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At least 739 records · Page 41

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NASA NTRS2006

Optimum Design of a Compound Helicopter

A design and aeromechanics investigation was conducted for a 100,000-lb compound helicopter with a single main rotor, which is to cruise at 250 knots at 4000 ft/95 deg F condition. Performance, stability, and control analyses were conducted with the comprehensive rotorcraft analysis CAMRAD II. Wind tunnel test measurements of the performance of the H-34 and UH-1D rotors at high advance ratio were compared with calculations to assess the accuracy of the analysis for the design of a high speed helicopter. In general, good correlation was obtained when an increase of drag coefficients in the reverse flow region was implemented. An assessment of various design parameters (disk loading, blade loading, wing loading) on the performance of the compound helicopter was conducted. Lower wing loading (larger wing area) and higher blade loading (smaller blade chord) increased aircraft lift-to-drag ratio. However, disk loading has a small influence on aircraft lift-to-drag ratio. A rotor parametric study showed that most of the benefit of slowing the rotor occurred at the initial 20 to 30% reduction of the advancing blade tip Mach number. No stability issues were observed with the current design. Control derivatives did not change significantly with speed, but the did exhibit significant coupling.

Yeo, Hyeonsoo↗

NASA NTRS1983

Measured inplane stability characteristics in hover for an advanced bearingless rotor

A study was made of the inplane stability characteristics of a model of an advanced bearingless main rotor. The four-bladed rotor system was tested for aeroelastic stability in hover for both isolated and body-free conditions. Variations in several hub design parameters were tested, including blade coning and sweep angles, blade inplane structural damping, pitch-link location (delta-free effect), and fuselage structural damping. An analysis of the experimental results shows that parametric stability trends observed from isolated-rotor studies may yield incorrect conclusions regarding coupled rotor-body characteristics. For body-free conditions, the baseline rotor configuration resulted in the best stability margins at 1-g thrust as well as at the nominal design rotor speed. Blade built-in coning had little effect on the body-free damping levels at the inplane/body resonance points. Introducing blade sweep destabilized the rotor at the inplane/body pitch resonance.

Weller, W. H.↗

NASA NTRS1974

Impact resistance of composite fan blades

Results are presented of a program to determine the impact resistance of composite fan blades subjected to foreign object damage (FOD) while operating under conditions simulating a short take-off and landing (STOL) engine at takeoff. The full-scale TF39 first-stage fan blade was chosen as the base design for the demonstration component since its configuration and operating tip speeds are similar to a typical STOL fan blade several composite configurations had already been designed and evaluated under previous programs. The first portion of the program was devoted toward fabricating and testing high impact resistant, aerodynamically acceptable composite blades which utilized only a single material system in any given blade. In order to increase the blade impact capability beyond this point, several mixed material (hybrid) designs were investigated using S-glass and Kevlar as well as boron and graphite fibers. These hybrid composite blades showed a marked improvement in resistance to bird impact over those blades made of a single composite material. The work conducted under this program has demonstrated substantial improvement in composite fan blades with respect to FOD resistance and has indicated that the hybrid design concept, which utilizes different types of fibers in various portions of a fan blade design depending on the particular requirements of the different areas and the characteristics of the different fibers involved, shows a significant improvement over those designs utilizing only one material system.

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NASA NTRS1930

Test of an adjustable pitch model propeller at four blade settings

This note describes tests of an adjustable blade metal model propeller, both in a free wind stream and in combination with a model fuselage, at four settings of the blades. The model propeller is designed for a uniform nominal pitch/diameter ratio of .7 and the blade settings used correspond to nominal pitch/diameter ratios of .5, .7, .9, and 1.1 at the .6 radius. The tests show that propellers of this type may be considerably changed in setting from the designed pitch angles and yet give excellent performance. The efficiency realized and power absorbed when blades are set at other than the designed angle, are little different than would be obtained from a propeller with uniform pitch equal to the mean pitch of the propeller under test.

