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Projecte llegit

Títol: Numerical analysis of supersonic diamond-shaped airfoils

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: MELLIBOVSKY ELSTEIN, FERNANDO PABLO

Departament: FIS

Títol: Numerical analysis of supersonic diamond-shaped airfoils

Data inici oferta: 04-02-2017     Data finalització oferta: 04-10-2017


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    GR ENG SIST AEROESP
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Paraules clau:
Computational Fluid Dynamics, Aerodynmamics, Jet Engine, Intake, Supersonic, Hypersonic
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
The core engine of gas turbine and ramjet engines operates at subsonic speed for optimal efficiency, regardless of flight speed. The engine intake is responsible for bringing the flow from the supersonic (or hypersonic) to the subsonic regime at fan inlet. For efficiency, this must be done via a series of oblique shocks, followed by the mildest possible normal shock prior to diffusion. This project will focus on numerically simulating an hypersonic intake at the supersonic flow regime.

The work plan will consist of the following activities

1) Literature review on supersonic and hypersonic jet engine intakes.

2) Choice of an hypersonic intake geometry, meshing, spectral-elements computation setup in the supersonic compressible regime and convergence analysis for domain and mesh optimisation.

3) Parametric analysis (for flow speed and geometry) via 2D inviscid simulation of the intake.

3) Fully 3D simulation of the intake.

4) Analysis of the optimal 2D configuration in the viscous regime to assess the effects of boundary layer development.

5) Conclusions.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
Since the beginning of time, we have fixed our eyes in space, imagining the possibility to arrive there. After hundreds of years of investigation, in the 20th century, we have achieved this goal. Now, in the 21st century, making the space accessible is the new challenge which we have proposed. There are different ways in order to achieve this goal: reusable rockets, pico-satellites or hypersonic vehicles. The idea of using vehicles that are able of going from a runway to space is the base of this project. For this reason, I have decided to study a hypersonic intake geometry and a diamond shaped airfoil using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

One of the objectives of this project is to study a ramjet engine intake, this engine which is used by vehicles that fly at supersonic-hypersonic regimes. In this project, the geometry of a hypersonic intake in a supersonic regime at a number of Mach of 2 is analyzed. However, it has been impossible to achieve a full converged solution due to the lack of time and resources. Though, the obtained results are presented.

Moreover, the aerodynamic performance of a diamond shaped airfoil is studied. Concretely, a diamond geometry in different angles of attack, at different velocities and different thickness to chord ratios is analyzed. Also, in this section, I experienced problems in order to obtain converged solutions, but this fact has not avoided me to obtain good results and analyze its aerodynamic behaviour.

Finally, a review of all the project is made and the obtained conclusions are presented. Along with this project several simulations have been made, some of them have not converged, but all of them have helped to improve the knowledge about computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and how Nektar++ software works and, finally, obtain the aerodynamic characterization of the diamond airfoil. However, it is needed a deeper study of the aerodynamic performance in more situations in order to validate it as a real solution. Besides, future studies are proposed in order to continue the aerodynamic study of supersonic vehicles.

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