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At least 109 records · Page 6

Parametric analysis of swept-wing geometry with sheared wing tips

A computational parameter study is presented of potential reductions in induced drag and increases in lateral-directional stability due to sheared wing tips attached to an untwisted wing of moderate sweep and aspect ratio. Sheared tips are swept and tapered wing-tip devices mounted in the plane of the wing. The induced-drag results are obtained using an inviscid, incompressible surface-panel method that models the nonlinear effects due to the deflected and rolled-up wake behind the lifting surface. The induced-drag results with planar sheared tips are compared to straight-tapered tip extensions and nonplanar winglet geometries. The lateral-directional static-stability characteristics of the wing with sheared tips are estimated using a quasi-vortex-lattice method. For certain combinations of sheared-tip sweep and taper, both the induced efficiency of the wing and the relevant static-stability derivatives are predicted to increase compared to the wing with a straight-tapered tip modification.

Fremaux, C. M.↗

A comparative assessment of R. M. Young and tipping bucket rain gauges

Rain rates as derived from standard tipping bucket rain gauges have variable integration times corresponding to the interval between bucket tips. For example, the integration time for the Weathertronics rain gauge is given by delta(T) = 15.24/R (min), where R is the rain rate expressed in mm/h and delta(T) is the time between tips expressed in minutes. It is apparent that a rain rate of 1 mm/h has an integration time in excess of 15 minutes. Rain rates larger than 15.24 mm/h will have integration times smaller than 1 minute. The integration time is dictated by the time it takes to fill a small tipping bucket where each tip gives rise to 0.254 mm of rainfall. Hence, a uniform rain rate of 1 mm/h over a 15 minute period will give rise to the same rain rate as 0 mm/h rainfall over the first 14 minutes and 15 mm/h between 14 to 15 minutes from the reference tip. Hence, the rain intensity fluctuations may not be captured with the tipping bucket rain gauge for highly variable rates encompassing lower and higher values over a given integration time. The objective of this effort is to provide an assessment of the features of the R. M. Young capacitive gauge and to compare these features with those of the standard tipping bucket rain gauge. A number of rain rate-time series derived from measurements with approximately co-located gauges are examined.

Goldhirsh, Julius↗

Tip Fence for Reduction of Lift-Generated Airframe Noise

The present invention is directed toward a unique lift-generated noise reduction apparatus. This apparatus includes a plurality of tip fences that are secured to the trailing and leading assemblies of the high-lift system, as close as possible to the discontinuities where the vortices are most likely to form. In one embodiment, these tip fences are secured to some or all of the outboard and inboard tips of the wing slats and flaps. The tip fence includes a generally flat, or an aerodynamically shaped plate or device that could be formed of almost any rigid material, such as metal, wood, plastic, fiber glass, aluminum, etc. In a preferred embodiment, the tip fences extend below and perpendicularly to flaps and the slats to which they are attached, such that these tip fences are aligned with the nominal free stream velocity of the aircraft. In addition to reducing airframe noise, the tip fence tends to decrease drag and to increase lift, thus improving the overall aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. Another advantage presented by the tip fence lies in the simplicity of its design, its elegance, and its ready ability to fit on the wing components, such as the flaps and the slats. Furthermore, it does not require non-standard materials or fabrication techniques, and it can be readily, easily and inexpensively retrofited on most of the existing aircraft, with minimal design changes.

Ross, James C.↗

Free-Tip Rotor Wind Tunnel Test Results

A new rotor blade tip design called the free-tip has been proposed as a means to improve forward flight performance characteristics and reduce oscillatory loads. The free-tip design incorporates a tip that is free to pitch independently of the rest of the blade. Pitching about an axis forward of the quarter-chord, the tip weathervanes into its local wind, thus reducing angle of attack perturbations and the resulting oscillatory lift loadings. A nearly constant nose-up pitching moment is applied mechanically to the tip so that the tip, to maintain pitching equilibrium, produces nearly steady positive lift around the azimuth. A wind-tunnel test of a small-scale, 5.1 m diameter model rotor was conducted to obtain comparative forward flight performance and oscillatory loads data with the tips free and fixed. The free-up was shown to reduce power in trimmed flight over a wide range of advance ratio and thrust; at an advance ratio of 0.3 and C(sub L)/sigma of 0.08 the reduction is 12%. Oscillatory flapwise bending-moments and oscillatory pitch link loads are also reduced, but the oscillatory in-plane bending moments increase.

