In-flight, self-adjusting turbine engines being researched by Army
NewsDecember 02, 2020
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) announced that a team of U.S. Army and academic researchers have developed a novel design to automatically adjust aircraft rotor blade positions while already in-flight, a tactic intended to improve turbine engine performance.
According to DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory, Iowa State University, and Brown University, researchers used Army supercomputers to conduct coupled computational fluid dynamics and surrogate model analysis to develop new variable speed concepts, particularly during dynamic movements.
Officials claims that this discovery could improve performance of Army helicopters and other machinery using turbine engines such as turboshaft, turbofan, or turbojet powered aviation vehicles across the Department of Defense and the civilian sectors.
Army aerospace researcher Dr. Muthuvel Murugan, who works with this research team, has said that a patent application on the Army’s concept of self-adjusting flow-incidence tolerant blade design is with the U.S. patent office.
The research team demonstrated their simulation framework through the modeling, analysis, and optimization of an Army rotorcraft gas-turbine engine, such as the T-700 engine powering Apache and Black Hawk rotorcraft.
