Professional Documents
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Greitzer 2009
Greitzer 2009
1 Introduction and Theme Lectures, microengines and active control of combustion,4 both of
which described activities that cut across disciplines to offer po-
A half-century ago, Sir William Hawthorne, a pioneer in our
tential for step changes in performance, the thesis here is that the
field, presented a masterful survey of gas turbine aerodynamics major technology gains now lie in research that requires the inte-
entitled “Some Aerodynamic Problems of Aircraft Engines” 关1兴. gration of disciplines.5 Put another way, the highly interactive
In that paper 共which would have been an excellent IGTI Scholar nature of modern engine design means that the engine needs to be
Lecture兲, he described a number of issues, which had major im- looked at as a system. This type of approach, which almost invari-
pact on the performance of aeroengines and for which there was ably involves collaboration across disciplines, enables greater
no first-principles understanding.1 In fact, if the latter is taken as a reach in attacking such technical challenges and offers opportuni-
metric, some problems he mentioned are not yet resolved.2 The ties for achieving goals beyond those defined by conventional
title of this lecture is taken from Hawthorne’s paper in recognition design constraints.
not only of the time that has passed since then but also the enor- The above so far are just assertions, but I will endeavor to make
mous advances in gas turbine technology that have occurred. them more plausible through the histories of two research collabo-
Several aspects of this progress are directly relevant to the rations, which 共I claim兲 illustrate the points. The first involved the
present discussion. First, while deeper understanding can provide theoretical description and experimental realization of enhanced
a route to better products and more effective processes, the history turbomachinery range capability through the use of dynamic con-
of the jet engine is a monument to the ways in which designers trol, i.e., through alterations of the unsteady compression system
have produced an excellent and highly sophisticated product even behavior. The second was the conceptual design of an aircraft,
when such understanding did not exist. This point, which is made which would be imperceptible from a noise standpoint outside the
in the introduction to Hawthorne’s paper, is echoed 共with the ben- perimeter of an urban airport.
efit of 50 additional years of jet engine history兲 by Koff 关2兴 and by It seems helpful to provide some explanation for the choice of
Cumpsty and Greitzer 关3兴. Second, the deeper understanding re- examples and the overall perspective taken in this paper. For the
former, it is hoped that the topics are of interest to a broad tech-
ferred to has been achieved in a number of areas. In terms of
nical community. Further, because the projects achieved the stated
impact on the product, therefore, an argument can be made that
goals and the research led to results not foreseen before the
achieving additional understanding in the above sense is less im-
project started, there is some justification for viewing them as
portant than when Hawthorne wrote his paper.3 successful. The narrative of the technical aspects thus provides
Third, the framework of Hawthorne’s paper, and the problems context, and perhaps some credibility, for the message concerning
he described, were single discipline issues. To avoid any misun- collaboration. For the latter—and I cannot emphasize this too
derstanding, let me state at the outset that the point of the lecture strongly—it is the intention to highlight some of the difficulties
is not that there are no important problems of this sort that need to through recounting, from the personal perspective of someone
be addressed. However, as in the two previous IGTI Scholar deeply embedded in the technology, the learning about collabora-
tion that took place. The focus of the description is therefore one
1
The word “understanding” is used here to indicate predictive capability that
particular team rather than a broad survey of the field. However,
stems from clear definition of the important mechanisms. recognizing that many other organizations have had similar 共or
2
Operability and stall inception and combustor design are examples of two areas even more successful兲 experiences, several other collaborative en-
that still rely heavily on empirical information. terprises, within IGTI and elsewhere, are introduced in the latter
3
The tendency to strive for additional refinement is portrayed succinctly by
Bridgeman 关4兴: “No analysis is self-terminating, but it can always be pushed indefi- part of this paper.
nitely with continually accumulating refinements.”
Contributed by the International Gas Turbine Institute of ASME for publication in
4
the JOURNAL OF TURBOMACHINERY. Manuscript received July 15, 2008; final manu- IGTI Scholar Lecturers A.H. Epstein in 2003 and B.T. Zinn in 2005, respectively.
5
script received July 25, 2008; published online April 20, 2009. Review conducted by Perhaps a clearer way to state this is given by J. A. Armstrong, former VP for
David Wisler. Paper presented at the ASME Turbo Expo 2007: Land, Sea and Air research at IBM: “God did not make the natural world according to the departmental
共GT2007兲, Montreal, QC, Canada, May 14–17, 2007. structure of research universities” 关5兴.