Stroub, Robert H.↗

High-loading low-speed fan study. 4: Data and performance with redesign stator and including a rotor tip casing treatment

A single stage fan with a rotor tip speed of 1000 ft/sec(304.8 m/sec) and a hub-to-tip ratio of 0.392 was retested with a redesigned stator. Tests were conducted with uniform inlet, tip-radial, hub-radial, and circumferential inlet distortions. With uniform inlet flow, stall margin was improved 12 percentage points above that with the original stator. The fan demonstrated an efficiency of 0.883 and a stall margin of 15 percent at a pressure ratio of 1.488 and a specific flow of 41.17 lb/sec/sq ft. Tests were also made with a redesigned casing treatment consisting of skewed slots over the rotor blade tips. This casing treatment gave a 7 percentage point improvement in stall margin when tested with tip radial distortion (when the rotor tip initiated stall). Noise measurements at the fan inlet and exit indicate no effect from closing the stator 10 degrees, nor were there measurable effects from adding skewed slots over the blade tips.

Harley, K. G.↗

A life study of AISI M-50 and Super Nitralloy spur gears with and without tip relief

Tests were conducted at 170 F with groups of 3.5-in.-pitch-diameter spur gear with and without tip relief made of consumable-electrode vacuum melted (CVM) Spur Nitralloy (5Ni-2Al) and CVM AISI M-50 steel. The AISI M-50 gears without tip relief had lives approximately 50 percent longer than the Super Nitralloy gears without tip relief. However, the Super Nitralloy gears with tip relief had lives equal to the AISI M-50 gears without tip relief. The difference in lives were not statistically significant. All gears failed by classical pitting fatigue at the pitch circle. However, the AIAI M-50 gears with tip relief failed by tooth fracture. AISI M-50 gear sets without tip relief having a spalled gear tooth which were deliberately overrun after spalling had occurred, failed by tooth fracture.

Townsend, D. P.↗

Effect of tip relief on endurance characteristics of super nitralloy and AISI M-50 spur gears

Tests were conducted with two groups of 8.89-centimeter (3.5-in.) pitch diameter spur gears with standard 20 deg involute profile with tip relief made of CVM Super-Nitralloy (5Ni-2Al) and CVM AISI M-50 at a temperature of 350 K (170 F). Super-Nitralloy gears with tip relief had a life 150 percent that of gears without tip relief. An increased scoring phenomenon was noted with the Super-Nitralloy gears with tip relief. Through-hardened AISI M-50 gears with tip relief failed due to tooth fracture. AISI M-50 gears without tip relief had a life approximately 40 times greater than the AISI M-50 gears with tip relief.

Townsend, D. P.↗

Advanced turbine blade tip seal system

An advanced blade/shroud system designed to maintain close clearance between blade tips and turbine shrouds and at the same time, be resistant to environmental effects including high temperature oxidation, hot corrosion, and thermal cycling is described. Increased efficiency and increased blade life are attained by using the advanced blade tip seal system. Features of the system include improved clearance control when blade tips preferentially wear the shrouds and a superior single crystal superalloy tip. The tip design, joint location, characterization of the single crystal tip alloy, the abrasive tip treatment, and the component and engine test are among the factors addressed. Results of wear testing, quality control plans, and the total manufacturing cycle required to fully process the blades are also discussed.

Zelahy, J. W.↗

Materials for advanced turbine engines. Volume 1: Advanced blade tip seal system

Project 3, the subject of this technical report, was structured toward the successful engine demonstration of an improved-efficiency, long-life, tip-seal system for turbine blades. The advanced tip-seal system was designed to maintain close operating clearances between turbine blade tips and turbine shrouds and, at the same time, be resistant to environmental effects including high-temperature oxidation, hot corrosion, and thermal cycling. The turbine blade tip comprised an environmentally resistant, activated-diffussion-bonded, monocrystal superalloy combined with a thin layer of aluminium oxide abrasive particles entrapped in an electroplated NiCr matrix. The project established the tip design and joint location, characterized the single-crystal tip alloy and abrasive tip treatment, and established the manufacturing and quality-control plans required to fully process the blades. A total of 171 blades were fully manufactured, and 100 were endurance and performance engine-tested.