Lesley, E P↗

NASA NTRS1975

Quiet Clean Short-haul Experimental Engine (QCSEE) UTW fan preliminary design

High bypass geared turbofan engines and propulsion systems designed for short-haul passenger aircraft are described. The propulsion technology required for future externally blown flap aircraft with engines located both under the wing and over the wing is emphasized. The aerodynamic and mechanical preliminary design of the QCSEE under the wing 1.34 pressure ratio fan with variable blade pitch is presented. Design information is given for two pitch change actuation systems which will provide reverse thrust.

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NASA NTRS1981

Full potential solution of a transonic quasi-3-D flow through a cascade using artificial compressibility

A reliable method is presented for calculating the flowfield about a cascade of arbitrary 2-D airfoils. The method approximates the three-dimensional flow in a turbomachinery blade row by correcting for streamtube convergence and radius change in the throughflow direction. The method is a fully conservative solution of the full potential equation incorporating the finite volume technique on a body-fitted periodic mesh, with an artificial density imposed in the transonic region to ensure stability and the capture of shock waves. Comparison of results for several supercritical blades shows good agreement with their hodograph solutions. Other calculations for these profiles as well as standard NACA blade sections indicate that this is a useful scheme for analyzing both the design and off-design performance of turbomachinery blading.

Farrell, C.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Fully plasma-sprayed compliant backed ceramic turbine seal

A seal with a high temperature abradable lining material which encircles the tips of turbine blades in turbomachinery was designed. The seal is directed to maintaining the minimum operating clearances between the blade tips and the lining of a high pressure turbine. A low temperature easily decomposable material in powder form is blended with a high temperature oxidation resistant metal powder. The two materials are simultaneously deposited on a substrate formed by the turbine casing. Alternately, the polymer powder may be added to the metal powder during plasma spraying. A ceramic layer is then deposited directly onto the metal-polymer composite. The polymer additive mixed with the metal is then completely volatilized to provide a porous layer between the ceramic layer and the substrate. Thermal stresses are reduced by the porous structure which gives a cushion effect. No brazing is required by using only plasma spraying for depositing both the powders of the metal and polymer material as well as the ceramic powder.

Bill, R. C.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Low-cost optical data acquisition system for blade vibration measurement

A low cost optical data acquisition system was designed to measure deflection of vibrating rotor blade tips. The basic principle of the new design is to record raw data, which is a set of blade arrival times, in memory and to perform all processing by software following a run. This approach yields a simple and inexpensive system with the least possible hardware. Functional elements of the system were breadboarded and operated satisfactorily during rotor simulations on the bench, and during a data collection run with a two-bladed rotor in the Lewis Research Center Spin Rig. Software was written to demonstrate the sorting and processing of data stored in the system control computer, after retrieval from the data acquisition system. The demonstration produced an accurate graphical display of deflection versus time.

Posta, Stephen J.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Simultaneous Optical Measurements of Axial and Tangential Steady-State Blade Deflections

Currently, the majority of fiber-optic blade instrumentation is being designed and manufactured by aircraft-engine companies for their own use. The most commonly employed probe for optical blade deflection measurements is the spot probe. One of its characteristics is that the incident spot on a blade is not fixed relative to the blade, but changes depending on the blade deformation associated with centrifugal and aerodynamic loading. While there are geometrically more complicated optical probe designs in use by different engine companies, this paper offers an alternate solution derived from a probe-mount design feature that allows one to change the probe axial position until the incident spot contacts either a leading or a trailing edge. By tracing the axial position of either blade edge one is essentially extending the deflection measurement to two dimensions, axial and tangential. The blade deflection measurements were obtained during a wind tunnel test of a fan prototype.

Kurkov, Anatole P.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Calculations of transonic potential flow over cascades

Transonic flow through a cascade was studied by using the full potential equation and the finite volume method of Jameson and Caughey. The C-type computational grid is generated by an electrostatic analogy and simple shearing transformation. The solution algorithm includes an option of using either an artificial density or an artificial viscosity formulation of the dissipative term. Using the developed code, flows through a cascade of NACA 0012 airfoils and flows through a cascade of shockless blades were computed. It is found that the designed flow through the shockless blade is accurately predicted, the artificial density formulation shows more tolerance to the mesh irregularity, and the C-type mesh does not extend very far upstream for a small pitch-cord ratio.

