Speculation on near-term scientific reasons for the exploration of lunar pits is offered alongside comments on possible longer-term human exploitation. It is proposed that in order to determine whether or not one or more of the pits offer access the large subsurface voids e.g. a non-collapsed lava tube, a preliminary reconnaissance mission solely focused on obtaining lateral images (and/or LiDAR maps) is needed. Possible concept options for such a preliminary reconnaissance mission are discussed. It is suggested that one of the best possible strategies is to employ a micro-sized probe (~0.3 m) that would hop from a nearby main landing spacecraft to the selected pit. After the surface position of the main lander is determined accurately, the probe would perform a ballistic hop, or hover-traverse, a distance of ~3 km over the lunar surface using existing propulsive and guidance technology capability. Once hovering above the pit, the probe or a separate tethered imaging unit would then be lowered into the pit to acquire the necessary subsurface void topology data. This data would then be transmitted back to Earth, directly, via the lander, or via a store-and-forward orbiting relay. Preliminary estimates indicate that a probe of ~14 kg (dry mass) is viable using a conventional hydrazine monopropellant system with a propellant mass fraction of less than ~0.2 (20%) including margins, suggesting a piggyback architecture would be feasible.

In this paper, an efficient approach to design and optimize a flight controller of a small-scale unmanned helicopter is proposed. Given the identified helicopter model, the Linear Quadratic Gaussian/Loop Transfer Recovery (LQG/LTR) robust control method is applied for trajectory tracking and attitude control of the helicopter with a two-loop hierarchical control architecture. Since the performance of the controller extremely depends on its weighting matrices, the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is introduced to automatically select the parameters of the matrices. Comparative studies between optimal algorithms are also carried out. A series of flight experiments and simulations are conducted to investigate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed optimised controller.

Higher-Order Spectra (HOS) are used to characterise the nonlinear aeroelastic behaviour of a plunging and pitching 2-degree-of-freedom aerofoil system by diagnosing structural and/or aerodynamic nonlinearities via the nonlinear spectral content of the computed displacement signals. The nonlinear aeroelastic predictions are obtained from high-fidelity viscous fluid-structure interaction simulations. The power spectral, bi-spectral and tri-spectral densities are used to provide insight into the functional form of both freeplay and inviscid/viscous aerodynamic nonlinearities with the system displaying both low- and high-amplitude Limit Cycle Oscillation (LCO). It is shown that in the absence of aerodynamic nonlinearity (low-amplitude LCO) the system is characterised by cubic phase coupling only. Furthermore, when the amplitude of the oscillations becomes large, aerodynamic nonlinearities become prevalent and are characterised by quadratic phase coupling. Physical insights into the nonlinearities are provided in the form of phase-plane diagrams, pressure coefficient distributions and Mach number flowfield contours.

This research explores the modification and implementation of a Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES) in a high-order compressible solver and its application to automotive aerodynamics. This was conducted on a 20° SAE Reference Notchback Model with a Reynolds number of 2.23 × 105. This DES algorithm implemented within FLAMENCO, which is finite-volume research code operating over multi-block meshes, was used for all the simulations. The primary objectives were to capture unsteady flow features, separated coherent structures and also relax the meshing requirements to improve accessibility to turbulence-resolving methods for realistic configurations. This also aims to better understand the separated flow physics, especially around the base surfaces of the car. Simulations for three mesh refinement levels were compared to wind-tunnel measurements. Even on relatively coarse meshes (~7 m cells) for DES, time-averaged Cp was obtained with maximum errors of <8%.

Thermal plasma wind tunnels with power of 0.4 MW and 2.4 MW have been constructed at Chonbuk National University (CBNU) in Korea. This facility is capable of producing a heat flux greater than 10 MW/m2, a level that is relevant for testing thermal protection materials that are used for re-entry vehicles in space transportation. A segmented arc plasma torch was adopted as a plasma source; this was designed to have high thermal efficiency and long life, and to produce a supersonic plasma flow with enthalpy greater than 10 MJ/kg. We investigated the characteristics of the supersonic plasma flow using intrusive and non-intrusive diagnostic systems. Ablation characteristics of potential thermal protection materials such as carbon/carbon composites and graphite were investigated with the plasma wind tunnel. Cracks and pores in the materials accelerated the erosion. For carbon/carbon composites, the pores grew and the cracks which occurred at the interfaces between the carbon fibres and the matrix propagated, while for the graphite, the erosion started at the pores and peeled off the surface.

Propellers are the predominant propulsion source for small unmanned aerial vehicles. At low advance ratios, large sections of the propeller blade can be stalled, and the Reynolds number faced by each blade can be low. This leads to difficulties in modelling propeller performance, as the aerodynamic models coupled with blade element methods usually only provide aerodynamic data for an assumed aerofoil section, for a small angle-of-attack range and for a single Reynolds number, while rotational effects are often ignored. This is specifically important at low advance ratios, and a consistent evaluation of the applicability of various methods to improve aerodynamic modelling is not available. To provide a systematic appraisal, three-dimensional (3D) scanning is used to obtain the aerofoil sections that make up a propeller blade. An aerodynamic database is formed using each extracted aerofoil section, across a wide range of angles of attack and Reynolds numbers. These databases are then modified to include the effects of rotation. When compared with experimental results, significant improvement in modelling accuracy is shown at low advance ratios relative to a generic blade element-momentum model, particularly for smaller propellers. Notably, when considering small propeller performance, efficiency modelling is improved from within 30% relative to experimental data to within 5% with the use of the extended blade element momentum theory method. The results show that combining Viterna and Corrigan flat plate theory with the Corrigan and Schillings stall delay model consistently yields the closest match with experimental data.

The pressure oscillation and terminal shock motion in a two dimensional inlet, which was designed for tandem configuration turbine-based combined cycle propulsion systems was investigated experimentally and numerically, respectively. The inlet was characterised by a bleed cavity upstream the inlet throat, an S-shape rectangular-to-circular diffuser and flowpaths for a turbine and a ramjet engine. The terminal shock motion was calculated through a second-order unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes scheme. The pressure and the terminal shock were unsteady when the combined cycle inlet operated at different conditions. With the terminal shock located in the throat and at the shoulder of the third ramp of the TBCC inlet, the pressure oscillation was significant and the shock exhibited unsteady streamwise motion with an oscillatory pattern. The amplitude of shock oscillation at these two conditions was 6mm and 12mm, respectively. When the shock was located downstream of the throat and upstream of the cowl lip, it oscillated in a small range. We defined this motion as the “shake” of the shock. This unsteady behaviour of the shock was caused by flow separation in the combined cycle inlet diffuser.

This paper investigates the effects of the design variables of an aerial deployment mechanism on the robustness of the aerial deployment through a multibody dynamics simulation. The aircraft is modelled as three joined rigid bodies: a right wing, a left wing and a centre body. A spring-loaded hinge is adopted as an actuator for deployment. The design variables are the hinge torque and the deployment timing. The robustness is evaluated using a sigma level method. The margins for the safe deployment conditions are set for the evaluation functions. The dispersive input variables are the initial drop velocity, the surrounding gust velocity, the initial pitch angle and the initial height. The design point with a deployment torque scale value F of 0.7 and a right-wing deployment delay time TSR of 1.0 s can safely deploy in the low-torque deployment condition. This design point is able to accomplish both a safe deployment and a lightweight deployment mechanism.