Zelahy, J. W.↗

Parametric tip effects for conformable rotor applications

A research study was initiated to systematically determine the impact of selected blade tip geometric parameters on aeroelasticity conformable rotor performance and loads characteristics. The model articulated rotors included baseline and torsionally soft blades with interchangeable tips. Seven blade tip designs were evaluated on the baseline rotor and three tip designs were tested on the torsionally soft blades. The designs incorporated a systematic variation in three geometric parameters: sweep, taper, and anhedral. The rotors were evaluated in the NASA Langley Transonic Dynamics Tunnel at several advance ratios, lift and propulsive force values, and tip Mach numbers. Based on the test results, tip parameter variations generated significant rotor performance and loads difference for both baseline and torsionally soft blades. Azimuthal variation of elastic twist generated by the tip parameters strongly correlated with rotor performance and loads, but the magnitude of advancing blade elastic twist did not correlate.

Mantay, W. R.↗

Observations from varying the lift and drag inputs to a noise prediction method for supersonic helical tip speed propellers

Previous comparisons between calculated and measured supersonic helical tip speed propeller noise show them to have different trends of peak blade passing tone versus helical tip Mach number. It was postulated that improvements in this comparison could be made first by including the drag force terms in the prediction and then by reducing the blade lift terms at the tip to allow the drag forces to dominate the noise prediction. Propeller hub to tip lift distributions were varied, but they did not yield sufficient change in the predicted lift noise to improve the comparison. This result indicates that some basic changes in the theory may be needed. In addition, the noise predicted by the drag forces did not exhibit the same curve shape as the measured data. So even if the drag force terms were to dominate, the trends with helical tip Mach number for theory and experiment would still not be the same. The effect of the blade shock wave pressure rise was approxmated by increasing the drag coefficient at the blade tip. Predictions using this shock wdave approximation did have a curve shape similar to the measured data. This result indicates that the shock pressure rise probably controls the noise at supersonic tip speed and that the linear prediction method can give the proper noise trend with Mach number.

Dittmar, J. H.↗

Transverse vibration and buckling of a cantilevered beam with tip body under constant axial base acceleration

The planar transverse bending behavior of a uniform cantilevered beam with rigid tip body subject to constant axial base acceleration was analyzed. The beam is inextensible and capable of small elastic transverse bending deformations only. Two classes of tip bodies are recognized: (1) mass centers located along the beam tip tangent line; and (2) mass centers with arbitrary offset towards the beam attachment point. The steady state response is studied for the beam end condition cases: free, tip mass, tip body with restricted mass center offset, and tip body with arbitrary mass center offset. The first three cases constitute classical Euler buckling problems, and the characteristic equation for the critical loads/accelerations are determined. For the last case a unique steady state solution exists. The free vibration response is examined for the two classes of tip body. The characteristic equation, eigenfunctions and their orthogonality properties are obtained for the case of restricted mass center offset. The vibration problem is nonhomogeneous for the case of arbitrary mass center offset. The exact solution is obtained as a sum of the steady state solution and a superposition of simple harmonic motions.

Storch, J.↗

The results of a wind tunnel investigation of a model rotor with a free tip

The results of a wind-tunnel test of the free tip rotor are presented. The free tip extended over the outer 10% of the rotor blade and included a simple, passive controller mechanism. Wind-tunnel test hardware is described. The free-tip assembly, which includes the controller, functioned flawlessly throughout the test. The tip pitched freely and responded to airflow perturbation in a sharp, quick, and stable manner. Tip pitch-angle responses are presented for an advance ratio range of 0.1 to 0.397 and for a thrust coefficient range of 0.038 to 0.092. The free tip reduced power requirements, loads going into the control system, and some flatwise blade-bending moments. Chordwise loads were not reduced by the free tip.

Stroub, Robert H.↗

Tip vortex geometry of a hovering helicopter rotor in ground effect

The wide-field shadowgraph method has been used to photograph the tip vortices of a hovering helicopter rotor in ground effect. The shadowgraphs were used to obtain quantitative measurements of the rotor tip vortex geometry both in and out of ground effect. Many important phenomena are visible in the rotor wake using this method. These include the variation in descent and contraction rates of the tip vortices in ground effect, and the interaction between tip vortices in the far wake. The tip vortex geometry from the shadowgraphs is compared with the tip vortex geometry predicted using a free wake hover performance analysis. The free wake analysis accurately predicts the tip vortex geometry both in and out of ground effect. Performance data from the test is compared with the performance predicted using several methods, including the free wake analysis. All methods provided reasonable predictions for the helicopter performance in ground effect.

