A Scalability Study of the Multirotor Biplane Tailsitter Using Conceptual Sizing

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Ananth Sridharan ◽  
Bharath Govindarajan ◽  
Inderjit Chopra

This paper presents a methodology for preliminary sizing of unconventional rotorcraft using a physics-based approach to estimate the weight of primary load-carrying members and rotor efficiencies. The methodology is demonstrated for a quadrotor biplane tailsitter, a tilt-body configuration that can operate in both helicopter and airplane mode. A beam lattice framework for the airframe structure is iteratively adjusted in the sizing loop to accommodate the limit loads. A similar semianalytical approach is followed to size and estimate weight of the rotor blades. Using this analysis, a consistent combination of vehicle macrodimensions (rotor radius, wing span) and tip speed as well as detailed design parameters (spar height, skin thickness, and cross-section weight) are obtained simultaneously. To compare the effectiveness of various power plants within a weight class, the sizing methodology was modified to identify the payload for three different vehicle takeoff weights: 20, 50, and 1000 lb. To enable operation within constrained urban canyons, the effect of restricting maximum vehicle dimensions to 10 ftfor the 1000-lb designs is also examined. An electric transmission model is used in these designs owing to its relative insensitivity of transmission efficiency to the operating RPM. A variable-pitch and variable-RPM rotor design allows for control redundancy within each rotor.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianzhong Cui ◽  
Hu Li ◽  
Dong Zhang ◽  
Yawen Xu ◽  
Fangwei Xie

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the flexible dynamic characteristics about hydro-viscous drive providing meaningful insights into the credible speed-regulating behavior during the soft-start. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive dynamic transmission model is proposed to investigate the effects of key parameters on the dynamic characteristics. To achieve a trade-off between the transmission efficiency and time proportion of hydrodynamic and mixed lubrication, a multi-objective optimization of friction pair system by genetic algorithm is presented to obtain the optimal combination of design parameters. Findings Decreasing the engagement pressure or the ratio of inner and outer radius, increasing the lubricating oil viscosity or the outer radius will result in the increase of time proportion of hydrodynamic and mixed lubrication, as well as the transmission efficiency and its maximum value. After optimization, main dynamic parameters including the oil film thickness, angular velocity of the driven disk, viscous torque and total torque show remarkable flexible transmission characteristics. Originality/value Both the dynamic transmission model and multi-objective optimization model are established to analyze the effects of main design parameters on the dynamic characteristics of hydro-viscous flexible drive.


Author(s):  
Motoki Takahashi ◽  
Ken Suzuki ◽  
Hideo Miura

Ni-base superalloys consisting of binary phases such as cuboidal γ’ (Ni3Al) precipitates orderly dispersed in the γ matrix (Ni-rich matrix) have been generally used for rotor blades in energy power plants. However, fine dispersed γ’ precipitates are coarsened perpendicularly to the applied load direction during high temperature creep loading. As this phenomenon called “Rafting” proceeds, the strengthened micro texture disappears and then, cracks starts to grow rapidly along the boundaries of the layered texture. Thus, it is very important to evaluate the change of the crystallinity of the alloy in detail for explicating the atomic scale damage process. In this study, the change of the micro-texture of the Ni-base superalloy (CM247LC) was observed by using EBSD method. The change in the crystallinity was evaluated using both Kernel Average Misorientation (KAM) and image quality (IQ) values. The KAM value indicates the dislocation density and the IQ value shows the order of atom arrangement in the observed area. As a result, KAM value showed no significant change with increasing the creep damage. On the other hand, the IQ value monotonically shifted to lower values and the average IQ value gradually decreased as the creep loading time increased. Decreasing IQ value without change in KAM value implies that the density of point defects such as vacancies mainly increased under creep loading and ordered Ll2 structure became disordered. Therefore, the creep damage of this alloy is mainly dominated by not the accumulation of dislocations, but the increase in the disorder of atom arrangement in the micro texture caused by the diffusion of component elements.


Author(s):  
Cedric Devriese ◽  
Gijs Penninx ◽  
Guido de Ruiter ◽  
Rob Bastiaans ◽  
Ward De Paepe

Abstract Against the background of a growing deployment of renewable electricity production, like wind and solar, the demand for energy storage will only increase. One of the most promising ways to cover the medium to long-term storage is to use the excess electricity to produce hydrogen via electrolysis. In a modern energy grid, filled with intermittent power sources and ever-increasing problems to construct large power plants in densely populated areas, a network of Decentralised Energy Systems (DES) seems more logical. Therefore, the importance of research into the design of a small to medium-sized hydrogen fuelled micro Gas Turbine (mGT) unit for efficient, local heat and electricity production becomes apparent. To be able to compete with Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICEs), the mGT needs to reach 40% electrical efficiency. To do so, there are two main challenges; the design of an ultra-low NOX hydrogen combustor and a high Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT) radial turbine. In this paper, we report on the progress of our work towards that goal. First, an improvement of the initial single-nozzle swirler (swozzle) combustor geometry was abandoned in favour of a full CFD (steady RANS) design and optimisation of a micromix type combustion chamber, due to its advantages towards NOx-emission reduction. Second, a full CFD design and optimisation of the compressor and turbine is performed. The improved micromix combustor geometry resulted in a NOx level reduction of more than 1 order of magnitude compared to our previous swozzle design (from 1400 ppm to 250 ppm). Moreover, several design parameters, such as the position and diameter of the hydrogen injection nozzle and the Air Guiding Panel (AGP) height, have been optimized to improve the flow patterns. Next to the combustion chamber, CFD simulations of the compressor and turbine matched the 1D performance calculations and reached the desired performance goals. A CFD analysis of the impact of the tip gap and exhaust diffuser cone angle led to a choice of these parameters that improved the compressor and turbine performance with a limited loss in efficiency.