Journal of Turbomachinery Copyright © 2009 by ASME JULY 2009, Vol. 131 / 031101-1
(b)
achieve stabilization, one must alter the dynamic behavior of the
compression system. There are ways to do this, however, which
do not necessitate the use of sensors and external actuators and
can be easier or more robust to implement than active control. A
tailored structure, such as that in Fig. 3, can absorb energy and
damp pressure and mass flow oscillations. The figure shows the
original compression system 共compressor, plenum, and throttle兲
Sensor plus a moveable plenum wall, which is a mass-spring-damper
dynamically coupled to the aerodynamic system. The combined
device, with non-rigid walls, gives greater damping of aerody-
Controller namic perturbations than did the original 关18兴. Details of the
analysis, experiment design, and results are given in Refs. 18 and
Fig. 1 Lumped parameter compression system: „a… no control, 19, but Fig. 4 illustrates some main findings. The figure shows an
and „b… controlled system with sensor in plenum and throttle increase in stable flow range of between 20–30% over the range
actuator of speeds examined. It also indicates that the lumped parameter
model that was used in designing the structural feedback ad-
equately captures the system parametric behavior. Even for this
rather than spending a great deal of time on actuator development. simple configuration, there are five nondimensional parameters,
The modeling and control schemes have been described else- which characterize different aerodynamic, structural dynamic, and
where 关13–16兴 and will receive only brief mention. A lumped aeromechanical effects, and modeling played a critical role in ne-
parameter compression system representation is shown in Fig. gotiating the path to a useful solution. In summary, both active
1共a兲, which illustrates a compressor and associated ducting, a ple- control and structural feedback enhanced stability by altering the
num 共representing the combustor volume in an engine兲, and a dynamic behavior of the system, with the steady-state perfor-
downstream resistance. For feedback stabilization, one measures mance virtually unaltered.
the system output, compares it with some desired reference level,
determines the error, and computes an input signal 共command to 4 Control of Rotating Stall
some actuator兲 based on this error to drive the error to zero. Fig-
ure 1共b兲 shows a schematic of the controlled compression system. 4.1 Active Stabilization of Rotating Stall. For axial com-
The sensed variable was the plenum pressure, and the controller pressors, one also needs to control rotating stall, a situation in
was a throttle valve at the plenum exit. Surge is a dynamic insta-
bility in which the compressor adds energy to small oscillations in Plenum Wall
the system, increasing their amplitude 关17兴. A proportional con- (Spring/Mass/Damper)
troller, with perturbation in throttle area proportional to plenum
pressure, created the necessary dissipation of mechanical energy
to offset the perturbation energy put into the system by the un-
steady flow through the compressor.
The results from the feedback control are shown in Fig. 2. The
abscissa is nondimensional mass flow and the ordinate is nondi-
mensional pressure rise. The symbols represent the performance
as measured by steady-state instrumentation. Without control, the
surge oscillations were greater than 100% of the prestall value in Compressor
mass flow and 30% in pressure rise, leading to a time-average Plenum
pressure rise 20% below the prestall value. With the controller, the ⋅
m
⋅
m2
amplitudes were reduced by an order of magnitude, the time mean 1
pressure rise was maintained roughly at the prestall value, and the 2
0 1
useful flow range was increased by nearly 25%. Switching on the
controller when the system had entered surge also enabled the
compressor to recover from a limit cycle oscillation back to a Inlet Duct
stable operating point.
Fig. 3 Schematic of moveable plenum wall compression sys-
3.2 Stabilization of Surge Using Structural Feedback. To tem †18‡
Tailored 90K
Structure Fixed results, as discussed subsequently.
Wall Stall sensing experiments were carried out on low speed single-
1.6
stage and three-stage compressors, and a schematic of the latter is
80K given in Fig. 5 关25兴. The control scheme was a row of individually
controlled inlet guide vanes upstream of the compressor. The re-
1.4 70K quired bandwidth 共say up to two times the rotor rotation rate兲
could be achieved using off-the-shelf high bandwidth electric mo-
tors. As with surge, the control scheme was chosen to enable focus
60K on demonstration of an actively controlled compressor rather than
1.2 necessitating extensive development of actuator technology.
