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Hernan, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Hernan, M..

Quantitative determination of engine water ingestion

A nonintrusive optical technique is described for determination of liquid mass flux in a droplet laden airstream. The techniques were developed for quantitative determination of engine water ingestion resulting from heavy rain or wheel spray. Independent measurements of the liquid water content (LWC) of the droplet laden airstream and of the droplet velocities were made at the stimulated nacelle inlet plane for the liquid mass flux determination. The LWC was measured by illuminating and photographing the droplets contained within a thin slice of the flow field by means of a sheet of light from a pulsed laser. A fluorescent dye introduced in the water enchanced the droplet image definition. The droplet velocities were determined from double exposed photographs of the moving droplet field. The technique was initially applied to a steady spray generated in a wind tunnel. It was found that although the spray was initially steady, the aerodynamic breakup process was inherently unsteady. This resulted in a wide variation of the instantaneous LWC of the droplet laden airstream. The standard deviation of ten separate LWC measurements was 31% of the average. However, the liquid mass flux calculated from the average LWC and droplet velocities came within 10% of the known water ingestion rate.

Parikh, P.↗

Simulation and analysis of natural rain in a wind tunnel via digital image processing techniques

It is desired to simulate natural rain in a wind tunnel in order to investigate its influence on the aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft. Rain simulation nozzles have been developed and tested at JPL. Pulsed laser sheet illumination is used to photograph the droplets in the moving airstream. Digital image processing techniques are applied to these photographs for calculation of rain statistics to evaluate the performance of the nozzles. It is found that fixed hypodermic type nozzles inject too much water to simulate natural rain conditions. A modification uses two aerodynamic spinners to flex a tube in a pseudo-random fashion to distribute the water over a larger area.

Aaron, K. M.↗

Quantitative determination of engine water ingestion

This paper describes a novel non-intrusive optical technique for determination of liquid mass flux in a droplet laden airstream. The technique was developed for quantitative determination of engine water ingestion resulting from heavy rain or wheel spray. Independent measurements of the liquid water content (LWC) of the droplet laden aircraft and of the droplet velocities were made at the simulated nacelle inlet plane for the liquid mass flux determination. The liquid water content was measured by illuminating and photographing the droplets contained within a thin slice of the flow field by means of a sheet of light from a pulsed YAG laser. A fluorescent dye introduced in the water greatly improved the droplet image definition. The droplet velocities were determined from double exposed photographs of the moving droplet field. The technique was initially applied to a steady spray generated in a wind tunnel. It was found that although the spray was initially steady, the aerodynamic breakup process was inherently unsteady. This resulted in a wide variation of the instantaneous liquid water content of the droplet laden airstream. The standard deviation of ten separate LWC measurements was 31 percent of the average. However, the liquid mass flux calculated from the average LWC and droplet velocities came within 10 percent of the known water ingestion rate.

Parikh, P.↗