This paper assesses new commercial opportunities in space. The main conclusion is that spaceplanes can reduce the cost of human transport to orbit sufficiently for large new commercial markets to develop. Combining the reusability of spaceplanes with the high traffic levels of space tourism offers the prospect of a thousandfold reduction in the cost per seat to orbit. The result will be airline operations to orbit involving dozens of spaceplanes, each capable of one or two flights per day. These low costs will make possible a rapid expansion of space science and exploration.

The prototype of a small orbital spaceplane, needed to trigger this line of development, could be developed in about six years at a cost comparable to one or two flights of the Space Shuttle. It might be possible to progress from this prototype to airline operations within ten years, given a massive development effort.

Hot gas ingestion (HGI) can be a problematic feature of short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft during the descent phase of landing, or while on the ground. The hot exhaust gases from the downwards pointing nozzles can be re-ingested into the engine intakes, causing power degradation or reduced engine surge margin. The flow-fields that characterise this phenomenon are complex, with supersonic impinging jets and cross-flows creating large ground vortices and fountain up-wash flows.

A flow solver has been developed to include a suitable linear mesh deformation technique for the descending aircraft configuration. The code has been applied to predict the occurrence of HGI, by simulating experimental results from a 1/15th scale model of a descending Harrier. This has enabled an understanding of the aerodynamic mechanisms that govern HGI, in terms of the near-field and far-field effects and their impact on the magnitude of temperatures at the engine intake.

This paper presents three sets of CFD results. First a validation exercise shows predicted results from the twin-jet with intake in crossflow test-case. This is an unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) solution for a static geometry (there is no moving mesh). This allows comparison with experiment. Secondly, a full descent phase URANS Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model calculation is done on an 8·5m cell mesh for half the flow domain of the Harrier model and test-rig without dams/strakes. This shows how the HGI flow mechanisms affect the engine intake temperature profiles, for the case where there are no flow control methods on the underside of the aircraft. Thirdly, the full descent phase URANS SA turbulence model calculation is done on a 22·4m cell mesh for the full flow domain of the Harrier model and test-rig, with the dam/strake geometry included in the structured mesh region.

This paper continues development of the fundamental analytical science, methodology and tools required for the analysis, design, and optimisation of high speed aerospace vehicles in terms of the efficient use of on-board energy. Specifically, it presents the complete second-law characterisation and related system-level energy management effectiveness for high-speed vehicles (coupling both aerodynamic and propulsive subsystems). Modelling of the fluid dynamics utilises high-level (multi-dimensional) flow-fields representative of generic configurations of interest. Capability has been recently developed which allows detailed second-law performance audits in terms of the ‘common currency’ of entropy generation for high-speed vehicles (involving complete synthesis of both internal and external flow-fields, i.e. both aerodynamic and propulsive sub-systems). This capability is now extended to encompass and utilise multi-dimensional flow-fields generated by computational fluid dynamics solvers, including Navier-Stokes solvers. Furthermore, the methodology is shown in this paper to provide insight and fundamental direction for management of onboard energy (‘price paid’) for maximum performance missions.

The paper investigates, by means of a simulation methodology, the flow separating from a 40 degrees backward-swept wing at 9 degrees incidence and Reynolds number of 210,000, based on the wing-root chord length. The Simulation corresponds to LDA, PIV and suction-side-topology measurements for the same geometry, conducted by other investigators specifically to provide validation data. The finest block-structured mesh contains 23·6 million nodes and is organised in 256 blocks to maximise mesh quality and facilitate parallel solution on multi-processor machines. The near-wall layer is resolved, to a thickness of about y+ = 20, by means of parabolised URANS equations that include an algebraic eddy-viscosity model and from which the wall-shear stress is extracted to provide an unsteady boundary condition for the simulation. The numerical solution is in good agreement with the experimental behaviour over the 50-70% inboard portion of the span, but the simulation fails to resolve some complex features close to the wing tip, due to a premature leading-edge vortex breakdown and loss in vortex coherence. The comparisons and their discussion provide useful insight into various physical characteristics of this complex separated wing flow.

This paper describes the development and validation of a high fidelity simulation model of the Bell 412 helicopter for handling qualities and flight control investigations. The base-line model features a rigid, articulated blade-element formulation of the main rotor, with flap and lag degrees of freedom. The Bell 412 HP engine/governor dynamics are represented by a second-order system. Other key features of the base-line model include a finite-state dynamic inflow model and lag damper dynamics. The base-line model gives excellent agreement with flight-test data over the speed range 15-120kt for on-axis responses. Prediction of off-axis responses is less accurate. Several model enhancement options were introduced to obtain an improved off-axis response. It is shown that the pitch/roll off-axis responses in transient manoeuvres can be improved significantly by including wake geometry distortion effects in the Peters-He finite-state dynamic inflow model.