0 40 80 120 160 200 The results of stall control experiments on a three-stage com-
pressor are given in Fig. 6, which shows the amplitude of the first
Mass Flow (SCFM)
Fourier mode of the propagating axial velocity disturbance versus
time, expressed in terms of rotor revolutions, the natural time
Fig. 4 Predicted and measured compressor stability limits
with dynamic structural control; labels denote corrected speed
scale of the problem. Wave phase measurements, not shown here,
„100 K = 100,000 rpm… †18‡ indicate a disturbance phase speed approximately 30% of rotor
rotation. Measurements such as this confirmed the existence of the
small amplitude propagating perturbations. The figure also shows
which cells of stalled flow propagate round the circumference of the theoretical results; in spite of the approximate nature, the
the turbomachine at between 共roughly兲 20–50% of rotor speed, theory gives a useful description of the transient behavior. Small
depending on the configuration. Time mean performance in rotat- amplitude waves are seen for tens of rotor revolutions; the transi-
ing stall causes much decreased efficiency 共an order of magnitude tion from conditions when the perturbations are small to near-final
in some cases兲 and pressure rise compared to the prestall value amplitude occurs over a shorter time 共several rotor revolutions兲.
关20兴. Further, the decrease in pressure rise during rotating stall At the final amplitude, the nonuniformities in axial velocity are
development can cause the overall system stability criteria to be larger than the time-mean value.
violated leading to surge. In this sense, one can say that rotating Figure 7 shows the open-loop response for a single-stage com-
stall in a multistage axial compressor “triggers” surge, with the pressor, i.e., the transfer function from inlet guide vane angle per-
consequence that one needs to control both types of instabilities. turbation to compressor inlet axial velocity perturbation for the
For rotating stall, the control problem is multidimensional, im- first spatial harmonic of the disturbance. The upper plot is the
plying, at least for linear control schemes, the use of arrays of amplitude and the lower plot is the phase, plotted against fre-
actuators and sensors. Rotating stall phenomena are less well un- quency of disturbance normalized by rotor frequency. The reso-
derstood than surge and, at a conceptual level, the approach taken nant peak near 20% of rotor speed corresponds closely to the
could have been expressed as follows. Theory 关21,22兴 suggested rotating stall propagation speed. As the compressor is throttled to
that rotating stall was the mature form of small amplitude circum- stall, the peak height increases as the system damping increases in
ferential asymmetries 共waves兲, which propagated around the an- accord with the theoretical concepts. The behavior is well de-
nulus, with the fate of these small amplitude disturbances gov- scribed by a second order fit, also in agreement with the theory.
erned by the mean operating conditions. For operations near The experiments thus gave confidence that the association of ro-
design, the disturbances decay. As the flow rate was decreased, tating stall with the growth of the eigenmodes in the compressor
however, the disturbance decay rate would decrease until at some annulus was well founded and that control approaches based on
flow condition 共peak pressure rise or slightly beyond兲 the distur- this idea would be worth pursuing.
bances would be neutrally stable, neither damped nor amplified. Closed-loop control results are given in Fig. 8 for the low speed
For further reductions in flow, and consequent operation on the single-stage compressor. Control of the first mode alone yielded
positive sloped part of the pressure rise versus flow compressor an 11% increase in range, control of the first and second modes
pumping curve,9 disturbance waves would grow into rotating stall. yielded a 20% increase, and control of the three modes together
The theory implied that damping the waves would inhibit ro- gave a 25% percent range increase.
tating stall. The objective was thus to sense small amplitude trav-
eling waves in the compressor and to use actuators to establish a
real-time traveling disturbance that was coupled to these waves.
4.2 Stabilization of Rotating Stall With Structural
Doing this in an appropriate manner provides an alteration to the
Feedback. Many of the comments about structural control of
dynamic behavior that renders the system stable, enhancing the
surge apply to rotating stall. The main difference is that one now
rotating-stall-free operating range. The elements for realization
has, as for active control of rotating stall, a distribution rather than
were wave sensing, wave launching, closing the loop, and the
a single structural element. The use of structural feedback was
hardware implementation of all three. Demonstration that the
demonstrated by Gysling 关26,27兴 with an array of reed valves
waves existed, namely, that the eigenmodes in the compressor
controlling the injection of high pressure air in front of the com-
annulus were modes in the forms of Fourier harmonics in the
pressor. An increase of 10% in stable flow range was obtained.
circumferential coordinate, was directly tied to the theory for ro-
Gysling 关26兴 also provided a unifying view of structural and ac-
tating stall control. If so, for a linear system the control could be
tive control of rotating stall through the examination of the ener-
carried out on a Fourier mode-by-mode basis as separate single
getics of the wave growth process. He showed that the flexible
input, single output control systems. The overall direction of the
structure created phase relationships between pressure and flow
experiments was based on this close integration of fluids and con-
rate perturbations through the valve similar to those in an active
control system in which pressure was sensed and flow was con-
9
In terms of the variables shown in Fig. 2, this means operation in a regime in trolled. This work gave a framework in which to view all linear
which d / d is positive. control schemes examined up to then.
