Combined-Cycle Engine for Next-Generation Aircraft
Research team
- Lucia Azzini (PhD Candidate)
- Carlo De Servi (Postdoc Researcher)
- Arvind Gangoli Rao (Associate Professor)
- Piero Colonna (Professor)
Duration
Not specified
Research summary
The aviation industry is always looking for new and innovative solutions to increase aircraft performance and reduce fuel burn. However, most of current technologies are reaching their physical limits and therefore increasing engine efficiency is becoming difficult.
The revolutionary technology proposed with this project is the use of an advanced, compact and efficient onboard waste heat recovery (WHR) unit, to extract heat from the exhaust gases before the expansion in the core nozzle. Since aero engines reject a substantial amount of heat in their exhaust gases (inherent to their thermodynamic working cycle), the unique supercritical CO2 cycle increases the overall efficiency of the engine.
The non-conventional fluid chosen for this specific application is supercritical CO2, because
- The novel configuration of the cycle guarantees a high efficiency also at relatively lower operating temperatures.
- Carbon dioxide is nontoxic, inflammable and is characterized by high thermal stability.
A preliminary thermodynamic analysis shows that this novel WHR system can increase the overall efficiency of the engine by around 10 %. However the simple add-on is not a suitable solution. In order to build a competitive engine, the WHR sCO2 unit, the aero engine and the aircraft must be designed simultaneously. The aim of this joint project is to design the next generation civil aircraft and engine using this novel technology. The team would couple the capabilities of the aircraft design and simulation, SUAVE, with in-house tools for modelling the CCE configuration.
Project Partners
