Modeling of Topside Ionosphere and Plasmasphere

We developed a new topside ionosphere and plasmasphere model using a machine learning technique using approximately five million electron density datasets from the Japanese satellites, namely, Hinotori, Akebono, and Arase. The topside ionosphere and plasmasphere model (TIP-model) can estimate electron densities at altitudes ranging from 500 km to 30,000 km in terms of latitude, longitude, universal time, season, and solar and magnetic activities with time history. The model shows the time-dependent 3D structure of the plasmasphere in response to solar and magnetic activities. The constructed TIP-model reproduces plasmapause, plasma tail/erosion of the plasmasphere, and the plasma escape near the magnetic pole. The total electron content (TEC) in the plasmasphere was also obtained through the integration of electron density from 2,000 km to 30,000 km altitudes. The TEC of the plasmasphere is approximately 5 TECU near the magnetic equator, and it depends strongly on geomagnetic latitude, longitude, local time, and solar and magnetic activities.

Effect of in-service burnout on the transonic tip leakage flows over flat tip model

Un-shrouded turbine blades are more common than shrouded ones in gas turbine aero-engines since they reduce the weight and avoid the centrifugal loading caused by the blades’ shrouds. Despite these important advantages, the absence of the shroud leads to leakage flows across the tip gap and exposes the blade tip to high thermal load and thermal damages. In addition, the leakage flows can contribute up to 30% of the aerodynamic loss in a turbine stage. In this study, the effect of in-service burnout is explored using a fundamental flat tip model of a high-pressure gas turbine blade. This investigation is carried out both experimentally in a transonic wind tunnel and computationally using the Reynolds Averaged Navier-stokes approach at high-speed conditions. It is found that exposing the tip to the in-service burnout effect changes the leakage flow behaviour significantly when compared with the tip with sharp edges (i.e. the tip at the start of its operational life). Different flow acceleration, flow structure and shockwave pattern and interactions are captured for the round-edge flat tip (i.e. the tip exposed to in-service burnout). The effective tip gap is found to be much larger for the round-edge flat tip allowing more leakage flow into the tip gap which results into higher tip leakage losses in comparison to the sharp-edge tip. Experimental and computational flow visualisations, surface pressure distributions and discharge coefficient are given and analysed for several pressure ratios over the tip gap.