When the stagnation temperature of a perfect gas increases, the specific heats and their ratio do not remain constant and start to vary with the temperature. The gas remains perfect; its state equations remain valid, so it can be named as calorifically imperfect gas. The aim of this research is to develop the necessary thermodynamic and geometrical equations and to study the supersonic flow at high temperature, lower than the dissociation threshold. The results are found by the resolution of nonlinear algebraic equations and integration of complex analytical functions where the exact calculation is impossible. The dichotomy method is used to solve the nonlinear equations and Simpson’s algorithm for the numerical integration applied. A condensation of the nodes is used. The functions to be integrated have a high gradient at the extremity of the interval of integration. The comparison is made with the calorifically perfect gas to determine the error. The application is made for air in a supersonic nozzle.

A unique experimental method is used, in combination with numerical calculation and engineering estimation, to study the aerodynamic performance of an ejection seat at M = 0·60, 0·90 and 1·20, angles-of-attack α = 0°~360°, and sideslip angles (β = 0°~–90°. Several basic characteristics of the aerodynamic performance are explored. The normal force of the ejection seat varies in a sinusoidal way and the axial force in a cosinoidal way, with the angle-of-attack. The model is statically unstable longitudinally at most attitude angles and the longitudinal stability could be improved by a stabiliser. These characteristics result from a large low pressure area caused by the leeward separation and the windward high pressure area in the ejection seat flow field, at all α, due to the blunt configuration. A set of engineering calculation formulae is deduced, based on the aerodynamic characteristics of the ejection seat.

The present paper continues the work of Zhu et al. The closed-form expressions for the evaluation of forces on a body in compressible, viscous and rotational flow derived in the previous paper have been extended to different forms. The expressions require only a knowledge of the velocity field (and its derivatives) in a finite and arbitrarily chosen region enclosing the body. The equations are implemented on three-dimensional inviscid flows over wings and wing/body combinations. Further implementation on three-dimensional viscous flows over wings has also been investigated.

In many engineering applications (e.g. helicopters, turbines, compressors), lifting surfaces experience unsteady motion or are perturbed by unsteady incoming flows. Horizontal axis wind turbine rotors experience large time dependent variations in angle-of-attack as a result of control input angles, blade flapping, structural response and wake inflow. In addition, the blade sections encounter substantial periodic variations in local velocity and sweep angle. Thus, the unsteady aerodynamic behaviour of the blade sections must be properly understood to enable accurate predictions of the air loads and aero elastic response of the rotor system.

In commercially available gas turbine performance simulation tools, individual engine components are typically represented with non-dimensional maps of experimental or default data. In those cases where actual component characteristics are not available and default characteristics are used instead, conventional tools can deviate substantially at off-design and transient conditions. Similarly, when real component characteristics are available, conventional engine cycle simulation tools can not predict the performance of the engine at other than nominal conditions satisfactorily, or account for the impact of changes in component geometry.

This study looked into the full integration of two-dimensional streamline curvature component models with a low fidelity cycle program. Firstly, the obtained engine performance was compared against the one calculated based on default component characteristics. As a second case study, a range of flight Mach numbers and angles of attack were examined together with the effect of three different intake lip geometries on the performance of a notional, two-spool, low-bypass ratio, military engine. Two-dimensional models were used in the engine cycle analysis to provide a more accurate, physics- and geometry-based estimate of intake and fan performances.

The analysis carried out by this study demonstrated relative changes in the predicted engine performance larger than 1%. For briefness, representative results are presented and discussed in this paper for one flight Mach number and angle of attack setting. More importantly, this research effort established the necessary methodology and technology required towards a full, two-dimensional engine cycle analysis at an affordable computational resource in the very short term.

