Showing papers in "International Journal of Aerospace Engineering in 2014"

On the Effects of Modeling As-Manufactured Geometry: Toward Digital Twin

Abstract: A simple, nonstandardized material test specimen, which fails along one of two different likely crack paths, is considered herein. The result of deviations in geometry on the order of tenths of a millimeter, this ambiguity in crack path motivates the consideration of as-manufactured component geometry in the design, assessment, and certification of structural systems. Herein, finite element models of as-manufactured specimens are generated and subsequently analyzed to resolve the crack-path ambiguity. The consequence and benefit of such a “personalized” methodology is the prediction of a crack path for each specimen based on its as-manufactured geometry, rather than a distribution of possible specimen geometries or nominal geometry. The consideration of as-manufactured characteristics is central to the Digital Twin concept. Therefore, this work is also intended to motivate its development.

Modeling Techniques for a Computational Efficient Dynamic Turbofan Engine Model

Abstract: A transient two-stream engine model has been developed. Individual component models developed exclusively in MATLAB/Simulink including the fan, high pressure compressor, combustor, high pressure turbine, low pressure turbine, plenum volumes, and exit nozzle have been combined to investigate the behavior of a turbofan two-stream engine. Special attention has been paid to the development of transient capabilities throughout the model, increasing physics model, eliminating algebraic constraints, and reducing simulation time through enabling the use of advanced numerical solvers. The lessening of computation time is paramount for conducting future aircraft system-level design trade studies and optimization. The new engine model is simulated for a fuel perturbation and a specified mission while tracking critical parameters. These results, as well as the simulation times, are presented. The new approach significantly reduces the simulation time.

A Numerical Study on a Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine with Inclined Arms

Abstract: This work focuses on a particular type of vertical-axis wind turbine, in which a number of inclined arms with airfoil-shaped cross-sections are mounted to connect the principal blades to their hub. While the majority of the known studies on vertical-axis turbines is devoted to the role of principal blades, in most of the cases without taking into account other parts of the wind turbine, the objective of this work is to investigate the effect of uncommon arm geometries, such as the inclined arms. The inclined arms are known to have a potentially beneficial role in the power extraction from the wind current but, due to the complexity of the phenomena, the investigation on aerodynamics of this type of turbine is often impossible through analytical models, such as blade-element momentum theory. It turns out that adequate studies can only be carried out by wind tunnel experiments or CFD simulations. This work presents a methodical CFD study on how inclined arms can be used on a selected wind turbine configuration to harvest additional power from the wind. The turbine configuration, geometry, and some fundamental definitions are introduced first. Then an in-depth CFD analysis is presented and discussed.

Numerical Calculation of Effect of Elastic Deformation on Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Rocket

Abstract: The application and workflow of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)/Computational Structure Dynamics (CSD) on solving the static aeroelastic problem of a slender rocket are introduced. To predict static aeroelastic behavior accurately, two-way coupling and inertia relief methods are used to calculate the static deformations and aerodynamic characteristics of the deformed rocket. The aerodynamic coefficients of rigid rocket are computed firstly and compared with the experimental data, which verified the accuracy of CFD output. The results of the analysis for elastic rocket in the nonspinning and spinning states are compared with the rigid ones. The results highlight that the rocket deformation aspects are decided by the normal force distribution along the rocket length. Rocket deformation becomes larger with increasing the flight angle of attack. Drag and lift force coefficients decrease and pitching moment coefficients increase due to rocket deformations, center of pressure location forwards, and stability of the rockets decreases. Accordingly, the flight trajectory may be affected by the change of these aerodynamic coefficients and stability.

Shape Optimization of NREL S809 Airfoil for Wind Turbine Blades Using a Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to employ a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA) to optimize the shape of a well-known wind turbine airfoil S809 to improve its lift and drag characteristics, in particular to achieve two objectives, that is, to increase its lift and its lift to drag ratio. The commercially available software FLUENT is employed to calculate the flow field on an adaptive structured mesh using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations in conjunction with a two-equation SST turbulence model. The results show significant improvement in both lift coefficient and lift to drag ratio of the optimized airfoil compared to the original S809 airfoil. In addition, MOGA results are in close agreement with those obtained by the adjoint-based optimization technique.

