The boundary layer equations for plane, incompressible, and steady flow are 

$$\matrix{ {u{{\partial u} \over {\partial x}} + v{{\partial u} \over {\partial y}} = - {1 \over \varrho }{{\partial p} \over {\partial x}} + v{{{\partial ^2}u} \over {\partial {y^2}}},} \cr {0 = {{\partial p} \over {\partial y}},} \cr {{{\partial u} \over {\partial x}} + {{\partial v} \over {\partial y}} = 0.} \cr }$$

Boundary Layer Theory

Challenges of future aircraft propulsion: A review of distributed propulsion technology and its potential application for the all electric commercial aircraft

This paper presents an assessment of the performance of an embedded propulsion system in the presence of distortion associated with boundary layer ingestion. For fan pressure ratios of interest for civil transports, the benefits of boundary layer ingestion are shown to be very sensitive to the magnitude of fan and duct losses. The distortion transfer across the fan, basically the comparison of the stagnation pressure non-uniformity downstream of the fan to that upstream of the fan, has a major role in determining the impact of boundary layer ingestion on overall fuel burn. This, in turn, puts requirements on the fidelity with which one needs to assess the distortion transfer, and thus the type of models that need to be used in such assessment. For the three-dimensional distortions associated with fuselage boundary layers ingested into a subsonic diffusing inlet, it is found that boundary layer ingestion can provide decreases in fuel burn of several per cent. It is also shown that a promising avenue for mitigating the risks (aerodynamic as well as aeromechanical) in boundary layer ingestion is to mix out the flow before it reaches the engine face.

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Performance of a Boundary Layer Ingesting (BLI) propulsion system

Meeting NASA's N+3 goals requires a fundamental shift in approach to aircraft and engine design. Material and design improvements allow higher pressure and higher temperature core engines which improve the thermal efficiency. Propulsive efficiency, the other half of the overall efficiency equation, however, is largely determined by the fan pressure ratio (FPR). Lower FPR increases propulsive efficiency, but also dramatically reduces fan shaft speed through the combination of larger diameter fans and reduced fan tip speed limits. The result is that below an FPR of 1.5 the maximum fan shaft speed makes direct drive turbines problematic. However, it is the low pressure ratio fans that allow the improvement in propulsive efficiency which, along with improvements in thermal efficiency in the core, contributes strongly to meeting the N+3 goals for fuel burn reduction. The lower fan exhaust velocities resulting from lower FPRs are also key to meeting the aircraft noise goals. Adding a gear box to the standard turbofan engine allows acceptable turbine speeds to be maintained. However, development of a 50,000+ hp gearbox required by fans in a large twin engine transport aircraft presents an extreme technical challenge, therefore another approach is needed. This paper presents a propulsion system which transmits power from the turbine to the fan electrically rather than mechanically. Recent and anticipated advances in high temperature superconducting generators, motors, and power lines offer the possibility that such devices can be used to transmit turbine power in aircraft without an excessive weight penalty. Moving to such a power transmission system does more than provide better matching between fan and turbine shaft speeds. The relative ease with which electrical power can be distributed throughout the aircraft opens up numerous other possibilities for new aircraft and propulsion configurations and modes of operation. This paper discusses a number of these new possibilities. The Boeing N2 hybrid-wing-body (HWB) is used as a baseline aircraft for this study. The two pylon mounted conventional turbofans are replaced by two wing-tip mounted turboshaft engines, each driving a superconducting generator. Both generators feed a common electrical bus which distributes power to an array of superconducting motor-driven fans in a continuous nacelle centered along the trailing edge of the upper surface of the wing-body. A key finding was that traditional inlet performance methodology has to be modified when most of the air entering the inlet is boundary layer air. A very thorough and detailed propulsion/airframe integration (PAI) analysis is required at the very beginning of the design process since embedded engine inlet performance must be based on conditions at the inlet lip rather than freestream conditions. Examination of a range of fan pressure ratios yielded a minimum Thrust-specific-fuel-consumption (TSFC) at the aerodynamic design point of the vehicle (31,000 ft /Mach 0.8) between 1.3 and 1.35 FPR. We deduced that this was due to the higher pressure losses prior to the fan inlet as well as higher losses in the 2-D inlets and nozzles. This FPR is likely to be higher than the FPR that yields a minimum TSFC in a pylon mounted engine. 1