Jou, W. H.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Large-scale Advanced Propfan (LAP) program

The propfan is an advanced propeller concept which maintains the high efficiencies traditionally associated with conventional propellers at the higher aircraft cruise speeds associated with jet transports. The large-scale advanced propfan (LAP) program extends the research done on 2 ft diameter propfan models to a 9 ft diameter article. The program includes design, fabrication, and testing of both an eight bladed, 9 ft diameter propfan, designated SR-7L, and a 2 ft diameter aeroelastically scaled model, SR-7A. The LAP program is complemented by the propfan test assessment (PTA) program, which takes the large-scale propfan and mates it with a gas generator and gearbox to form a propfan propulsion system and then flight tests this system on the wing of a Gulfstream 2 testbed aircraft.

Sagerser, D. A.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Large-scale advanced propfan (LAP) program progress report

Sagerser, D. A.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Helicopter attitude stabilization using individual-blade-control

A theoretical study is presented on the application of the Individual-Blade-Control concept to helicopter attitude stabilization. The design of a system controlling blade flapping dynamics, and related testing of the system on a model rotor in the wind tunnel, is described. The control inputs considered are blade pitch changes proportional to blade flapping acceleration, velocity, and displacement. The effect of such a system on helicopter rotor damping-in-pitch, and angle-of-attack stability is then evaluated. It is shown that helicopter attitude stabilization is achieved, with a corresponding improvement in flying qualities.

Ham, N. D.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Comprehensive Structural Dynamic Analysis of the SSME/AT Fuel Pump First-Stage Turbine Blade

A detailed structural dynamic analysis of the Pratt & Whitney high-pressure fuel pump first-stage turbine blades has been performed to identify the cause of the tip cracking found in the turbomachinery in November 1997. The analysis was also used to help evaluate potential fixes for the problem. Many of the methods available in structural dynamics were applied, including modal displacement and stress analysis, frequency and transient response to tip loading from the first-stage Blade Outer Gas Seals (BOGS), fourier analysis, and shock spectra analysis of the transient response. The primary findings were that the BOGS tip loading is impulsive in nature, thereby exciting many modes of the blade that exhibit high stress at the tip cracking location. Therefore, a proposed BOGS count change would not help the situation because a clearly identifiable resonance situation does not exist. The recommendations for the resolution of the problem are to maintain the existing BOGS count, eliminate the stress concentration in the blade due to its geometric design, and reduce the applied load on the blade by adding shiplaps in the BOGS.

Brown, A. M.↗

NASA NTRS1955

Aerodynamic Design of Axial-Flow Compressors. VII - Blade-Element Flow in Annular Cascades

Annular blade-element data obtained primarily from single-stage compressor installations are correlated over a range of inlet Mach numbers and cascade geometry. The correlation curves are presented in such a manner that they are related directly to the low-speed two-dimensional-cascade data of part VI of this series. Thus, the data serve as both an extension and a verification of the two-dimensional-cascade data. In addition, the correlation results are applied to compressor design.