Actuator Fault Diagnosis in a Boeing 747 Model via Adaptive Modified Two-Stage Kalman Filter

Abstract: An adaptive modified two-stage linear Kalman filtering algorithm is utilized to identify the loss of control effectiveness and the magnitude of low degree of stuck faults in a closed-loop nonlinear B747 aircraft. Control effectiveness factors and stuck magnitudes are used to quantify faults entering control systems through actuators. Pseudorandom excitation inputs are used to help distinguish partial loss and stuck faults. The partial loss and stuck faults in the stabilizer are isolated and identified successfully.

Active Vibration Control of Plate Partly Treated with ACLD Using Hybrid Control

Abstract: A finite element model of plate partly treated with ACLD treatments is developed based on the constitutive equations of elastic, piezoelectric, viscoelastic materials and Hamilton’s principle. The Golla-Hughes-Mctavish (GHM) method is employed to describe the frequency-dependent characteristics of viscoelastic material (VEM). A model reduction is completed by using iterative dynamic condensation and balance model reduction method to design an effective control system. The emphasis is concerned on hybrid (combined feedback/feedforward) control system to attenuate the vibration of plates with ACLD treatments. The optimal linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller is considered as a feedback channel and the adaptive filtered-reference LMS (FxLMS) controller is used as a feedforward channel. They can be utilized individually or in a hybrid way to suppress the vibration of plate/ACLD system. The results show that the hybrid controller which combines feedback/feedforward together can reduce the displacement amplitude of plate/ACLD system subjected to a complicated disturbance substantially without requiring more control effort. Furthermore, the hybrid controller has more rapid and stable convergence rate than the adaptive feedforward FxLMS controller. Meanwhile, perfect robustness to phase error of the cancellation path in feedforward controller and the weight matrices in feedback LQG controller is demonstrated in proposed hybrid controller. Therefore, its application in structural engineering can be highly appreciated.

An Efficient Nonlinear Filter for Spacecraft Attitude Estimation

Abstract: Increasing the computational efficiency of attitude estimation is a critical problem related to modern spacecraft, especially for those with limited computing resources. In this paper, a computationally efficient nonlinear attitude estimation strategy based on the vector observations is proposed. The Rodrigues parameter is chosen as the local error attitude parameter, to maintain the normalization constraint for the quaternion in the global estimator. The proposed attitude estimator is performed in four stages. First, the local attitude estimation error system is described by a polytopic linear model. Then the local error attitude estimator is designed with constant coefficients based on the robust filtering algorithm. Subsequently, the attitude predictions and the local error attitude estimations are calculated by a gyro based model and the local error attitude estimator. Finally, the attitude estimations are updated by the predicted attitude with the local error attitude estimations. Since the local error attitude estimator is with constant coefficients, it does not need to calculate the matrix inversion for the filter gain matrix or update the Jacobian matrixes online to obtain the local error attitude estimations. As a result, the computational complexity of the proposed attitude estimator reduces significantly. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed attitude estimation strategy.

A Miniature Integrated Navigation System for Rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract: This paper presents the development of a low cost miniature navigation system for autonomous flying rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The system incorporates measurements from a low cost single point GPS and a triaxial solid state inertial/magnetic sensor unit. The navigation algorithm is composed of three modules running on a microcontroller: the sensor calibration module, the attitude estimator, and the velocity and position estimator. The sensor calibration module relies on a recursive least square based ellipsoid hypothesis calibration algorithm to estimate biases and scale factors of accelerometers and magnetometers without any additional calibration equipment. The attitude estimator is a low computational linear attitude fusion algorithm that effectively incorporates high frequency components of gyros and low frequency components of accelerometers and magnetometers to guarantee both accuracy and bandwidth of attitude estimation. The velocity and position estimator uses two cascaded complementary filters which fuse translational acceleration, GPS velocity, and position to improve the bandwidth of velocity and position. The designed navigation system is feasible for miniature UAVs due to its low cost, simplicity, miniaturization, and guaranteed estimation errors. Both ground tests and autonomous flight tests of miniature unmanned helicopter and quadrotor have shown the effectiveness of the proposed system, demonstrating its promise in UAV systems.

