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Choose an option Singlemode Multimode. Choose an option SC ST. Choose an option m 10km 70km. The proposed improvement to FlightStream will offer the commercial users the opportunity to much more reliably predict high lift flight conditions at the preliminary design level using a lower order but ever higher fidelity tool and thereby saving substantial time and resources.
This success is expected to accelerate with added capability for this low order, high fidelity tool. The primary NASA goal for transport aircraft, reducing fuel burn, leads to novel and interesting configurations, some of which do not fall within the conventional design space.
Some of these configurations are innovative with regard to fuel burn but must be evaluated for the limiting flight conditions such as a range of takeoff and landing scenarios. For some of these high lift conditions, the flow is separated on at least a portion of the lifting surfaces.
For the attached flow conditions, some preliminary design level tools are available for estimating lift for example but for the configurations which are separated, there are no good lower order options for reliably determining maximum lift.
The expansion of the high lift analysis capability already available with FlightStream will substantially improve the efficiency of the NASA transport design team and thus lead to the consideration of more novel concepts and ultimately better recommendations for aircraft design methodology.
Box Pismo Beach, CA The current 3. In the proposed effort, ESAero will develop an integrated workflow within the OpenVSP suite for quantitative assessment of handling qualities enabling the engineer to explore new design spaces with unconventional configurations.
Along with this workflow a set of pre-requisite tasks to improve the system modeling capabilities will be completed as well. These efforts include: improving flight control surface modeling, improved mass properties representation for generic components, a new aerodynamic trim solver, a new vehicle dynamics model calculation, and a new parameter sweep capability to tie geometry to quantitative physics base handling qualities.
These efforts will also lay the ground work for follow on studies of high lift aerodynamics and closed loop flight control. OpenVSP improvements and associated tools are intended to further develop and progress the vehicle analysis and design capability within AFRL which in turn supports contracted development efforts.
This capability is? Therefore, the commercialization strategy for this effort is straightforward. There is a significant need in NASA for geometric aircraft conceptual design tools such as this, especially ones that consider unique geometries. The ESAero team proposing this work is in a unique position because the addition of Dr. Rob McDonald and Dr. Providing these much needed improvements in an open format is beneficial to the entire industry, but especially NASA.
In the current budget environment, there isn? All funding awarded during this effort will be put towards improving OpenVSP 3. Hawthorne, CA This includes a proliferation of small UAS that will operate beyond line of sight at altitudes of feet and below. A myriad of issues continues to slow the development of verification, validation, and certification methods that will enable the safe introduction of UAS to the NAS.
These issues include the lack of both a consensus UAS categorization process and quantitative certification requirements including the definition of UAS handling qualities. Because of a lack of quantitative data, attempts to address core problems thus far have failed to achieve consensus support.
The program described herein does not propose to address the entire verification, validation, and certification problem, but instead to address the important need to define UAS handling qualities in both remotely piloted and autonomous operations with an end product being the UAS Handling Qualities Assessment Software System, a toolbox that will guide UAS stakeholders through a systematic evaluation process.
The process begins with classification. Because of the wide variety of vehicle types and size there cannot be a one-size-fits-all set of requirements. Given an appropriate classification, missions are next considered wherein they are broken down into specific task elements. These mission task elements are then used to identify specific criteria that predict handling qualities analytically and test demonstration maneuvers that verify handling qualities in flight.
Feasibility of this process will be demonstrated in Phase I with existing physics-based UAS analytical models and flight test data. From this effort came six new strategic thrusts. Of these thrusts, several involve the safe expansion of global air operations and are therefore directly related to the safe integration of UAS into the air space. The specific thrusts include 'safe, efficient growth in global operations,' 'real-time, system-wide safety assurance,' and 'assured autonomy for aviation transformation.
There is a need for accurate, reliable assessments of rotor condition, particularly for damage which may not be visible from the surface. The RIPCoRDD system is designed such that it will result in absolutely no increase in weight, power consumption, or volume of the rotorcraft.