Aspects of parallel simulation of rotor flows are considered. These flows can be extremely expensive for a compressible finite-volume CFD code, and parallelisation can be essential. The award of HPCx time through the UK Applied Aerodynamics Consortium has allowed large rotor simulations to be performed and wake grid dependence to be investigated. However, there are several issues that need to be investigated when considering very large simulations, including the grid generation process, the parallel flow-solver, including an effective mesh motion approach, and visualisation options. Details of these are presented here, with particular emphasis on the flow-solver parallel performance. A detailed performance analysis of the unsteady flow-solver has been undertaken and the code optimised to improve parallel performance, and details of the parallel scaling performance are presented. The parallel scaling of the code is very good on all the HPC architectures tested here, and this has been recognised by an HPCx Gold Star Capability Incentive award. Results of simulation of a fourbladed lifting rotor in forward flight are also presented, for two mesh densities. It is shown that the solution computed on the serial limit on mesh size, around four million cells, exhibits excessive diffusion, and is of limited use in terms of detailed flow features. The results on a very fine mesh, 32 million cells, have shown a much better solution resolution, and it is also demonstrated that the λ2 vortex core visualisation option is extremely useful.

A solution methodology is developed to solve plane stress problem of composite plates with variable stiffness by using Galerkin technique and polynomials as trial functions. In the solution process, analytical computation has been done wherever it is possible, and analytical-numerical type approach has been made for all problems. The methodology is applied to two known case problems, composite plate with variable fibre content and laminated plate with spatially varying fibre orientations. The formulation of these problems results into coupled partial differential equations (with variable coefficients). The solutions of these equations are obtained using the polynomials as trial functions in the Galerkin method. The results are compared to that of Ritz and collocation technique published elsewhere. The method is found to determine closely both the displacements and the stresses with a few number of terms and in good agreement with other approximating methods. Computations on some examples show that, the method with the help of a symbolic math package is simple and efficient for solving these types of problems in engineering applications.

New model calculations suggest that the potential impact on the atmosphere of a future fleet of supersonic aircraft, for the year 2015, is highly dependent upon the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted from the fleet. This result contrasts with the IPCC assessment which suggested that the impact of supersonic aircraft on the atmosphere was primarily through the role of water vapour emissions both on atmospheric ozone and climate change. These new findings are extremely important for atmospheric scientists, the aviation industry and policy makers, highlighting the importance of further development of low NOx combustors for supersonic aircraft, an aspect which has been largely ignored following the IPCC Special Report.

Although macro-scale synthetic jets are well studied, our knowledge of the behaviour of micro-scale synthetic jets is still extremely limited due to the difficulty in performing detailed measurements with a desirable spatial solution. In the work presented in this paper, a PIV study of the characteristics of synthetic jets issued into quiescent air from orifices of 5mm and 0·5mm diameter respectively is undertaken. It is found that the vortex rollup is much weaker for the 0·5mm jets due to their low Stokes number which results in a near parabolic exit velocity profile. To ensure an appreciable vortex rollup that is desirable for effective flow control, the actuator has to be operated at much higher frequencies to ensure that the Stokes number is greater than a certain threshold value. Furthermore the study shows that the characteristics of synthetic jets of different scales are identical when the dimensionless stroke length (L), Stokes number (S) and Reynolds number (ReL) are the same. On the basis of these scaling parameters, the finding acquired from the studies on macro-scale actuators can be applicable to micro-scale actuators, which are more difficult to measure. Finally, it is also found that although the linear relationships between (L and ReL) and actuator operating conditions observed for macro-scale synthetic jets are no longer valid for micro-scale synthetic jets, the linear relationships between the dimensionless jet performance parameters and (L and ReL) still exist for micro-scale synthetic jets.

Scramjet engines are used under extreme temperatures and with wide range of Mach numbers from 3 to 8 or higher and have shown different control properties from other airbreathing engines. New control problems involving distributed parameter control have been found concerning investigations of the control of scramjet engines whose physical states are spatially interacted and whose governing equations are partial differential equations. The work of this paper is based on the application of distributed parameter control conception to study the control problems of scramjet engines with the aim of achieving the desirable design properties and increasing control reliability. A new control idea based on shape control theory is put forward to realise the distributed parameter control of scramjet engines with the preconditions of proper space dimension and frequency-domain simplification. Simulation results and theoretic analysis for an axisymmetric, wall-injection scramjet engine show the feasibility and validity of the control idea.

The mutual interaction between the main rotor and tail rotor wakes is central to some of the most problematic dynamic phenomena experienced by helicopters. Yet achieving the ability to model the growth and propagation of helicopter rotor wakes with sufficient realism to capture the details of this interaction has been a significant challenge to rotorcraft aerodynamicists for many decades. A novel computational fluid dynamics code tailored specifically for rotorcraft applications, the vorticity transport model, has been used to simulate the interaction of the rotors of a helicopter with a single main rotor and tail rotor in both hover and low-speed quartering flight, and with the tail rotor rotating both top-forward and top-aft. The simulations indicate a significant level of unsteadiness in the performance of both main and tail rotors, especially in quartering flight, and a sensitivity to the direction of rotation of the tail rotor. Although the model thus captures behaviour that is similar to that observed in practice, the challenge still remains to integrate the information from high fidelity simulations such as these into routine calculations of the flight dynamics of helicopters.

