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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 847 records · Page 47

Design of a Mach 8.0 axisymmetric nozzle for a hypersonic test facility

An axisymmetric nozzle has been designed to produce test section flow at a Mach number of 8.0 for use in a hypersonic test facility at MSFC. Nominal design conditions used to calculate the viscous correction to the wall contour were selected from the results of a parametric boundary layer investigation so that the widest possible range of satisfactory operating conditions could be obtained. Coordinates for the nozzle are presented in a tabular form suitable for design and manufacturing. The basic analysis techniques have been used to generate results to compare with experimental data from a facility at Langley Research Center. The agreement was reasonably good.

Sims, J. L.↗

An experimental study on porous plug jet noise suppressor

This paper contains a description of the configuration and operating characteristics of a porous center body plug nozzle jet noise suppressor that provides shock free flow over a wide range of nozzle pressure ratios. The elimination of the 'shock associated noise' and 'screeching' is accomplished by equalization of pressure along the jet axis. Because of the geometrical features of the porous plug nozzle, shear noise reductions are also observed at all subsonic and supersonic flow conditions tested. Additional benefits are the localization of the noise sources in the flow and the reduction of the spatial scale of the structure of the jet flow, which enhance the performance of an acoustic shield or baffle.

Maestrello, L.↗

Energy efficient engine, high-pressure turbine cooling model technology report

Two dimensional flow visualization model tests were used to substantiate the flow stability benefits derived from the use of turning vanes in the root and tip turn flow areas. Results indicate the need for corner fillets and flow injection into the acute corner formed by the intersection of the rib and simulated airfoil suction surface in order to minimize recirculation (stagnation) of flow in that region. Three dimensional flow visualization model tests verified the actual blade coolant passage design.

Gardner, W. B.↗

Automotive Stirling Engine Development Program

Development test activities on Mod I engines directed toward evaluating technologies for potential inclusion in the Mod II engine are summarized. Activities covered include: test of a 12-tube combustion gas recirculation combustor; manufacture and flow-distribution test of a two-manifold annular heater head; piston rod/piston base joint; single-solid piston rings; and a digital air/fuel concept. Also summarized are results of a formal assessment of candidate technologies for the Mod II engine, and preliminary design work for the Mod II. The overall program philosophy weight is outlined, and data and test results are presented.

Nightingale, N.↗

Research and development of high thermal stability fuels

Increases in aircraft performance are leading to increases in the thermal stress on the primary aircraft coolant--the fuel. Fuel thermal stability limitations may offset future aircraft performance gains. The Air Force's Wright Laboratory is sponsoring several research programs to address this problem. The development of an additive package for JP-8 to improve its thermal stability is the primary focus of this paper. This program involves extensive testing of fuels and additives in a variety of test devices, culminating in tests in a fuel system simulator and engine tests. These tests involve Air Force personnel, on-site contractors (University of Dayton Research Institute, Systems Research Laboratories), Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Co., additive manufacturers, and Sandia National Laboratory. The test devices include several flowing and static tests, where the behavior of a fuel is investigated in a wide variety of environments. The study of several baseline fuels in these devices has led to some new insights into the mechanisms of fuel thermal (in)stability. It is becoming clear that a fuel's tendency to oxidize (to form peroxides, for example) is often inversely proportional to its tendency to form insoluble deposits.

T Edwards↗

Optimized design of a hypersonic nozzle

Conventional procedures for designing nozzles involve the design of an inviscid contour (using the method of characteristics) that is corrected with a displacement thickness calculated from boundary-layer theory. However, nozzles designed using this classical procedure have been shown to exhibit poor flow quality at Mach numbers characteristic of hypersonic applications. The nozzle to be designed will be a part of the NASA HYPULSE facility which is being used for hypervelocity flight research. Thus, the flow quality of the nozzle is a critical question that needs to be addressed. Design of nozzles for hypersonic applications requires a proper assessment of the effects of the thick boundary layer on the inviscid flowfield. Since the flow field is largely supersonic, the parabolized form of the Navier-Stokes (PNS) equations can be used. The requirement of a uniform flow at the exit plane of the nozzle can be used to define an objective function as part of an optimization procedure. The design procedure used in this study involves the coupling of a nonlinear (least-squares) optimization algorithm with an efficient, explicit PNS solver. The thick boundary layers growing on the walls of the nozzle limit the extent of the usable core region (region with uniform flow) for testing models (especially rectangular). In order to maximize the region of uniform flow, it was decided to have the exit plane of this nozzle to be (nearly) rectangular. Thus, an additional constraint on the nozzle shape resulted, namely the nozzle will have a shape transitioning from a circular one at the inlet to that of a rectangle at the exit. In order to provide for a smooth shape transition, the cross sectional contour of the nozzle is defined by a superellipse. The nozzle is taken to be a meter in length. The axial variations of the major and minor radii of the superellipse are governed by cubic splines. The design parameters are the coefficients of the splines associated with the local nozzle wall slopes. Extensive calculations have been made (with a three-dimensional Euler code) to understand the effects of various parameters such as location of the knot points of the spline function, different ways of characterizing the uniformity of the flow in the exit plane, as well as the effect of constraining the area of the nozzle to be invariant. Turbulent flow (measurements indicate that the flow at the nozzle inlet is turbulent) calculations are now being performed (with the inviscidly designed nozzle contours) to assess the flow quality.