Author(s):  
Kutay Celebioglu ◽  
Gizem Okyay ◽  
Mehmet Yildiz

Many hydro power plants, both in small and large scales, are being constructed in Turkey. The total potential of these projects reach to 216 billion kWh of feasible energy. However a method was not yet developed for the design of hydraulic machinery equipment in Turkey. In order to accomplish the hydraulic turbine design without any prior information than the design parameters of the hydraulic project, a methodology is developed. This methodology involves the use of computational tools and it is applied for small hydro projects. This methodology is a parametric design-optimization procedure which consists of parametric geometry modeling, computational fluid dynamics analysis and structural verification.


Author(s):  
M. D. Duran ◽  
E. A. Rinco´n ◽  
M. Sa´nchez

This work describes the thermoeconomic study of an integrated combined cycle parabolic trough power plant. The parabolic trough plant will economize boiler activity, and thus the thermoeconomic optimization of the configuration of the boiler, including the parabolic trough plant, will be achieved. The objective is to obtain the optimum design parameters for the boiler and the size of the parabolic field. The proposal is to apply the methodology employed by Duran [1] and Valde´s et. al. [2], but with the inclusion of the parabolic trough plant into the optimization problem. It is important to point out that the optimization model be applied to a single pressure level configuration. For future works, it is proposed that the same model be applied to different configurations of integrated combined cycle solar power plants. As a result the optimum thermoeconomic design will be obtained for a parabolic trough plant used to economize the HRSG.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karna Potwar ◽  
Jeffrey Ackerman ◽  
Justin Seipel

Carriage of heavy loads is common in developing countries and can impart large repetitive forces on the body that could lead to musculoskeletal fatigue and injury. Compliant bamboo poles have been used to carry heavy loads in Asia for generations and could be a low-cost, sustainable, and culturally acceptable way to minimize the forces acting on the body during load carriage. Experimental evidence of running with a 15 kg load suspended from a pair of compliant poly(vinyl chloride), or PVC, poles shows that the poles act as a vibration-isolating suspension, which can reduce the peak forces on the body during locomotion. However, it is currently not well-understood how to design and optimize poles for load carrying such that the peak forces on the body are minimized during carrying. Further, current users of bamboo poles do not have a reliable way to measure forces on the body and so cannot empirically optimize their poles for force reduction. Our objective is to determine the geometric and material design parameters that optimize bamboo poles for load carriage and to develop recommendations that could make it easier for load carriers to fabricate well-suited poles. Our approach is to synthesize a predictive model of walking and running from the field of biomechanics, which can predict the peak forces on the body as a function of pole stiffness, with a bending beam model of the bamboo pole that relates pole geometry and material to the effective pole stiffness. We first check our model's ability to predict the experimental results from a well-established study with PVC poles. We then extend the predictive design study to include a wider range of stiffness values and pole geometries that may be more effective and realistic for practical load carrying situations. Based on stiffness, deflection, strength, and pole mass design constraints, we specify an appropriate range of dimensions for selecting bamboo poles to carry a 15 kg load. The design methodology presented could simplify the selection and design of bamboo carrying poles in order to reduce the likelihood of musculoskeletal injury.


2020 ◽  
Vol 124 (1275) ◽  
pp. 731-766
Author(s):  
T. Fitzgibbon ◽  
M. Woodgate ◽  
G. Barakos

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an assessment of current rotor design comparison practices. First, the employed CFD method is validated for a number of rotor designs and is shown to achieve accurate performance predictions in hover and high-speed forward flight. Based on CFD results, a detailed investigation is performed in terms of comparing different rotor designs. The CFD analysis highlighted the need of high fidelity methods due to the subtle aerodynamics involved in advanced planforms. Nevertheless, the paper suggests that the correct basis for comparison in terms of performance metrics must be used to inform decisions about the suitability of the rotor blades designs for specific applications. In particular, when comparing blades of advanced planforms, direct torque and thrust comparisons are better than the commonly used lift to drag ratio and figure of merit.


1975 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-627
Author(s):  
G. S. Liao

Many nuclear stations do not incorporate deaerators in their feedwater heating systems. To attain high turbine cycle performance without a deaerator, a drain pumping system is widely used for returning hot drains from the high-pressure heaters to the feedwater system. With a greatly increased feedwater flow for nuclear units, together with the drain pumping system being moved to a higher extraction point, the heater–drain tank system will be subject to a rapid pressure decay under turbine load rejections. In addition, the drain pump suction flow reduces considerably, thereby increasing the suction pipe resident time. It is these critical changes in operating conditions that should receive careful consideration in drain pumping system design. This paper presents an analytical approach for determining drain tank pressure decay, drain pump suction pressure decay, and transient behavior of the heater–drain tank system based on analysis of closed feedwater heater performance and the varying feedwater temperature entering the heater under turbine load rejections. The emphasis is placed on adequate and optimum design of a drain pumping system, including a discussion of some design criteria to be followed, as well as sizing of the pressure equalizer between heater and drain tank. All mathematical equations required for determining the design parameters are derived. Finally, some example calculations are given to illustrate the application of the developed analytical approach to system design.


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