Vane position
Bessel filters Anemometers
Servo Amp
Velocity signals (350 W)
Current to motors
Encoders
12 DC servo motors
Throttle
8 hot wires
Stator 1
Stator 2
Stator 3
MCGVs
Rotor 1
Rotor 2
Rotor 3
IGVs
0.6 m
5 A Counterpoint Concerning Collaboration: The regime where the slope of the compressor pressure rise character-
Benefits of “Putting Your Theories in Jeopardy”10 istic is negative, and the theory states that the flow is stable with
respect to small disturbances.
A counterpoint to the main theme provides an illustration of a Major steps to resolve this dilemma were taken at Cambridge
way in which collaboration can also be a strong enabler for tech- by Day 关28兴 who showed there was a qualitatively different pro-
nical progress within a discipline. The control philosophy pre- cess, with a different physical mechanism than the route described
sented so far has been in terms of a scenario for instability asso- above. The disturbances associated with rotating stall inception in
ciated with the growth of small disturbances. The results for this second process were much shorter in circumferential extent
compressor response, and the mode-by-mode ability of the con- than the modes 共the relevant length scale was several blade
troller to delay rotating stall, provide clear evidence for the reality pitches rather than the annulus circumference, which is the appro-
of this mechanism. However, the linear theory fails to address the priate length scale for the modes兲. The disturbances were also
observation that some compressors encounter rotating stall in a seen in the tip region of rotors rather than being roughly two-
dimensional, and they were large amplitude even when first ob-
served at the measuring stations that were used. The time for
10
Phrase due to Dr. D. C. Wisler.
∂φ/∂γ Magnitude, dB
-20
-40
0
Second Order Fit
Experimental Data
Phase, degrees
-200
-400
-600
10-2 10-1 100 101
Frequency Normalized by Rotor Frequency
Fig. 6 Time evolution of first harmonic of the axial velocity in Fig. 7 Bode plot showing single-stage compressor response
a three-stage compressor during rotating stall inception †24‡ to a sine wave forcing excitation at = 0.475 †16‡
11
The name is at least partly due to the way the disturbances appear in time- 12
resolved data such as Fig. 9, in which the “emerging stall cell” can be characterized The value of the critical incidence depends on the compressor parameters; it is
as a spikelike form. not the same for all compressors.
7 Lessons Learned
Several lessons can be taken from the history of the smart en- ACARE 2020 target
gine project. First is that an interdisciplinary 共fluids, control, struc-
tures, and instrumentation兲 approach was needed for success be- Silent A/C target level
cause the “systems” aspects are critical. To this end, there was
focus on teaming to create the end product, including the devel-
opment of a viewpoint not as fluids people, controls people, or Future
Past Present
structures people, but rather smart engines people. Some of the
difficulties in team building have already been noted: possible Fig. 12 Progress in noise reduction †45‡
long start-up time, lack of a common language and of an appre-
ciation for cross-disciplinary challenges, and a tension between
the need for breadth across and depth within the different disci-
plines. To aid the process, it was important to have tangible rec- implication also of longest to develop兲 success goal for active
ognition from project leaders for work in other than their home control, and of having a clearly defined road map of objectives
disciplines 共in our case, the senior faculty were from the turbine and barriers which is shared by all participants cannot be overem-
engine aerodynamics community兲. One measure of the teaming phasized. This carries over directly into the second case history,
can be seen from the reference list, which contains publications the silent aircraft initiative 共SAI兲, where, although the project was
with three or more faculty and with colleagues from the industry very different, we will see many of the same points concerning
and the government. collaboration.