The long-term goal is to design and manufacture optimal ‘on-demand’ vortex generators, ‘dimples’ that can produce vortices of prescribed strength and duration for the real-time control of aerodynamic flows that are either undergoing transition or are fully turbulent, attached or separating. Electro-active polymers (EAP) are ideal for a dimple control surface, offering high strain rate, fast response, and high electromechanical efficiency. EAP can also be used as the basis of a resistanc – or capacitance – change pressure sensor, development of which has just begun. In terms of manufacture, inkjet printing of EAP also offers a paradigm shift such that a monolithic control surface is a very real possibility. Important features for integration into a control system are robustness and a predictable, repeatable motion. With these objectives in mind, the suitability of EAP-based actuators is assessed both mechanically and aerodynamically. The ultimate goal is to integrate these devices, along with shear-stress and pressure sensors and distributed control, also under development, into a flexible ‘smart skin’ which could be incorporated into an airframe structure. The response of a laminar boundary layer to forcing is investiagted using mechanical dimples.

The influence of flow compressibility on a highly-cambered inverted aerofoil in ground effect is presented, based on two-dimensional computational studies. This type of problem has relevance to open-wheel racing cars, where local regions of high-speed subsonic flow form under favourable pressure gradients, even though the maximum freestream Mach number is typically considerably less than Mach 0·3. An important consideration for CFD users in this field is addressed in this paper: the freestream Mach number at which flow compressibility significantly affects aerodynamic performance. More broadly, for aerodynamicists, the consequences of this are also considered. Comparisons between incompressible and compressible CFD simulations are used to identify important changes to the flow characteristics caused by density changes, highlighting the inappropriateness of incompressible simulations of ground effect flows for freestream Mach numbers as low as 0·15.

This paper describes how it is possible to reduce the profile losses on ultra high lift low pressure (LP) turbine blade profiles with the application of selected surface roughness and wake unsteadiness. Over the past several years, an understanding of wake interactions with the suction surface boundary layer on LP turbines has allowed the design of blades with ever increasing levels of lift. Under steady flow conditions, ultra high lift profiles would have large (and possibly open) separation bubbles present on the suction side which result from the very high diffusion levels. The separation bubble losses produced by it are reduced when unsteady wake flows are present. However, LP turbine blades have now reached a level of loading and diffusion where profile losses can no longer be controlled by wake unsteadiness alone.

The ultra high lift profiles investigated here were created by attaching a flap to the trailing edge of another blade in a linear cascade — the so called flap-test technique. The experimental set-up used in this investigation allows for the simulation of upstream wakes by using a moving bar system. Hotwire and hotfilm measurements were used to obtain information about the boundary-layer state on the suction surface of the blade as it evolved in time. Measurements were taken at a Reynolds numbers ranging between 100,000 and 210,000.

Two types of ultra high lift profile were investigated; ultra high lift and extended ultra high lift, where the latter has 25% greater back surface diffusion as well as a 12% increase in lift compared to the former. Results revealed that distributed roughness reduced the size of the separation bubble with steady flow. When wakes were present, the distributed roughness amplified disturbances in the boundary layer allowing for more rapid wake induced transition to take place, which tended to eliminate the separation bubble under the wake. The extended ultra high lift profile generated only slightly higher losses than the original ultra high lift profile, but more importantly it generated 12% greater lift.

Numerical analysis of the flow in weapon bays modelled as open rectangular cavities of length-to-depth (L/D) ratio of 5 and width-to-depth (W/D) ratio of 1 with doors-on and doors-off is presented. Flow conditions correspond to Mach and Reynolds numbers (based on cavity length) of 0·85 and 6·783m respectively. Results from unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS), large-eddy simulation (LES) and detached-eddy simulation (DES) are compared with the simulation methods demonstrating the best prediction of this complex flow. It was found that URANS was not able to predict the change of flow characteristics between the doors-on and doors-off configurations. In addition, the energy content of the cavity flow modes was much better resolved with DES and LES. Further, the DES was found to be quite capable for this problem giving accurate results (within 3dB of) experiments and appears to be a promising alternative to LES for modelling massively separated flows.