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| System Design and Integration for Flight Vehicles |
| | The ability of a flight vehicle to complete a given task is a function of the fundamental design decisions, choice of control actuators, controller inputs and the interaction between these. By investigating these relationships and interactions and optimising the choices made during the design process, the optimum vehicle design for a given requirement can be defined. This goal will be attained through ongoing research in these fields:
- System design and vehicle integration
- Flight dynamic analysis
- Inverse simulation of hypersonic vehicle dynamics
- Design optimisation |
| Keywords: | system design, integration, inverse simulation |
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| Transverse Control Jets in Hypersonic Flow |
| | Transverse jets are an efficient way to control high speed and high altitude vehicles. Their key advantage is that no extra drag is created during straight flight when the jet is not used and that the control force acting on the vehicle can be magnified due to jet to free-stream interactions.
- Experimental characterisation of jet to free-stream interaction
- Modelling of Jet
- Improving understanding of control force magnification
- Further control force magnification through intentional interactions with surrounding structures (e.g. fences, wings) |
| Keywords: | transverse jet, hypersonics, flight control |
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| Gas Turbine Oil System |
| | Inefficient management of the oil flow within gearboxes and bearing chambers in gas turbines and other high speed turbo machinery can have multiple adverse effects such as increased heat generation, oil degradation, localised overheating and oil fires. To eliminate these effects, research in the following fields is ongoing:
- Characterisation of physical effects controlling oil flow
- Modelling of 2-phase flow under bearing chamber representative conditions
- Analysis and characterisation of oil flow and structure interactions
- Integration of oil flow and structural requirements |
| Images: |
| Bearing chamber flow
Possible 2-phase flow regimes in turbomachinery bearing chambers. |
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| Keywords: | oil system, 2-phase flow, gas turbine, gearboxes |
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| Advanced Seals / Air-Riding Seals |
| | Improving the performance and durability of air-air and air-oil seals is essential to increasing gas turbine efficiencies. This is due to the high secondary air system losses associated with conventional seals. These are due to increase with the arrival of even higher overall pressure ratio cycles. Air-riding seals are a technology that gives a step improvement in seal performance while at the same time ensuring long term performance retention. Key aspects of the seal development are:
- Modelling of air-riding film
- Analysis of unsteady operation
- Investigate effects of misalignments and swash
- Integration into gas turbine environment |
| Keywords: | gas turbine, seals, air-riding |