Second, as known all along by control practitioners, adding
feedback control can change the system dynamics. A controlled
compressor is thus a different machine with different stability
properties. This difference can mitigate or remove design con- 8 The Silent Aircraft Initiative (SAI)
straints that previously existed. The lesson for device experts is to Aircraft noise is recognized as a major barrier in the expansion
recognize that some of the tried and true rules of thumb for fluid of airport operation 关41,42兴. The evolution of noise reductions
machinery may have to be reexamined in light of new approaches. shows a progression that had an initially steep downward trend
A third lesson relates to knowledge flow and learning. A feature but is now leveling out. As stated in Ref. 关43兴, “the downward
not apparent when we started is that such flow can occur in 共at trend in noise exposure around airports of past years…has now
least兲 two directions. The author’s initial 共naive兲 view was that we flattened out at major airports. Virtually all the older aircraft have
would gather information from the various disciplines and meld it been phased out and, while the continued fleet renewal will intro-
together to enable the development of an actively controlled com- duce progressively quieter types, the benefit will be appreciably
pression system. What was found was quite different. The con- less than has been achieved from phasing out of Chapter 2 air-
trolled compressor, in association with system identification tech- craft.” Figure 12 is one version of an often-seen chart showing the
niques, is a new diagnostic tool for exploring compressor fluid evolution of aircraft noise reductions.
dynamics, offering enhanced ways to obtain information. This is SAI was created to address this challenge. The approach was to
an exciting aspect with a benefit that does not need to wait for the set the objective of a radical reduction in noise as a primary de-
development of flight-critical active control systems and that can sign criterion, taking a “clean sheet of paper” outlook. The spe-
carry over to other unsteady phenomena. cific project goal was to provide the conceptual design of an air-
An illustration of the learning is found in forced response ex- craft quiet enough to be imperceptible to people in the urban
periments such as those leading to Fig. 7. The original theory environment around airports. A key question is how such an air-
treated the unsteady flow in the blade rows as an inviscid channel craft would compare to existing and next generation aircrafts in
flow, with the consequence that all modes were calculated to be- terms of fuel burn and emissions, i.e., what would be the penalties
come unstable at the same flow coefficient. The forced response for designing for low noise? As seen below, the answer was that,
experiments showed this was not correct and that a simple first according to the design calculations, one can reduce both the
order rate-process description of the unsteady viscous response noise and the fuel burn.
would be an appropriate addition, leading to the agreement be- A number of noise limitation targets have been set by the avia-
tween experiment and theory seen in Haynes et al. 关25兴. The use tion industry, but SAI aimed at a major step beyond these. This
of the controlled compressor as a diagnostic tool thus provided stretch goal called for highly integrated airframe and engines as
insight into compressor fluid mechanics which was not previously well as for operations and design optimized together for low
achievable. noise, implying that the capabilities of a range of partners in aca-
A fourth aspect, inherent in projects spanning a range of disci- demia, industry, and government would be needed. From the be-
plines, is that there are fields with which some of the participating ginning, therefore, the project was viewed as involving collabora-
senior technical experts are not well acquainted. For academia this tion between organizations and between individuals with different
is a departure from the tradition in which faculty advisors use skills and interests. The scope of work included airframe and en-
their expertise to guide the students. For the smart engine project, gine research, ways to reduce noise by changing takeoff and ap-
there were numerous situations in which the students in a given proach procedures, and an economic assessment of the scenarios
field were much more knowledgeable than most of the faculty. under which the aircraft would present an attractive business case
This posed no difficulties 共except perhaps for the time needed to to an airline and of the possible benefits to the UK economy, both
explain basic ideas to various faculty兲, but it can be a potential bar nationally and regionally.