The core of the RIPCoRDD device is a unique, distributed, fiber optic strain sensor which provides spatially dense strain measurements every 1. During Phase I Luna with guidance from a rotorcraft OEM partner will demonstrate the ability to detect and characterize damage which occurs in sample composite structures. Commercialization will focus on transitioning the technology first to OEM manufacturers for non-destructive inspection applications, followed by deployment to rotorcraft end users for lifetime monitoring and diagnostics.
The performance capabilities of composites strength to weight, non-catastrophic failure have driven their use in the weight sensitive designs of rotorcraft. Due to the complex structure of composite materials there is a potential for hidden damage internal to the blade which shortens lifetime while being difficult to detect. By enabling true condition based monitoring of these rotors, the useful lifetime of rotor blades can be extended, lowering total cost of ownership.
In addition, this technology can be expanded into a host of non-aeronautical applications, such as wind turbine health monitoring. While the proposed technology is broadly applicable to a range of applications within NASA projects, there are some for which the proposed work is especially relevant. In addition, the advanced composites project is actively seeking new technologies which can help in the rapid inspection and characterization of composite material health.
One of the key barriers it faces to the widespread use of VL vehicles within the National Airspace is the cost of maintenance on the vehicles to keep them safe and reliable. Diagnosis will focus on current health state identification through detection, isolation, root cause analysis and identification of faults that have already occurred, while prognosis will leverage the current health state identification and forecast performance degradation, incipient component failures and probability density or moments of remaining useful life RUL or Time to Maintenance TTM or Time to Failure TTF.
The development of the various interacting technology components for PHM enabled CBM can be easily directed towards mission assurance and will be of direct interest to large scale military systems systems of systems such as NORAD, Space Command ground segments, the Joint Strike Fighter fleet, the Navy shipboard platforms, Submarine Commands and ballistic missile defense BMD systems.
The product is also expected to be of commercial value to the manufacturers of DoD and military's remotely guided weapons and reconnaissance systems.
The proposed technology, aimed at increasing operational uptime through the use of predictive CBM techniques, and the software tool for supporting its implementation will allow NASA to better plan and execute future Science Missions.
The technology can be leveraged to support safety in complex systems, such as NASA's long-duration missions in space science and exploration. It is envisioned that the technology will also be able to readily operate as part of NASA's next generation Mission Control Technology allowing NASA to utilize the continuous health assessment and mission satisfiability information from the tool for improved mission execution while improving safety, mission success probability and the overall operational uptime of the VL Vehicle.
Currently, the only means available to generate this data are physical testing which is time consuming and expensive, and simplified computer models- either lumped parameter models or 2D models.
The most advanced current computational model of drive systems with surface and crack damage can only be deployed on stand-alone computers.
The existing contact algorithm relies on shared memory between CPUs, and quickly saturates memory bandwidth. We propose innovative modifications to the algorithm so that models may be efficiently deployed on very large clusters of computers connected by high speed networks.
These changes will make possible realistic time-domain 3D modeling of drive systems with surface and crack damage. But Time-domain models are necessary to correctly include contact and kinematics induced non-linearities. Having the fast contact solver will allow very realistic drive system dynamic models, to run in the time domain.
This is an important consideration in the wind-turbine and off-highway equipment industries. Modeling these transient dynamics can only be done in the time-domain.
A fast contact solver will allow realistic prediction of these effects. It will be possible to optimize metrics such as gear contact patterns, transmission error, and stress while automatically varying the surface modifications and other design parameters. A very fast solver will enable Monte Carlo type studies of manufacturing errors with realistic random distributions. The output will be the probability distribution functions of performance and failure metrics for the drive system.
The distributed contact analysis will enable dynamic analysis of full drive system models, both in a healthy state as well as with various kinds of damage. Both surface damage as well cracks can be studied. The proposed work will, make it possible run very accurate simulations under dynamic conditions. These dynamic factors can be used to account for steady state dynamics, as well as for transients caused by short duration events. A well-established approach to this bleeds a portion of the compressor discharge air to flow through and over turbine parts.
As engine compressor pressure ratios continue to increase, the temperature of this compressor discharge air also increases, to the point that the cooling air itself needs to be cooled. The main advantages of this concept are the minimization of the amount of heated fuel between the heat exchanger and fuel injector tip such that the fire danger from leaking tubing is eliminated, and the ease of delivering cooled cooling air to the secondary air circuit.