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Turboelectric Distributed Propulsion Engine Cycle Analysis for Hybrid-Wing-Body Aircraft

Aerodynamic technologies to improve aircraft performance

The Silent Aircraft Initiative is a research project funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute aimed at reducing aircraft noise to the point where it is imperceptible in the urban environments around airports. The propulsion system being developed for this project has a thermodynamic cycle based on an ultrahigh bypass ratio turbofan combined with a variable area exhaust nozzle and an embedded installation. This cycle has been matched to the flight mission and thrust requirements of an all-lifting body airframe, and through precise scheduling of the variable exhaust nozzle, the engine operating conditions have been optimized for maximum thrust at top-of-climb, minimum fuel consumption during cruise, and minimum jet noise at low altitude. This paper proposes engine mechanical arrangements that can meet the cycle requirements and, when installed in an appropriate airframe, will be quiet relative to current turbofans. To reduce the engine weight, a system with a gearbox, or some other form of shaft speed reduction device, is proposed. This is combined with a low-speed fan and a turbine with high gap-chord spacing to further reduce turbomachinery source noise. An engine configuration with three fans driven by a single core is also presented, and this is expected to have further weight, fuel burn, and noise benefits.

Engine design studies for a silent aircraft

The performance of a transonic fan operating within non-uniform inlet flow remains a key concern for the design and operability of a turbofan engine. This paper applies computational methods to improve the understanding of the interaction between a transonic fan and an inlet total pressure distortion. The test case studied is the NASA rotor 67 stage operating with a total pressure distortion covering a 120-degree sector of the inlet flow-field. Full-annulus, unsteady, three-dimensional CFD has been used to simulate the test rig installation and the full fan assembly operating with inlet distortion. Novel post-processing methods have been applied to extract the fan performance and features of the interaction between the fan and the non-uniform inflow. The results of the unsteady computations agree well with the measurement data. The local operating condition of the fan at different positions around the annulus has been tracked and analysed, and this is shown to be highly dependent on the swirl and mass flow redistribution that the rotor induces ahead of it due to the incoming distortion. The upstream flow effects lead to a variation in work input that determines the distortion pattern seen downstream of the fan stage. In addition, the unsteady computations also reveal more complex flow-features downstream of the fan stage, which arise due to the three-dimensionality of the flow and unsteadiness.Copyright © 2010 by ASME

A Study of Fan-Distortion Interaction Within the NASA Rotor 67 Transonic Stage

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/245229/futureACtechAAM.pdf?sequence=1

The potential of future aircraft technology for noise and pollutant emissions reduction

Copyright © 2014 by ASME. Boundary Layer Ingesting (BLI) turbofan engines could offer reduced fuel burn compared with podded engines, but the fan stage must be designed to run continuously with severe inlet distortion. This paper aims to explain the fluid dynamics and loss sources in BLI fans running at a cruise condition. High-resolution experimental measurements and full-annulus unsteady CFD have been performed on a low-speed fan rig running with a representative BLI inlet velocity profile. A three-dimensional flow redistribution is observed, leading to an attenuation of the axial velocity non-uniformity upstream of the rotor and to non-uniform swirl and radial angle distributions at rotor inlet. The distorted flow field is shown to create circumferential and radial variations in diffusion factor with a corresponding loss variation around the annulus. Additional loss is generated by an unsteady separation of the casing boundary layer, caused by a localised peak in loading at the rotor tip. Non-uniform swirl and radial angles at rotor exit lead to increased loss in the stator due to the variations in profile loss and corner separation size. An additional CFD calculation of a transonic fan running with the same inlet profile is used to show that BLI leads to wide variations in rotor shock structure, strength and position and hence to loss generation through shock-boundary layer interaction, but otherwise contained the same flow features as the low-speed case. For both fan geometries, BLI was found to reduce the stage efficiency by around 1-2% relative to operation with uniform inlet flow.

Cesare A. Hall

Papers

Performance of a Boundary Layer Ingesting (BLI) propulsion system

Engine design studies for a silent aircraft

A Study of Fan-Distortion Interaction Within the NASA Rotor 67 Transonic Stage

The potential of future aircraft technology for noise and pollutant emissions reduction

Aerodynamics of Boundary Layer Ingesting Fans