to creating the necessary linkages between technical experts. SAI was one of the Cambridge-MIT Institute’s 共CMI兲 Knowl-
Finally, the idea of demonstrating often, of aiming at specific edge Integration Communities 共KICs兲, research communities ex-
targets rather than trying to formulate the most general 共with the ploring new ways for the academia, industry, and government to
Deployable Winglet
drooped LE rudder Distributed
Low idle
propulsion
thrust
system
Elevons
Thrust vectoring, (a)
variable area nozzle Centerbody BLI
90
the 2007 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting 关44–50兴. Only a
summary of the performance and underpinning technology is 85
therefore given. 80
For the concept aircraft, the community noise levels are esti-
75 Take-off
mated not to exceed 63 dBA for typical missions, comparable to Sideline
the background noise in urban daytime environments. As de- 70 SAX-40 Approach
scribed by Hileman et al. 关44兴 a reduction in cumulative noise 65
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
14 Max Takeoff Weight 1000 kg
The Cambridge-MIT Institute was a UK government-supported joint venture
between Cambridge University and MIT. SAI was one of a number of projects that
CMI supported in areas 共such as aerospace兲 in which the UK industry has a demon- Fig. 15 Effective perceived noise level „EPNL… for existing
strable competitive position. fleet and „estimated… for SAX-40 †44‡
leading edge can provide the required lift during low speed
2 operations without the use of slats, thus eliminating slat
Boeing 777 noise. The drooped leading edge is stowed at cruise. De-
SAX-40
ployment power levels are comparable to a conventional
1
slat. 共This configuration is used on the Airbus A380.兲
Airbus 320 • Quiet drag (needed on approach) via increased induced
0 drag. Large wing area and high angle of attack provide the
1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025 lift at low speed without using flaps, eliminating a major
source of airframe noise on takeoff and landing. A combi-
Fig. 16 Estimated fuel burn for SAX-40 †44‡
nation of elevons and thrust vectoring can increase the in-
duced drag to the required level, while trimming the aircraft.
• Embedded, aircraft boundary layer ingesting, distributed
number of aspects of the aircraft must undergo major alteration to
propulsion system. Boundary layer ingestion allows a poten-
give the desired noise reduction. Many of the noise reduction
tial reduced fuel burn 关48,53兴. There is a trade between this
design choices are also beneficial in terms of fuel burn, as implied
in Fig. 18, which gives the corresponding technologies for de- gain and the losses due to increased duct length for noise
creased fuel burn. attenuation. Embedding the engines within the airframe im-
The rationale for the features of the aircraft and propulsion plies a need for a high level of airframe-engine integration
system can be briefly listed as follows: because the airframe and engine flow is much more strongly
coupled than in tube and wing designs. In particular, there
• Efficient airframe centerbody design. On approach the air- are several major challenges associated with the ingestion of
frame generates half the noise. To create the desired noise the fuselage boundary layer and the creation of a nonuni-
reductions, the aircraft has conventional supercritical wings form flow into the engine 共distortion兲, which must be ad-
that blend into a lifting body fuselage. As described by dressed for a practical aircraft configuration.
Hileman et al. 关44兴 “the leading edge region of the • Variable area exhaust nozzle to permit ultra-high bypass
ratio, low fan pressure ratio, engines. To reduce the engine
Airframe
noise at takeoff, the engine exhaust velocity must be de-
Variable area
shielding and Ultra-high bypass exhaust nozzle creased. To ensure fan operability at the low fan pressure
extensive liners ratio engines Airfoil trailing
edge treatment ratio needed for low exhaust velocity, the exhaust nozzle is
Quiet drag designed to have variable area, with takeoff bypass ratio of
18 and cruise bypass ratio of 12. The low engine rotational
Deployable drooped speed during approach enabled by the variable nozzle re-
leading edge duces the rearward fan noise and the airframe drag require-
ments.
Advanced
• Airframe shielding of engine noise. Placing the engines
Faired
airframe design undercarriage above the airframe prevents engine noise from reaching the
observer. Engine forward noise sources are virtually eradi-
Optimized take-off Ultra-high bypass
thrust management ratio engines cated on the ground.
Distributed propulsion system • Optimized extensive liners. The embedded propulsion sys-
tem allows smaller engine diameter and thus increases non-
Fig. 17 Enabling technologies for noise reduction †46‡ dimensional 共length/diameter兲 duct length. The long inlet
and exit ducts allow additional acoustic liners, compared to
Distributed boundary-
layer ingesting Variable area conventional nacelles, to absorb engine noise. The use of a
exhaust nozzle
propulsion system multisegment liner design provides an estimated 20 dBA re-
Efficient airfoil duction of engine noise.
• Optimized takeoff thrust management. Thrust, climb angle,
and nozzle area would be continuously varied during takeoff
to maintain a set noise level outside the airport boundary,
allowing the specified noise level to be met all through
departure.
Advanced
airframe design • Low noise approach operational procedures. The sound
power level 共SPL兲 scales as SPL⬀ 共共velocity兲n / 共distance兲2兲,
Ultra-high bypass with the exponent n between 5 and 6. Achieving low noise
ratio engines involves low speed approach 共decreased velocity兲, displaced
Distributed propulsion system threshold for landing 共increased distance兲, and a continuous
descent approach 共increased distance and lower engine
Fig. 18 Enabling technologies for decreased fuel burn †46‡ thrust兲.