Additionally, the modular concept distributes the heat exchange function, allowing for easy replacement of an individual heat exchanger module. For this program, high temperature materials will be used for fabrication using Micro Cooling Concepts' laminated foil construction approach.
This effort supports the NASA goal of improving aeropropulsive efficiency through reduced fuel burn and increased cycle temperatures, specifically by enabling very high turbine cooling effectiveness. A major engine manufacturer has interest in incorporating the proposed concept into future civil and defense gas turbine engine products that currently show benefits from fuel-cooled cooling air. The benefits of such a concept include reduced fuel burn and the accompanying reduction in CO2 emissions, in alignment with NASA's goals, with accompanying minimal fire risk.
This technology would be applicable to any NASA air-breathing fuel-based propulsion systems where available cooling air temperatures are currently too high to reach the desired performance goals. With no foreseeable alternatives, advanced gas turbine propulsion will continue to power future subsonic transport aircraft. As a result, engine manufacturers are devoting significant effort to increasing fuel efficiency and pushing engines toward higher fan bypass ratios BPRs.
With fan speed already limiting allowable fan sizes, higher BPR requires new, smaller engine cores. However, component efficiency tends to decrease with decreasing size due in part to enhanced tip leakage and secondary flows. Also, they often address only a particular loss mechanism in a given flow structure. The proposed SBIR project innovates on existing mitigation strategies from a practical, holistic perspective to generate novel aerodynamic devices tailored to improve the efficiency of multi-stage, small-core turbines while also accounting for their inherently unsteady nature.
The proposed devices, including tip leakage control and endwall treatments for secondary flow control, will be designed by accounting for each loss mechanism in the targeted flow structure and the device's influence on the unsteady flow field in the current stage and upstream and downstream stages. Successful designs will ensure increases in component efficiency also increase engine overall efficiency by avoiding offsetting reduction in loss in one stage with increased loss in another.
In Phase I, numerical simulations will be used to devise and characterize feasible loss mitigation technologies. This foundational work will provide justification for comprehensive analysis and experimental evaluation of the most promising concepts in Phase II. In addition to aircraft propulsion applications, the technologies could enable reduced fuel consumption and carbon emissions for a wide spectrum of Brayton-cycle power-generation applications.
Secondary applications with similar increasing demands on efficiency include auxiliary power units APUs , industrial power generation, and turbine-electric transmissions such as those on ocean vessels.
Because the tip leakage mitigation mechanisms may have applicability in both the compression and turbine stages of these products, numerous derivative applications may be possible.
Key to obtaining these ambitious goals will be development of more efficient, higher-fan-BPR engine architectures, which because of physical limitations on fan size will require more compact engine cores. The proposed effort will also be aligned with the objective of TC4. ATA intends to engage both organizations in the performance of the envisioned project to investigate technology transfer opportunities.
Fuel burn is adversely affected by any added engine weight due to the heat exchanger. Fan duct air is much colder than compressor discharge air, and can be used as a cold sink for cooling the HPT cooling air. Parametric analyses will be done to determine the SFC reduction as a function of cooling air temperature decrease. Pressure losses for both sides of the heat exchanger will be part of the analyses. The fan duct heat exchanger has large pressure differentials between the high pressure compressor discharge air and the relatively low pressure fan duct air.
Structural analyses will be done for the heat exchanger to determine heat exchanger weight. A fan duct heat exchanger reduces both HPT first stage vane and rotor blade cooling requirements when T40 and T41 are unchanged. Precooling vane coolant air also permits a smaller temperature difference between the combustor outlet temperature, T40, and the rotor inlet temperature, T If T41 is increased, SFC improves due to a higher rotor inlet temperature.
To quantify fuel burn reduction the heat exchanger weight must be known. Applications where the fuel-to-payload fraction is high, or where there is a premium for reduced fuel consumption benefit from a light weight fan duct heat exchanger. The primary benefit of increased turbine inlet temperature is in the reduction of SFC. When the clearance-to-span ratio between the rotating blades and the stationary casing is the same as the clearance-to-span ratio between the rotating shroud and the stationary casing, stage efficiency improves.
