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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Branch Detonation Of A Pulse Detonation Engine With Flash Vaporized Jp-8, John David Slack Dec 2006

Branch Detonation Of A Pulse Detonation Engine With Flash Vaporized Jp-8, John David Slack

Theses and Dissertations

Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE) operating on liquid hydrocarbon fuels are limited to operating frequencies of 35 Hz due to long ignition times from a low energy ignition sources. This study shows ignition time of JP-8 can be nearly eliminated by igniting a thrust tube using a secondary detonation. A counter flow heat exchanger attached to a thrust tube utilized waste heat from the detonation process to heat JP-8 to supercritical conditions. The fuel flash vaporized when injected into the air stream of the engine. A detonation was produced by a spark in a 5 cm diameter, 1.37 m long tube. …


Design And Numerical Simulation Of Two Dimensional Ultra Compact Combustor Model Sections For Experimental Observation Of Cavity-Vane Flow Interactions, David S. Moenter Sep 2006

Design And Numerical Simulation Of Two Dimensional Ultra Compact Combustor Model Sections For Experimental Observation Of Cavity-Vane Flow Interactions, David S. Moenter

Theses and Dissertations

An improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed for numerical simulation of the Ultra Compact Combustor (UCC) concept to enhance turbulent flow characterization of the circumferentially traveling, centrifugal-force enhanced combustion, cavity flow into the engine main flow passage via a radial cavity in the turbine axial guide vanes. The CFD model uses a dense grid on a 60° periodic, axisymmetric combustor section, with the RNG κ-ε turbulence model to resolve turbulent flow details. An overall analysis and performance evaluation of the experimentally tested UCC configuration and an axially shortened cavity baseline configuration was conducted at various experimentally documented operating …


Numerical Investigation Of Cavity-Vane Interactions Within The Ultra Compact Combustor, Jonathan F. Anisko Mar 2006

Numerical Investigation Of Cavity-Vane Interactions Within The Ultra Compact Combustor, Jonathan F. Anisko

Theses and Dissertations

A numerical analysis and design optimization of the Ultra Compact Combustor (UCC) has been conducted. The UCC is a combustor designed to incorporate high-g loadings to increase flame propagation speed while reducing flame length, thereby helping to significantly reduce the size of a combustor. A commercial CFD package with a k-Ⲉ turbulence model has been used to develop design rules for the construction of future UCCs. There have been several versions of UCC that have been designed, built and tested by AFRL/PRTC. Since real experimental tests are expensive and construction time is prohibitive to test many different design configurations, CFD …


Design, Build And Validation Of A Small-Scale Combustion Chamber Testing Facility, Eric R. Dittman Mar 2006

Design, Build And Validation Of A Small-Scale Combustion Chamber Testing Facility, Eric R. Dittman

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the design parameters necessary for the construction and use of a testing facility built to test the combustor section of engines. User inputs were acquired by interview and used in the decisions made in arrangement of pieces of machinery and how different systems were to interact. The design was then carried out as the various parts of the facility were built and installed. Software was designed which controlled the different parts of the combustion process and monitored the different products of combustion as well as the properties of the air and fuel used in the combustion. These …


Optimization Of A Low Heat Load Turbine Nozzle Guide Vane, Jamie J. Johnson Mar 2006

Optimization Of A Low Heat Load Turbine Nozzle Guide Vane, Jamie J. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Often turbomachinery airfoils are designed with aerodynamic performance foremost in mind rather than component durability. However, future aircraft systems require ever increasing levels of gas-turbine inlet temperature causing the durability and reliability of turbine components to be an ever more important design concern. As a result, the need to provide improved heat transfer prediction and optimization methods presents itself. Here, an effort to design an airfoil with minimized heat load is reported. First, a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) flow solver was validated over different flow regimes as well as varying boundary conditions against extensive data available in literature published by the …