Krishnamurthy, Ramesh↗

X-33/RLV Program Aerospike Engines

Substantial progress was made during the past year in support of the X-33/RLV program. X-33 activity was directed towards completing the remaining design work and building hardware to support test activities. RLV work focused on the nozzle ramp and powerpack technology tasks and on supporting vehicle configuration studies. On X-33, the design activity was completed to the detail level and the remainder of the drawings were released. Component fabrication and engine assembly activity was initiated, and the first two powerpacks and the GSE and STE needed to support powerpack testing were completed. Components fabrication is on track to support the first engine assembly schedule. Testing activity included powerpack testing and component development tests consisting of thrust cell single cell testing, CWI system spider testing, and EMA valve flow and vibration testing. Work performed for RLV was divided between engine system and technology development tasks. Engine system activity focused on developing the engine system configuration and supporting vehicle configuration studies. Also, engine requirements were developed, and engine performance analyses were conducted. In addition, processes were developed for implementing reliability, mass properties, and cost controls during design. Technology development efforts were divided between powerpack and nozzle ramp technology tasks. Powerpack technology activities were directed towards the development of a prototype powerpack and a ceramic turbine technology demonstrator (CTTD) test article which will allow testing of ceramic turbines and a close-coupled gas generator design. Nozzle technology efforts were focused on the selection of a composite nozzle supplier and on the fabrication and test of composite nozzle coupons.

Source record↗

Overview of Experimental Capabilities - Supersonics

This viewgraph presentation gives an overview of experimental capabilities applicable to the area of supersonic research. The contents include: 1) EC Objectives; 2) SUP.11: Elements; 3) NRA; 4) Advanced Flight Simulator Flexible Aircraft Simulation Studies; 5) Advanced Flight Simulator Flying Qualities Guideline Development for Flexible Supersonic Transport Aircraft; 6) Advanced Flight Simulator Rigid/Flex Flight Control; 7) Advanced Flight Simulator Rapid Sim Model Exchange; 8) Flight Test Capabilities Advanced In-Flight Infrared (IR) Thermography; 9) Flight Test Capabilities In-Flight Schlieren; 10) Flight Test Capabilities CLIP Flow Calibration; 11) Flight Test Capabilities PFTF Flowfield Survey; 12) Ground Test Capabilities Laser-Induced Thermal Acoustics (LITA); 13) Ground Test Capabilities Doppler Global Velocimetry (DGV); 14) Ground Test Capabilities Doppler Global Velocimetry (DGV); and 15) Ground Test Capabilities EDL Optical Measurement Capability (PIV) for Rigid/Flexible Decelerator Models.

Banks, Daniel W.↗

Testing of Commercial Hollow Fiber Membranes for Space Suit Water Membrane Evaporator

Three commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hollow fiber (HoFi) membrane evaporators, modified for low pressure, were tested in a vacuum chamber at pressures below 33 pascals as potential space suit water membrane evaporator (SWME) heat rejection technologies. Water quality was controlled in a series of 25 tests, first simulating potable water reclaimed from waste water and then changing periodically to simulate the ever concentrating make-up of the circulating coolant over that is predicted over the course of 100 EVAs. Two of the systems, comprised of non-porous tubes with hydrophilic molecular channels as the water vapor transport mechanism, were severely impacted by the increasing concentrations of cations in the water. One of the systems, based on hydrophobic porous polypropylene tubes was not affected by the degrading water quality, or the presence of microbes. The polypropylene system, called SWME 1, was selected for further testing. An inverse flow configuration was also tested with SWME 1, with vacuum exposure on the inside of the tubes, provided only 20% of the performance of the standard configuration. SWME 1 was also modified to block 50% and 90% of the central tube layers, and tested to investigate performance efficiency. Performance curves were also developed in back-pressure regulation tests, and revealed important design considerations arising from the fully closed valve. SWME 1 was shown to be insensitive to air bubbles injected into the coolant loop. Development and testing of a full-scale prototype based on this technology and these test results is in progress.

