This paper describes a combined experimental and numerical study on damaged and undamaged space shuttle tile thermal protection system (TPS). The principal objective of the study is to determine its thermomechanical behaviour and assess the structural integrity of the TPS. The TPS tile specimens are subjected to a temperature profile corresponding to the thermal loads of the Access to Space reference vehicle. Experiments are conducted in a vacuum chamber that allows re-entry static pressure to be simulated. Temperatures on the top and bottom surfaces of the specimen, and the strains in the underlying structure are recorded. The experimental results are used to guide the development of a refined finite element model, which is subsequently used to simulate the interactions between the high speed external flow past the cavity that represents damage. Using this model, the relative effects of damage on the thermal protection capability and the induced thermal stresses are determined by comparing the response of the damaged configurations with the undamaged configuration. Damage increases the thermal loads and significantly reduces the radiation heat loss from the surface of the tile, resulting in elevated temperatures. Results indicate that damage can raise the maximum temperature in the tile to values that exceed its melting point.

A re-cooled cycle has been proposed for a regeneratively cooled scramjet to reduce the hydrogen fuel flow for cooling. Upon the completion of the first cooling, fuel can be used for secondary cooling by transferring the enthalpy from fuel to work. Fuel heat sink (cooling capacity) is thus repeatedly used and fuel heat sink is indirectly increased. Instead of carrying excess fuel for cooling or seeking for any new coolant, the cooling fuel flow is reduced, and fuel onboard is adequate to satisfy the cooling requirement for the whole hypersonic vehicle. A performance model considering flow and heat transfer is build. A model sensitivity study of inlet temperature and pressure reveals that, for given exterior heating condition and cooling panel size, fuel heat sink can be obviously increased at moderate inlet temperature and pressure. Simultaneously the low-temperature heat transfer deterioration and Mach number constrains can also be avoided.

The HART II test of 2001 provided a significant and comprehensive database of rotor loads, blade motion, blade pressure distribution, acoustic signature and flow field data. A sub-set of these were released for public access worldwide and an International HART II Workshop was established in 2005. This Workshop, open to the international rotorcraft community, has been held since then at both the AHS Annual Forum as well as the European Rotorcraft Forum. Following the requests of participants, the HART II International Workshop database has been undergoing continuous development. This paper describes the current content and status of the data and the documentation material provided within the workshop database.

The GOAHEAD (Generation of an Advanced Helicopter Experimental Aerodynamic Database for CFD code validation) consortium was created in the frame of an EU-project in order to create an experimental database for the validation of 3D-CFD and comprehensive aeromechanics methods for the prediction of unsteady viscous flows. This included the rotor dynamics for complete helicopter configurations, i.e. main rotor – fuselage – tail rotor configurations with emphasis on viscous phenomena like flow separation and transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The wind tunnel experiments have been performed during two weeks in the DNW-LLF on a Mach-scaled model of a modern transport helicopter consisting of the main rotor, the fuselage, control surfaces and the tail rotor. For the sake of controlled boundary conditions for later CFD validation, a closed test section has been used. The measurement comprised global forces of the main rotor and the fuselage, steady and unsteady pressures, transition positions, stream lines, position of flow separation, velocity profiles at the test section inlet, velocity fields in the model wake, vortex trajectories and elastic deformations of the main and tail rotor blades.

Accurate and reliable airdata systems are critical for aircraft flight control system. In this paper, both extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) based various multi sensor data fusion methods are applied to dynamic manoeuvres with rapid variations in the aircraft motion to calibrate the angle-of-attack (AOA) and angle-of-sideslip (AOSS) and are compared. The main goal of the investigations reported is to obtain online accurate flow angles from the measured vane deflection and differential pressures from probes sensitive to flow angles even in the adverse effect of wind or turbulence. The proposed algorithms are applied to both simulated as well as flight test data. Investigations are initially made using simulated flight data that include external winds and turbulence effects. When performance of the sensor fusion methods based on both EKF and UKF are compared, UKF is found to be better. The same procedures are then applied to flight test data of a high performance fighter aircraft. The results are verified with results obtained using proven an offline method, namely, output error method (OEM) for flight-path reconstruction (FPR) using ESTIMA software package. The consistently good results obtained using sensor data fusion approaches proposed in this paper establish that these approaches are of great value for online implementations.

Significant progress has been made to date in modelling, computationally, the formation and development of the dust cloud that forms in the air surrounding the rotorcraft under brownout conditions. Modern computational methods are able to replicate not only the development of the dust cloud in appropriate operational scenarios, but also the sensitivity of the shape and density of the dust cloud to the detailed design of the rotorcraft. Results so far suggest that attempts to ameliorate brownout by aerodynamic means, for instance by modifying the rotor properties, will be frustrated to some extent by the inherent instability of the flow field that is produced by the helicopter. Nonetheless, very recent advances in understanding the fundamental mechanisms that lead to the formation of the dust cloud may allow substantial progress to be made once certain elements of the basic physics of the problem are more fully understood and better quantified.