Effects of Surface Coating Preparation and Sliding Modes on Titanium Oxide Coated Titanium Alloy for Aerospace Applications

Abstract: This paper investigates the mechanical response of a coated Ti-6Al-4V alloy surface under different sliding contact stress conditions. The surface was coated with an oxide ceramic material created through the use of a recently developed technique known as plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO). During the PEO procedure, a composition of silicate and phosphate was used as the electrolyte. In order to evaluate the coating, pin-on-disk (POD) tribology tests and cyclic inclined sliding tests were used under dry room conditions. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were utilized to examine the morphology and composition of the coating surfaces. The results of the POD tests revealed that the PEO coating could have a low coefficient of friction and suggested that high silicon concentrations in the PEO coatings take away oxygen from stoichiometric Ti oxides to create lubricating oxides. In addition, cyclic inclined sliding tests showed that smaller pores on the surface of the coating could permit a higher coating cohesive strength and allow the coated Ti alloy surface to perform better under high inclined sliding forces.

Mechanical Behaviour of Inconel 718 Thin-Walled Laser Welded Components for Aircraft Engines

Abstract: Nickel alloys are very important in many aerospace applications, especially to manufacture gas turbines and aero engine components, where high strength and temperature resistance are necessary. These kinds of alloys have to be welded with high energy density processes, in order to preserve their high mechanical properties. In this work, CO2 laser overlap joints between Inconel 718 sheets of limited thickness in the absence of postweld heat treatment were made. The main application of this kind of joint is the manufacturing of a helicopter engine component. In particular the aim was to obtain a specific cross section geometry, necessary to overcome the mechanical stresses found in these working conditions without failure. Static and dynamic tests were performed to assess the welds and the parent material fatigue life behaviour. Furthermore, the life trend was identified. This research pointed out that a full joint shape control is possible by choosing proper welding parameters and that the laser beam process allows the maintenance of high tensile strength and ductility of Inconel 718 but caused many liquation microcracks in the heat affected zone (HAZ). In spite of these microcracks, the fatigue behaviour of the overlap welds complies with the technical specifications required by the application.

Experiment and Theoretical Analysis Study of ETFE Inflatable Tubes

Abstract: The load bearing capacity of an ETFE (ethylene-tetra-fluoro-ethylene) inflatable tube is tested in this paper, and a comparative study of two wrinkling theories, the bifurcation theory and the tension field theory, is carried out for wrinkling analysis of the ETFE inflatable tube. Results obtained from the bifurcation theory and experiment reveal the limitations of tension field theory on the wrinkling analysis. The load-displacement curves of inflatable beams under bending load are obtained and compared with the experimental results; curves obtained using the bifurcation theory show coincidence with experimental curves, but the curves obtained using the tension field theory have noticeable deviations between calculated and experimental results.

External Aerodynamics Simulations in a Rotating Frame of Reference

Abstract: This paper presents the development of a tool integrated in the UNS3D code, proprietary of Alenia Aermacchi, for the simulation of external aerodynamic flow in a rotating reference frame, with the main objective of predicting propeller-aircraft integration effects. The equations in a rotating frame of reference have been formulated in terms of the absolute velocity components; in this way, the artificial dissipation needed for convergence is lessened, as the Coriolis source term is only introduced in the momentum equation. An Explicit Algebraic Reynolds Stress turbulence model is used. The first assessment of effectiveness of this method is made computing stability derivatives of a NACA 0012 airfoil. Finally, steady Navier-Stokes and Euler simulations of a four-blade single-rotating propeller are presented, demonstrating the efficiency of the chosen approach in terms of computational cost.