However, shrouding rotor blades increases centrifugal stresses, and metallic HPT rotor blades are typically unshrouded in order to maximize stage output. Shrouded CMC blades have lower centrifugal stresses than unshrouded metallic blades.
The fuel burn reduction from an increase in stage efficiency due to shrouded HPT blades will be determined. The fuel burn reduction due to the higher temperature capability of CMC blades will also be determined.
Cycle efficiency improvements from shrouding HPT rotor blades will increase for future engines. Future HPT blade aspect ratios may be less than half of current aspect ratios.
While the absolute clearance may decrease in future engines, the relative clearance is likely to increase. Aerothermal analyses will determine the improvement in fuel burn from shrouding cooled HPT rotor blades. Structural analyses will determine stresses for unshrouded metallic and CMC rotor blades, and for shrouded CMC blades. Military engines with the higher thrust-to-weight requirement have an additional incentive to reduce blade aspect ratio.
Ground power gas turbines also have a strong incentive to improve HPT efficiency. Increasing rotor blade aerodynamic efficiency and increasing temperature capability is a route to reducing fuel consumption. Shrouded CMC blades may be costly to fabricate, and manufacturers may offer shrouded blades as an option. The feasibility of shrouding HPT rotor blades is advanced by using Ceramic Matrix Composite CMC materials due to their lower density compared to conventional metallic materials.
The structural analysis of CMC blades and shrouds differs from the analysis of conventional HPT materials because of the directionally dependent properties of CMC materials. CMC have a wide range of applications in gas turbines.
With the optical system feature, the expected results from this multi-SBIR-Phase work are improved low-collected-light LDV technology and a completely functional multi-velocity-component CompLDV system that can be used with only facility residual or small sub-micron seeding particles in low-speed and high-speed flow facilities for low uncertainty particle position and low uncertainty velocity profile measurements.
Methods to generate 50 to nanometer particles and clean evaporating particles for in situ local seeding in flow facilities appear to be possible and need to be examined for practical implementation in NASA facilities. Phase-Doppler anemometry signal processing will be used to determine the size of larger particles. The known measurement volume fringe light intensity variation for the LDV and CompLDV and light scattering theory also will be used to determine an estimate of particle size.
One US company has already expressed intense interest in the final product. A Phase II product with low uncertainty velocity profile measurements will solve a specific difficult problem for the National Transonic Facility NTF , the determination of flow angles during semi-span testing. Based on recent past improvements, the resulting measurement system will be robust and user-friendly for practical and routine applications.
A variety of drag reduction techniques have shown promise and are under investigation, including both active flow control and surface microstructure concepts. Experimental verification of the performance of any drag reduction technique, however, can be challenging. Drag forces are generally significantly smaller than lift and side forces.
Furthermore, drag reduction techniques are operating on components of the model, and therefore, a model mounted drag balance is required to evaluate the performance of the drag reduction technology. Further complicating the measurement is the fact that active flow control requires that high pressure air or electrical power be passed through the model mounted balance without impacting the measurement.
S3F has demonstrate good sensitivity to skin friction while maintaining very high common mode rejection between the pressure and skin friction forces. ISSI has recently designed and built a prototype drag balance based on this sensor.
The balance design is structurally similar to a traditional balance, employing four pillars S3F as the active elements. Rather than monitoring strain in the pillars, as is done with a traditional balance, the vertical and horizontal deformation of the pillars is monitored and these displacements are converted to forces and moments.
Preliminary results on the prototype balance indicate that forces smaller than a mili-Newton may be resolved, and there is no measureable coupling between the drag force and the normal or side forces. Development of a force balance technology that can be integrated into a model and measure small changes in drag would be of significant value for the development of energy efficient flight.
The result should be an experimental tool that can be used to evaluate drag reduction technologies in a variety of bench-top settings, on model components in wind tunnels, and eventually into flight testing.
This device should be a valuable tool for the evaluation of a variety of drag reduction technologies. It is noted that this balance design may have applications outside of the aerodynamics community.
Balances for hydrodynamics research into issues such as drag reduction of ship models, sedimentation and erosion around bridges, and biomedical research on insect locomotion have many of the same challenges as aerodynamics research. A balance design that allows high common mode rejection between channels and can be easily tuned for a particular application would be of value in those applications.