Light, Jeffrey S.↗

Flow visualization studies of blowing from the tip of a swept wing

Flow visualization studies of blowing from the tip of a swept wing were conducted in the Langley 16- by 24-inch water tunnel. Four wing tips, each with two independent blowing slots, were tested. The two slots were located one behind the other in the chordwise direction. The wing tips were designed to vary systematically the jet length, the jet in-plane exhaust direction (sweep), and the jet out-of-plane exhaust direction (anhedral). Each blowing slot was tested separately at two angles of attack and at four ratios of jet to free stream velocity ratios. Limited tests were conducted with blowing from both slots simultaneously. Blowing from the tip inhibited inboard spanwise flow on the upper wing surface near the tip. The jet path moved farther away from the tip with increasing jet to free stream velocity ratio and moved closer to the tip with increasing angle of attack.

Smith, Jeannette W.↗

Assessment of Potential Aerodynamic Benefits from Spanwise Blowing at the Wing Tip

A comprehensive set of experimental and analytical investigations have been conducted to assess the potential aerodynamic benefits from spanwise blowing at the tip of a moderate aspect ratio, swept wing. An analytical model has been developed to simulate a jet exhausting from the wing tip. An experimental study of a subsonic jet exhausting from the wing tip was conducted to investigate the effect of spanwise blowing from the tip on the aerodynamic characteristics of a moderate aspect ratio, swept wing. Wing force and moment data and surface pressure data were measured at Mach numbers up to 0.72. Results indicate that small amounts of blowing from small jets increase the lift curve slope a small amount, but have no effect on drag. Larger amounts of blowing from longer jets blowing increases lift near the tip and reduce drag at low Mach numbers. These benefits decrease with increasing Mach number, and vanish at Mach 0.5. A Navier-Stokes solver with modified boundary conditions at the tip was used to extrapolate the results to a Mach number of 0.72. With current technology and conventional wing shapes, spanwise blowing at the wing tip does not appear to be a practical means of reducing drag of moderate aspect ratio wings at high subsonic Mach numbers.

Mineck, Raymond Edward↗

Numerical study of the trailing vortex of a wing with wing-tip blowing

Trailing vortices generated by lifting surfaces such as helicopter rotor blades, ship propellers, fixed wings, and canard control surfaces are known to be the source of noise, vibration, cavitation, degradation of performance, and other hazardous problems. Controlling these vortices is, therefore, of practical interest. The formation and behavior of the trailing vortices are studied in the present research. In addition, wing-tip blowing concepts employing axial blowing and spanwise blowing are studied to determine their effectiveness in controlling these vortices and their effects on the performance of the wing. The 3D, unsteady, thin-layer compressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a time-accurate, implicit, finite difference scheme that employs LU-ADI factorization. The wing-tip blowing is simulated using the actuator plane concept, thereby, not requiring resolution of the jet slot geometry. Furthermore, the solution blanking feature of the chimera scheme is used to simplify the parametric study procedure for the wing-tip blowing. Computed results are shown to compare favorably with experimental measurements. It is found that axial wing-tip blowing, although delaying the rolling-up of the trailing vortices and the near-field behavior of the flowfield, does not dissipate the circulation strength of the trailing vortex farther downstream. Spanwise wing-tip blowing has the effect of displacing the trailing vortices outboard and upward. The increased 'wing-span' due to the spanwise wing-tip blowing has the effect of lift augmentation on the wing and the strengthening of the trailing vortices. Secondary trailing vortices are created at high spanwise wing-tip blowing intensities.

Lim, Hock-Bin↗

Effects of Tip Clearance and Casing Recess on Heat Transfer and Stage Efficiency in Axial Turbines

Calculations were performed to assess the effect of the tip leakage flow on the rate of heat transfer to blade, blade tip and casing. The effect on exit angle and efficiency was also examined. Passage geometries with and without casing recess were considered. The geometry and the flow conditions of the GE-E 3 first stage turbine, which represents a modem gas turbine blade were used for the analysis. Clearance heights of 0%, 1%, 1.5% and 3% of the passage height were considered. For the two largest clearance heights considered, different recess depths were studied. There was an increase in the thermal load on all the heat transfer surfaces considered due to enlargement of the clearance gap. Introduction of recessed casing resulted in a drop in the rate of heat transfer on the pressure side but the picture on the suction side was found to be more complex for the smaller tip clearance height considered. For the larger tip clearance height the effect of casing recess was an orderly reduction in the suction side heat transfer as the casing recess height was increased. There was a marked reduction of heat load and peak values on the blade tip upon introduction of casing recess, however only a small reduction was observed on the casing itself. It was reconfirmed that there is a linear relationship between the efficiency and the tip gap height. It was also observed that the recess casing has a small effect on the efficiency but can have a moderating effect on the flow underturning at smaller tip clearances.

Ameri, A. A.↗