Nonlinear Finite-Horizon Regulation and Tracking for Systems with Incomplete State Information Using Differential State Dependent Riccati Equation

Abstract: This paper presents an efficient online technique used for finite-horizon, nonlinear, stochastic, regulator, and tracking problems. This can be accomplished by the integration of the differential SDRE filter algorithm and the finite-horizon state dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) technique. Unlike the previous methods which deal with the linearized system, this technique provides finite-horizon estimation and control of the nonlinear stochastic systems. Further, the proposed technique is effective for a wide range of operating points. Simulation results of a missile guidance system are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

Boost Full Bridge Bidirectional DC/DC Converter for Supervised Aeronautical Applications

Abstract: The More Electrical Aircraft concept requires electronic devices able to efficiently and safely convert electrical power between different voltage levels. The entire realization of a bidirectional DC/DC converter, from design to validation phase, is here discussed in detail. First, a boost full bridge electrical structure is selected, adopting a Parallel Input Parallel Output (PIPO) interleaving technique and an optimal turns ratio selection for the transformers in order to reduce both weight and size of the equipment. Next, modulation schemes in both step-down and step-up modes are discussed. Successively ad hoc PI regulators for both operative modes are presented. A key idea of the paper is that the converter behavior must be related not only to the control strategy but also to a global supervision logic able to safely conduct the converter operations and to react from external stimuli. Thus, a finite state machine (FSM) approach is employed. An innovative strategy called buffer mode is presented, defined as an intelligent combination of buck and boost modes. Extensive simulations and experimental results are shown, in order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Steepest-Ascent Revisited: Unconstrained Missile Trajectory

Abstract: A Steepest-Ascent numerical procedure for offline trajectory optimization of a surface-to-surface missile attacking a stationary target is presented. A detailed numerical solution, starting from building the mathematical formulation till generating an offline angle of attack control history, is illustrated. A novel approach for guessing a nominal control program is conducted. The formulation entails nonlinear 2-DOF missile flight dynamics with mixed boundary conditions. The technique of changing of variables is adopted to convert the free-final-time optimization problem to a fixed-final-time one. The influences of the optimization algorithm controlling parameters are investigated. A new form of the weighting matrix is proposed. A novel technique of relaxation factors for eliminating the terminal states violation is described. Finally, a comparison between the obtained control history and the one obtained by a nonlinear optimal control package “GPOPS” is presented. The results indicate that the use of Steepest-Ascent method, to a great extent, is comparable in accuracy and iteration time to the pseudospectral optimization package “GPOPS.” This paper, to a great extent, is a detailed procedure for the method of Steepest-Ascent analyzed and verified by the authors from many undetailed sources to disclosure of the main problems faced by user of Steepest-Ascent.

Airloads Correlation of the UH-60A Rotor Inside the 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel

Abstract: The presented research validates the capability of a loosely coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and comprehensive rotorcraft analysis (CRA) code to calculate the flowfield around a rotor and test stand mounted inside a wind tunnel. The CFD/CRA predictions for the Full-Scale UH-60A Airloads Rotor inside the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center are compared with the latest measured airloads and performance data. The studied conditions include a speed sweep at constant lift up to an advance ratio of 0.4 and a thrust sweep at constant speed up to and including stall. For the speed sweep, wind tunnel modeling becomes important at advance ratios greater than 0.37 and test stand modeling becomes increasingly important as the advance ratio increases. For the thrust sweep, both the wind tunnel and test stand modeling become important as the rotor approaches stall. Despite the beneficial effects of modeling the wind tunnel and test stand, the new models do not completely resolve the current airload discrepancies between prediction and experiment.