ISSI is already working to develop a skin friction sensor for biomedical research, and integration of this balance design into that product is underway. We are also in discussion with several small wind tunnel manufactures as to the marketability of a six component balance for small academic wind tunnels. The development of this balance is viewed as an enabling technology for the development of drag reduction technologies, an area of active research at NASA.
Specifically, one current focus of NASA research is the Environmentally Responsible Aviation ERA program and evaluation of drag reduction technologies is a key component of this program. A successful program will enable the design, construction, and deployment of custom balances that can be used in for this research.
Evaluation of drag induced by these liners would benefit from the proposed balance. Finally, ongoing research between NASA and Boeing on the ecoDemonstrator seeks to evaluate drag reduction panels in flight. A balance design that could be deployed for flight testing on small samples of such a material would facilitate early stage evaluation of these drag reduction technologies.
The development of fast and noninvasive instrumentation and measurement capabilities that can readily be integrated into the extreme environments is one of several major technological challenges associated with the design, building, and operation of these complex test environments. Accurately mapping velocity flow fields-undoubtedly one of the most critical parameters-remains a significant challenge. In addition, spatially and temporally resolved measurements of other flow parameters such as density, pressure, and temperature are of paramount importance.
This proposal offers an integrated package of truly cutting-edge, multidimensional, seedless velocimetry and multi-flow-parameter diagnostics for wind tunnels and ground test facilities.
The concepts and ideas proposed are ranging from proof-of-principles demonstration of novel methodologies using kHz-rate nanosecond nsec duration burst-mode laser sources for measurements in realistic tunnel conditions. The proposed high-repetition-rate Rayleigh scattering which is suitable for any wind tunnel testing involving various gases is a state-of-the-art technique for analysis of unsteady and turbulent flows. The increasing cost of fuels as well as the cost associated with offsetting pollutant emissions requires engine manufacturers to implement onboard nonconventional combustion strategies and diagnostics for existing systems as well as to develop improved engine designs.
Being able to apply well-developed laser-based diagnostic tools in laboratory could be a game changer for commercial users and manufactures of engines. The impact areas may include aircraft engine manufacturers, stationary power plant operators and owners as well as automotive design engineers. These test facilities play an integral role in the design, development, evaluation, and analysis of advanced aerospace technologies and vehicles.
Cutting-edge optical diagnostics and modeling tools are proven to be instructive and will be the basis of such new developments in these fields. The advanced diagnostic toolkit developed under this SBIR project will be instrumental to fully investigate multiple flow parameters relevant to subsonic to hypersonic vehicles as well next generation airplane engines, and hence will be an invaluable asset to NASA and to the nation. The innovative dual plenoptic design utilizes one plenoptic imager to analyze and correct for turbulence effects introduced by airflow around the model, while the second imager extracts the attitude information from the model itself.
This system is capable of providing real-time measurements with a high angular resolution of better than 9 arcsec. As an analytical imaging based system, PAM may also be placed in any location that provides it with a view of the model under test, thereby ensuring compatibility with existing monitoring technologies and enabling protection from wind tunnel temperature and pressure conditions. The compactness of the design also minimizes setup and calibration time, thereby fully compatible and reducing the impact on wind tunnel operations.
PAM's ability to be incorporated into a predictive flight path program will enable it to rapidly forecast the flight path of an enemy aircraft or missile, thereby improving the response time for countermeasures. Commercial applications of PAM include civilian wind tunnels and the ability for physical analysis when it is necessary to eliminate external factors from the imagery.
This includes shock analysis, tests of tensile strength for new materials, and rapid characterization of objects in motion to be incorporated into physics-based simulations. With minor modifications, PAM can also be incorporated into land- and aircraft-based observation platforms, which will enable real-time analysis of flight systems under actual flight conditions. This will enable wind shear analysis of aircraft and spacecraft and also provide for a predictive flight path program based on the changes in position and attitude.
These systems have high power requirements and only protect certain areas of the aircraft; thus such technology is not considered for next generation vehicles as it will greatly diminish the allocation of power for other vital components. The accumulation of ice on an aircraft airframe or engine components results in a drastic decrease of performance decrease in thrust and lift, increase in weight and drag.
