (XSF-2) airplane fitted with a Pratt & Whitney 1535 supercharged engine were conducted to determine the effect of engine power, mass flow of the cooling air, and atmospheric temperature on cylinder temperature. The tests indicated that the difference in temperature between the cylinder wall and the cooling air varied as the 0.38 power of the brake horsepower for a constant mass flow of cooling air, cooling-air temperature, engine speed, and brake fuel consumption. The difference in temperature was also found to vary inversely as the 0.39 power of the mass flow for points on the head and the 0.35 power for points on the barrel, provided that engine power, engine speed, brake fuel consumption, and cooling-air temperature were kept constant. The results of the tests of the effect of atmospheric temperature on cylinder temperature were inconclusive owing to unfavorable weather conditions prevailing at the time of the tests. The method used for controlling the test conditions, however, was found to be feasible.
An investigation was made to obtain information on the minimum quantity of air and power required to cool conventional air cooled cylinders at various operating conditions when using a blower. The results of these tests show that the minimum power required for satisfactory cooling with an overall blower efficiency of 100 percent varied from 2 to 6 percent of the engine power depending on the operating conditions. The shape of the jacket had a large effect on the cylinder temperatures. Increasing the air speed over the front of the cylinder by keeping the greater part of the circumference of the cylinder covered by the jacket reduced the temperatures over the entire cylinder.
The results of tests made to determine the performance of a DePalma-Roots supercharger are presented. The performance of the DePalma supercharger with atmospheric pressure at the discharge was compared with that of a hypothetical NACA Roots-type supercharger of the same displacement. The tests were conducted at speeds from 1,000 to 6,000 r.p.m. and at pressure differences from 0 to 15 inches of mercury. The variation in clearance between the impeller tips and the impeller housing was determined for the DePalma supercharger at a speed of 2,000 r.p.m. and for the NACA supercharger at speeds from 500 to 3,000 r.p.m. with the pressure differences for each supercharger varying form 0 to 15 inches of mercury. The results indicate that, if warping and growing of the metals of the case and impellers are neglected, the most uniform clearances can probably be maintained for all operating conditions when the case and impellers are constructed of metals that have the same coefficient of expansion. The results also show that the discharge and intake openings of this model of the DePalma supercharger are too small, which lowers the volumetric efficiency and impairs the performance at all speeds and pressure differences. At high pressure difference the volumetric efficiency of the DePalma supercharger is greater when the discharge pressure surpasses atmospheric pressure than when the discharge pressure is atmospheric.
This report presents the results of an investigation to determine the effect of baffles on the temperature distribution and the heat-transfer coefficient of finned cylinders. The tests were conducted in a 30-inch wind tunnel on electrically heated cylinders with fins of 0.25 and 0.31 inch pitch. The results of these tests showed that the use of integral baffles gave a reduction of 31.9 percent in the rear wall temperatures and an increase of 54.2 percent in the heat transfer coefficient as compared with a cylinder without baffles.
This report presents the performance of a single-cylinder test engine using a hydrogenated safety fuel. The safety fuel has a flash point of 125 degrees f. (Cleveland open-dup method), which is high enough to remove most of the fire hazard, and an octane number of 95, which permits higher compression ratios to be used than are permissible with most undoped gasolines.
This report presents the results of an investigation to determine the engine performance obtained with a hydrogenated safety fuel developed to eliminate fire hazard. The tests were made on a single-cylinder universal test engine at compression ratios of 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0. Most of the tests were made with a fuel-injection system, although one set of runs was made with a carburetor when using gasoline to establish comparative performance. The tests show that the b.m.e.p. obtained with safety fuel when using a fuel-injection system is slightly higher than that obtained with gasoline when using a carburetor, although the fuel consumption with safety fuel is higher. When the fuel-injection system is used with each fuel and with normal engine temperatures the b.m.e.p. with safety fuel is from 2 to 4 percent lower than with gasoline and the fuel consumption about 25 to 30 percent higher. However, a few tests at an engine coolant temperature of 250 F have shown a specific fuel consumption approximating that obtained with gasoline with only a slight reduction in power. The idling of the test engine was satisfactory with the safety fuel. Starting was difficult with a cold engine but could be readily accomplished when the jacket water was hot. It is believed that the use of the safety fuel would practically eliminate crash fires.