Thermochemical Analysis of Hypergolic Propellants Based on Triethylaluminum/Nitrous Oxide

Abstract: The vacuum specific impulse, density vacuum specific impulse, and solid exhaust products were examined for several propellant formulations based on the pyrophoric material triethylaluminum (TEA) using CEA thermodynamics code. Evaluation of TEA neat and mixed with hydrocarbon fuels with LOX, N2O, N2O4, liquefied air, and HNO3 were performed at stoichiometry. The vacuum specific impulse of neat TEA with N2O is comparable to that of nitric acid with the same, but the N2O formulation will produce slightly less solid products during combustion. Additionally, N2O-TEA propellants have vacuum specific impulses and density vacuum specific impulses within 92.9% and 86.7% of traditional hydrazine propellant formulations under stoichiometric conditions.

Influence of Root Rotation on Delamination Fracture Toughness of Composites

Abstract: Large deviations have been observed while analysing composite double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens assuming each cracked half as a simple cantilever beam. This paper examines the effect of rotational spring stiffness on the critical fracture energy considering nonzero slope at the crack-tip of the DCB specimen by modelling each cracked half as the spring-hinged cantilever beam. The critical load estimates of DCB specimens from are found to be in good agreement with in-house and existing test results of different composite material systems.

Use of Active Learning to Design Wind Tunnel Runs for Unsteady Cavity Pressure Measurements

Abstract: Wind tunnel tests to measure unsteady cavity flow pressure measurements can be expensive, lengthy, and tedious. In this work, the feasibility of an active machine learning technique to design wind tunnel runs using proxy data is tested. The proposed active learning scheme used scattered data approximation in conjunction with uncertainty sampling (US). We applied the proposed intelligent sampling strategy in characterizing cavity flow classes at subsonic and transonic speeds and demonstrated that the scheme has better classification accuracies, using fewer training points, than a passive Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) strategy.

A Novel Complementary Method for the Point-Scan Nondestructive Tests Based on Lamb Waves

Abstract: This study presents a novel area-scan damage identification method based on Lamb waves which can be used as a complementary method for point-scan nondestructive techniques. The proposed technique is able to identify the most probable locations of damages prior to point-scan test which lead to decreasing the time and cost of inspection. The test-piece surface was partitioned with some smaller areas and the damage probability presence of each area was evaluated. mode of Lamb wave was generated and collected using a mobile handmade transducer set at each area. Subsequently, a damage presence probability index (DPPI) based on the energy of captured responses was defined for each area. The area with the highest DPPI value highlights the most probable locations of damages in test-piece. Point-scan nondestructive methods can then be used once these areas are found to identify the damage in detail. The approach was validated by predicting the most probable locations of representative damages including through-thickness hole and crack in aluminum plates. The obtained experimental results demonstrated the high potential of developed method in defining the most probable locations of damages in structures.

Active Control Optimization for Minimizing the Dynamic Response of Functionally Graded Plate

Abstract: A control optimization problem for functionally graded (FG) plates is presented using a first-order shear deformation plate theory including through-the-thickness normal strain effect. The aim of the optimization is to minimize the vibrational response of FG plate with constraints on the control energy used in the damping process. An active control optimization is presented to determine the optimal level of a closed loop control function. Plate thickness and a homogeneity parameter of FG plates are used as design variables. Numerical results for the optimal control force and the total energy for a simply supported FG plate are given. The influence of through-the-thickness normal strain effect on the accuracy of the obtained results is illustrated. The effectiveness of the present control and design procedure is examined.

Optimum Disposition of Metal Particles in the Propellant Grain

Abstract: Using the dispersed metal in solid propellants to increase the temperature of combustion products leads to such a problem as the specific impulse loss due to the incomplete combustion of metal particles in the exhaust products. A redistribution of metal loaded into the propellant grain is one of the methods to decrease the specific impulse loss. This paper reports on the ways to obtain the optimum metal particle disposition for the case-bounded propellant grain of tube cross-sectional type. Three different approaches to analyze the metal combustion efficiency are discussed. The influence of the dynamic nonequilibrium of two-phase flow on the optimum metal particles disposition in the propellant grain of tube cross-sectional type is investigated.