To this effect, Materials Modification, Inc. MMI , proposes to develop a thin-film coating that will combat dynamic icing conditions with a two-part solution; in which the top layer coating consists of a smooth superhydrophobic coating to combat the supercooled water droplets and a base layer that consists of a smooth silicone elastomer to reduce ice adhesion strength from possible ice nucleation.
Phase I efforts will be primarily dedicated towards developing and synthesizing the hybrid thin-film coating and evaluating its ice adhesion strength, coating durability, and surface morphology. The proposed technology will be primarily used on the leading edge of the aerial vehicle, other structural and airframe components that are susceptible to ice accretion, as well as engine components. A completely passive technology that would prevent ice accretion is highly desired, but no known technique has reached a level of effectiveness, durability and cost-efficiency to merit commercialization.
Helicity Technologies proposes to integrate our proprietary icephobic liquid into a durable, easily renewable, environmentally friendly, icephobic composite that does not distort airflow and adds negligible weight. In Phase I, we will develop a cellulose nanopaper base layer for the storage and replenishment of our functional fluid to dramatically extend its useful life.
Methods for increasing cellulose nanopaper strength and elasticity, and improved control of porosity will be explored. The resulting icephobic composite prototype will be tested for performance under simulated icing conditions in an icing wind tunnel. Potential applications include airframes, rail infrastructure, railcars, switches, wind turbines, shipboard structures, and transit equipment.
An economical, reliable, readily renewable, and long-lasting passive anti-icing solution could potentially improve the overall safety, performance, and efficiency of the future transportation system. When fully developed, our technology can provide continuous, lightweight, rain-erosion resistant icing protection without adding manufacturing complexity or affecting payload for fixed and rotary wing vehicles.
By mitigating the hazards of flight into icing conditions, our technology will dramatically increase options for flight path, range, altitude and duration of unmanned missions. The state of the art active deicing method on leading edges involves either an electrical, pneumatic or vibration induced debonding of accumulated ice.
With the advent of icephobic nanocoatings, there have been attempts to develop a durable passive anti-ice coating.
However, success to date has been limited. The state of the art can be advanced if anti-ice coatings can be made more durable, and are made to function synergistically with active de-icing techniques. The advantages are reduced power consumption, improved service life of mechanical components, lighter electronics and extra protection in case of failure of active device. Working in collaboration with a manufacturer of low power ice protection systems for commercial and military aircraft, we propose in Phase I to demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating a durable anti-ice coating with an active deicing device.
The proposed program builds upon NEI's core competency of introducing desirable functionalities into engineered coatings. The objective of the Phase II program will be to further refine the coating composition and coating deposition process, as well as the configuration of the baseline active deicing device so as to deliver a working prototype of an integrated ice protection system that combines a passive anti-ice coating and an active deicing device.
Under non-icing conditions air flows smoothly over the airfoil and creates lift. Ice buildup on aircraft? Consequently, aircraft icing degrades performance and controllability and significantly increases pilot workload and aircraft fuel consumption. The coating technology being developed in this program can be applied to military and commercial aircraft. Additionally, the coating can also find use in satellite dishes, transmission lines, wind turbine blades, communication towers, and train cars.
The market presents an opportunity for NEI Corporation to develop and sell a nanotechnology based coating formulation. The baseline active deicing system, upon which the proposed technology is based, is already being used on several commercial and military aircraft. Success in the proposed effort will advance the capabilities of the active deicing system. It will also serve as the basis for future deicing systems that incorporate a passive coating working in conjunction with an active deicing system.
Super polishing aluminum slurry and pad technology has been used in preliminary tests to polish aluminum airfoils to rms surface roughness levels to nm and below. Designed experiments on polishing will be conducted to optimize the surface roughness that yields the lowest ice adhesion strength. The manufacturing process can be optimized for time and cost efficiency. All electric aircraft propulsion systems promise significant improvements in energy efficiency, maneuverability, safety, reliability, reduced maintenance costs, noise reduction, higher lift, shorter takeoff, and other factors.
This offers new opportunities to monitor aircraft propulsion components, on the ground or continuously in-flight.
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