The object of this investigation was to determine the effect of increasing the carburetor pressures from 30 to 40 inches of mercury, at compression ratios from 3.5 to 7.5, on the power, on the maximum cylinder pressures, on the fuel consumption, and on the other performance characteristics of an engine. A roots-type aircraft-engine supercharger was used to maintain the desired carburetor pressure.
This report presents the results of flight tests with three different airplanes using several types of low-drag cowling for radial air-cooled engines. The greater part of the tests were made with a Curtiss XF7Cc-1 (Sea Hawk) with a 410 horsepower. Wasp engine, using three fuselage nose shapes and six types of outer cowling. The six cowlings were: a narrow ring, a wide ring, a wide cowling similar in the original NACA cowling, a thick ring incorporating an exhaust collector, a single-surface cowling shaped like the outer surface of the exhaust-collector cowling, and polygon-ring cowling, of which the angle of the straight sections with the thrust line could be varied over a wide range.
This report gives the results of an experimental determination of the temperature distribution in and the heat dissipation from a cylindrical finned surface for various fin-plane/air-stream angles. A steel cylinder 4.5 inches in diameter having slightly tapered fins of 0.30-inch pitch and 0.6 -inch width was equipped with an electrical heating unit furnishing 13 to 248 B.T.U. per hour per square inch of inside wall area. Air at speeds form 30 to 150 miles per hour was directed at seven different angles from 0 degrees to 90 degrees with respect to the fin planes. The tests show the best angle for cooling at all air speeds to be about 45 degrees. With the same temperature for the two conditions and with an air speed of 76 miles per hour, the heat input to the cylinder can be increased 50 percent at 45 degrees fin-plane/air-stream angle over that at 0 degrees.
This report presents the results of tests of a Power plus supercharger and a comparison of its performance with the performance previously obtained with an N.A.C.A. Roots-type supercharger. The Powerplus supercharger is a positive displacement blower of the vane type having mechanically operated vanes, the movement of which is controlled by slots and eccentrics. The supercharger was tested at a range of pressure differences from 0 to 15 inches of mercury and at speeds from 500 to 2,500 r.p.m. The pressure difference across the supercharger was obtained by throttling the intake of a depression tank which was interposed in the air duct between the supercharger and the Durley orifice box used for measuring the air. The results of these tests show that at low pressure differences and at all speeds the power required by the Powerplus supercharger to compress a definite quantity of air per second is considerably higher than that required by the Roots. At pressure differences from 10 to 14 inches of mercury and at speeds over 2,000 r.p.m. the power requirements of the two superchargers are practically the same. At a pressure difference of 15 inches of mercury or greater and at a speed of 2,500 r.p.m. or greater the performance of the Powerplus supercharger is slightly better than that of the Roots. Because the Powerplus supercharger cannot be operated at a speed greater than 3,000 r.p.m. as compared with 7,000 r.p.m. for the Roots, its capacity is approximately one-half that of the Roots for the same bulk. The Powerplus supercharger is more complicated and less reliable than the Roots supercharger.
This investigation was conducted to determine the effect of more complete scavenging on the full throttle power and the fuel consumption of a four-stroke-cycle engine. The NACA single-cylinder universal test engine equipped with both a fuel-injection system and a carburetor was used. The engine was scavenged by using a large valve overlap and maintaining a pressure in the inlet manifold of 2 inches of mercury above atmospheric. The maximum valve overlap used was 112 degrees. Tests were conducted for a range of compression ratios from 5.5 to 8.5. Except for variable speed tests, all tests were conducted at an engine speed of 1,500 r.p.m. The results of the tests show that the clearance volume of an engine can be scavenged by using a large valve overlap and about 2 to 5 inches of mercury pressure difference between the inlet and exhaust valve. With a fuel-injection system when the clearance volume was scavenged, a b.m.e.p. of over 185 pounds per square inch and a fuel consumption of 9.45 pound per brake horsepower per hour were obtained with a 6.5 compression ratio. An increase of approximately 10 pounds per square inch b.m.e.p. was obtained with a fuel-injection system over that with a carburetor.