Robbins, William H.↗

NASA NTRS2009

SMART Rotor Development and Wind-Tunnel Test

Boeing and a team from Air Force, NASA, Army, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California at Los Angeles, and University of Maryland have successfully completed a wind-tunnel test of the smart material actuated rotor technology (SMART) rotor in the 40- by 80-foot wind-tunnel of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex at NASA Ames Research Center, figure 1. The SMART rotor is a full-scale, five-bladed bearingless MD 900 helicopter rotor modified with a piezoelectric-actuated trailing-edge flap on each blade. The development effort included design, fabrication, and component testing of the rotor blades, the trailing-edge flaps, the piezoelectric actuators, the switching power amplifiers, the actuator control system, and the data/power system. Development of the smart rotor culminated in a whirl-tower hover test which demonstrated the functionality, robustness, and required authority of the active flap system. The eleven-week wind tunnel test program evaluated the forward flight characteristics of the active-flap rotor, gathered data to validate state-of-the-art codes for rotor noise analysis, and quantified the effects of open- and closed-loop active-flap control on rotor loads, noise, and performance. The test demonstrated on-blade smart material control of flaps on a full-scale rotor for the first time in a wind tunnel. The effectiveness and the reliability of the flap actuation system were successfully demonstrated in more than 60 hours of wind-tunnel testing. The data acquired and lessons learned will be instrumental in maturing this technology and transitioning it into production. The development effort, test hardware, wind-tunnel test program, and test results will be presented in the full paper.

Lau, Benton H.↗

NASA NTRS1948

Performance of J33-A-23 Turbojet-Engine Compressor: Over-All Performance Characteristics of Compressor with 34-Blade Impeller at Equivalent Impeller Speeds from 6000 to 11.750 RPM - II

The J33-A-23 compressor with a 34-blade impeller was operated at ambient inlet temperature and an inlet pressure of 14 inches mercury absolute over a range of equivalent impeller speeds from 6000 to 11,750 rpm. Additional runs at equivalent speeds of 7,000, 10,000, and 11,750 rpm and ambient inlet temperature were made at inlet pressures of 5 and 10 inches mercury absolute. The results of this investigation are compared with those of the J33-A-23 compressor with a 17-blade impeller. At the design equivalent speed of 11,750 rpm the 533-A-23 compressor with a 34-blade impeller had a peak pressure ratio of 4.49 at an equivalent weight flow of 82.4 pounds per second and an adiabatic temperature-rise efficiency of 0.740. The maximum equivalent flow at design speed was 91.8 pounds per second. The peak efficiency at design speed (0.757) occurred at an equivalent weight flow of 85.5 pounds per second. The maximum adiabatic temperature- rise efficiency of 0.773 was obtained at an equivalent impeller speed of 10,000 rpm, an equivalent weight flow of 65.8 pounds per second, and a pressure ratio of 3.27. At equivalent impeller speeds of.l0,000 and 11,75O rpm a decrease in inlet pressure resulted in a decrease in maximum equivalent weight flow, peak pressure ratio, and peak adiabatic temperature- rise efficiency.

Beede, William L.↗

NASA NTRS2011

The Heliogyro Reloaded

The heliogyro is a high-performance, spinning solar sail architecture that uses long - order of kilometers - reflective membrane strips to produce thrust from solar radiation pressure. The heliogyro s membrane blades spin about a central hub and are stiffened by centrifugal forces only, making the design exceedingly light weight. Blades are also stowed and deployed from rolls; eliminating deployment and packaging problems associated with handling extremely large, and delicate, membrane sheets used with most traditional square-rigged or spinning disk solar sail designs. The heliogyro solar sail concept was first advanced in the 1960s by MacNeal. A 15 km diameter version was later extensively studied in the 1970s by JPL for an ambitious Comet Halley rendezvous mission, but ultimately not selected due to the need for a risk-reduction flight demonstration. Demonstrating system-level feasibility of a large, spinning heliogyro solar sail on the ground is impossible; however, recent advances in microsatellite bus technologies, coupled with the successful flight demonstration of reflectance control technologies on the JAXA IKAROS solar sail, now make an affordable, small-scale heliogyro technology flight demonstration potentially feasible. In this paper, we will present an overview of the history of the heliogyro solar sail concept, with particular attention paid to the MIT 200-meter-diameter heliogyro study of 1989, followed by a description of our updated, low-cost, heliogyro flight demonstration concept. Our preliminary heliogyro concept (HELIOS) should be capable of demonstrating an order-of-magnitude characteristic acceleration performance improvement over existing solar sail demonstrators (HELIOS target: 0.5 to 1.0 mm/s2 at 1.0 AU); placing the heliogyro technology in the range required to enable a variety of science and human exploration relevant support missions.

Wilkie, William K.↗