NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE STAGE DRONE JET ENGINE

The rapid growth of the aerospace industry has contributed to an increase in harmful green-house gases being introduced into the atmosphere and resulting in higher rates of global warming. In this study a singlestage drone jet engine utilizing Jet-A fuel was experimentally and numerically analyzed in order to accurately characterize the combustion, Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH), and emissions characteristics. Fuel analysis was then performed to analyze the fuel characteristics. Physical experimentation was performed utilizing a state-of-the-art turbojet engine outfitted with integrated sensors for determining temperature, pressure, thrust, RPMs, and fuel flow rate that were collected in real time by a high-speed data acquisition system. Numerical and Experimental data was analyzed over an operating range of 60,000-70,000 RPMs. The temperatures resulted from the CFD analysis were lower overall than the experimental data by approx. 15%. TKE was found to have an increasing linear relationship with respect to RPMs. The resulting linear relationship was most apparent in the compressor stage of the engine where an increase in TKE of approximately 45% from 47,000-70,000 RPM could be observed. The increase in TKE resulted in higher fluctuations in the velocity flow field thus increasing the velocity of the flow and by extension the thrust output of the engine. (formula presented) increased by 1.9%, 4.0%, and 30% respectively while CO and THC decreased by 19% and 47% using Jet-A in proportion to a temperature increase of 15%. The emissions from the CD simulation have shown to exhibit comparable trends to the experimental data thus indicating the validity of the numerical model. The sound pressures and vibrations signatures collected from the combustion of Jet-A consistently increased and showed a linear relationship with increasing RPMs.