Bue, Grant C.↗

DAMAS Processing for a Phased Array Study in the NASA Langley Jet Noise Laboratory

A jet noise measurement study was conducted using a phased microphone array system for a range of jet nozzle configurations and flow conditions. The test effort included convergent and convergent/divergent single flow nozzles, as well as conventional and chevron dual-flow core and fan configurations. Cold jets were tested with and without wind tunnel co-flow, whereas, hot jets were tested only with co-flow. The intent of the measurement effort was to allow evaluation of new phased array technologies for their ability to separate and quantify distributions of jet noise sources. In the present paper, the array post-processing method focused upon is DAMAS (Deconvolution Approach for the Mapping of Acoustic Sources) for the quantitative determination of spatial distributions of noise sources. Jet noise is highly complex with stationary and convecting noise sources, convecting flows that are the sources themselves, and shock-related and screech noise for supersonic flow. The analysis presented in this paper addresses some processing details with DAMAS, for the array positioned at 90 (normal) to the jet. The paper demonstrates the applicability of DAMAS and how it indicates when strong coherence is present. Also, a new approach to calibrating the array focus and position is introduced and demonstrated.

Brooks, Thomas F.↗

Flow visualization study of the HiMAT RPRV

Water tunnel studies were performed to qualitatively define the flow field of the highly maneuverable aircraft technology remotely piloted research vehicle (HiMAT RPRV). Particular emphasis was placed on defining the vortex flows generated at high angles of attack. The flow visualization tests were conducted in the Northrop water tunnel using a 1/15 scale model of the HiMAT RPRV. Flow visualization photographs were obtained for angles of attack up to 40 deg and sideslip angles up to 5 deg. The HiMAT model was investigated in detail to determine the canard and wing vortex flow field development, vortex paths, and vortex breakdown characteristics as a function of angle of attack and sideslip. The presence of the canard caused the wing vortex to form further outboard and delayed the breakdown of the wing vortex to higher angles of attack. An increase in leading edge camber of the maneuver configuration delayed both the formation and the breakdown of the wing and canard vortices. Additional tests showed that the canard vortex was sensitive to variations in inlet mass flow ratio and canard flap deflection angle.

Lorincz, D. J.↗

Aerodynamic effect of a honeycomb rotor tip shroud on a 50.8-centimeter-tip-diameter core turbine

A 50.8-cm-tip-diameter turbine equipped with a rotor tip shroud of hexagonal cell (or honeycomb) cross section has been tested in warm air (416 K) for a range of shroud coolant to primary flow rates. Test results were also obtained for the same turbine operated with a solid shroud for comparison. The results showed that the combined effect of the honeycomb shroud and the coolant flow was to cause a reduction of 2.8 points in efficiency at design speed, pressure ratio, and coolant flow rate. With the coolant system inactivated, the honeycomb shroud caused a decrease in efficiency of 2.3 points. These results and those obtained from a small reference turbine indicate that the dominant factor governing honeycomb tip shroud loss is the ratio of honeycomb depth to blade span. The loss results of the two shrouds could be correlated on this basis. The same honeycomb and coolant effects are expected to occur for the hot (2200 K) version of this turbine.

Moffitt, T. P.↗

Force and moment, flow-visualization, and boundary-layer tests on a shuttle orbiter model at Mach 6

Force and moment, flow visualization, and boundary layer state tests were conducted using two 0.004 scale shuttle orbiter models. The force and moment tests were conducted for an angle of attack range from 20 to 40 deg and for Reynolds numbers based on reference length from 0.4 million to 3.6 million. Schlieren photographs were obtained for each angle of attack and Reynolds number. The boundary layer state tests, which were conducted using hot film sensors mounted in a separate model, were conducted over the same range of conditions as the force tests. Test results were combined to show that changes in the boundary layer on a typical hypersonic force test model affect measurement of the axial force coefficient and that the state of the local boundary layer is important for interpreting hypersonic aerodynamic test results.

Calloway, R. L.↗