The development of radical new aero engine technologies will be key to delivering the step-changes in aircraft environmental performance required to meet future emissions legislation. Intercooling has the potential for higher overall pressure ratios, enabling reduced fuel consumption, and/or lower compressor delivery air temperatures and therefore reduced NOx. This paper considers the aerodynamics associated with the complex ducting system that would be required to transfer flow from the core engine path to the heat exchanger system. The cycle benefits associated with intercooling could be offset by the pressure losses within this ducting system and/or any detrimental effect the system has on the surrounding components. A suitable branched S-shaped duct system has been numerically developed which diffuses and delivers the flow from the engine core to discrete intercooler modules. A novel swirling duct concept was used to locally open larger spacing between certain duct branches in order to provide engine core access whilst hiding the resultant pressure field from the upstream turbomachinery. The candidate duct system was experimentally evaluated on a bespoke low speed, fully annular isothermal test facility. Aerodynamic measurements demonstrated the ability of the design to meet the stringent aerodynamic and geometric constraints.
Funding
This work was undertaken as part of the European Union (EU) Framework 6 Project NEWAC: NEW Aero engine Core concepts (FP6-030876).
History
School
Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering
Published in
JOURNAL OF PROPULSION AND POWER
Volume
28
Issue
6
Pages
1188 - 1200 (13)
Citation
WALKER, A.D. ...et al., 2012. Intercooled aero-gas-turbine duct aerodynamics: core air delivery ducts Journal of Propulsion and Power, 28(6), pp. 1188-1200.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publication date
2012
Notes
This paper was published in the Journal of Propulsion and Power and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.B34450