High-Lift: Y. Liu -
C. Andreou - Slats / Suction Scattering Effects:
Former Members: A. Townsend - L.E. Rot Cylinder Surface finish
A. Diedrich - SAX10 planform
P. Freuler - Inlet Design A. Quayle - A. Agarwal – Acoustic Shielding H.-C. Shin -
D. Tan - Noise propagation modeling Undercarriage Acoustic Measurements
G. Theis – Economics
& Phased Array Design
N. Sizov – Operations
R. Morimoto - Economics
C. Hope – Economics
K. Sakaliyski – Drag Rudders / Spoilers Chief Engineers: J. Hileman and Z. Spakovszky
P. Collins - KIC Manager
10 The SAI Collaborative Process sor and student as to what the expected intellectual contribution
for the thesis would be and how it was consistent with participa-
10.1 University-Industry-Government Interaction. A range tion in the overall design.
of skills and interests beyond those of the two universities were During several stages in the project, there were design decisions
needed to address the above technologies and the collaboration to be taken, and ad hoc task forces were formed to address these.
included regulators, airport operators, airlines, aerospace manu- Major questions dealt with in this manner were: “What should be
facturers, and representatives of community groups. Our observa- the design range?” and “Should the engines be podded or embed-
tion in this regard is that SAI has been an instructive and useful ded?” The task forces were focused activities of a few weeks
experiment in academic-industry interactions on several levels, duration, drawing on members from all relevant aspects of the
from strategic planning and decisions 共input from the KIC mem- research and involving exchanges of personnel, thus 共again兲 build-
bers had a direct impact on the project goals兲 to detailed working ing working relationships and diffusing “we-they” perspectives.
level technical interchange. Collaboration was integral throughout the project, but it was
There were formal meetings of all the KIC partners at roughly perhaps most critical in the area of aircraft operations, in which
eight-month intervals, but interaction with some organizations the team in Operations worked to develop an advanced form of
was much more frequent and in-depth in terms of access to in- continuous descent approach 共CDA兲 for current aircraft to be as-
house design codes and consulting help. For example, Boeing sessed in trials at Nottingham East Midlands Airport 关54兴. Putting
made available their multidisciplinary design optimization code, the new procedures in place was a many-step task that required
WingMOD, which optimizes the aircraft platform for a given mis- agreements between air traffic controllers, regulators, suppliers,
sion, and academic researchers were able to use Rolls-Royce de- airport operators, and airlines; it was an example of something
sign, performance, and noise evaluation tools to examine concepts that could not have been achieved without this type of partnership.
for potential engine designs. In addition Boeing, Rolls-Royce, The silent aircraft project brought industry, academia, and other
NASA, and ITP conducted reviews and provided feedback on the stakeholders together around a “grand challenge” that captured the
designs. enthusiasm and imagination of the participants, who felt they were
As mentioned previously, a team project that is carried out as involved in something special. The KIC included industry, gov-
part of student degree programs contains a set of goals, which has ernment, and academia and provided an exciting way to address
an inherent tension. Each student needs to develop the new ideas problems with a large reach and a potential for step-change im-
that comprise his or her thesis to receive a degree; these need to provements. In addition to the conceptual design for a new type of
be visible as a contribution that the particular student has made. aircraft, some of the technologies developed could be introduced
However, there is also a need for the research results to be inte- into more incremental aircraft and engine designs. In short, col-
grated into a workable design concept. To help with this latter laboration and teaming occurred in basically all aspects of the
issue, Fig. 19, put together early in the project and modified as project and because of this SAI was very much an enterprise in
necessary, shows how the contributions of students, staff, and fac- which the whole was greater than the sum of the separate parts.
ulty fit into the overall design. The figure, which appeared in a
number of presentations and which was almost an icon for the 11 Some Additional Perspectives and the Connection
project, provided a very real framework for discussions of respon-
sibility and deliverables, strengthening the ability to work as an With IGTI
integrated product team. The two project histories have been put forward as representa-
Weekly videoconferences, and even more regular email and tives of a more general application, and it is useful to now place
telephone contact, were essential for this design integration. Also the ideas in a broader context. This will be done along two differ-
essential was a clear, mutual, and explicit understanding of advi- ent lines. One is to give an indication of the extent to which these