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Pressure Recovery Estimation of Single-Engine Fighter Aircraft Air Intake

R. Vashistha and A.Gogoi

Aeronautical Development Agency
Bangalore, India
agogoi@yahoo.com

Extended Abstract

Introduction
In-flight intake efficiency estimation is a challenging task for single-engine aircraft. In the present work, a
method is presented to estimate air intake pressure recovery for single-engine aircraft.

Air Intake Efficiency Estimation methods

Air intake pressure recovery can be estimated from Wind Tunnel (WT) and Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD). Wind tunnel uses scaled models of the actual air intake. In CFD analysis, Navier-Stokes equations are
solved on a computational mesh of the air intake. There is a need of verifying the intake pressure recovery of
wind tunnel and CFD with actual flight test data. Pressure recovery can be measured in-flight by putting a rake
of total pressure sensors at intake exit or AIP. Installing a rake in a single engine fighter aircraft is extremely
risky and may not be feasible.

In-flight Pressure Recovery estimation Method

In the present work, the actual PS3 (compressor discharge pressure) is compared with PCD (performance cycle
deck) obtained PS3 for a given wind tunnel recovery value. If the two PS3 values do not match then the
recovery value is changed and comparison is made again. This process is followed until the two PS3 values
matches for a recovery value. That recovery value is considered as actual intake recovery.

Results
. Table 1 and 2 shows the result of iteration

Table 1: Evaluation of Intake Pressure Recovery at Intermediate Rated Power, Static Condition
Engine Actual Data PCD Data with Error with PCD Data Error with
Parameter Wind Tunnel Respect to with 87% Respect to
Intake Recovery Actual Data intake Actual Data
(90%) recovery
Ps3 (psi) 253.28 262.84 +3.77% 253.4 +0.05%

Table 2: Evaluation of Intake Pressure Recovery at Maximum Afterburner Power, Static Condition
Engine Actual Data PCD Data with Error with PCD Data Error with
Parameter Wind Tunnel Respect to with 87% Respect to
Intake Recovery Actual Data intake Actual Data
(90%) recovery
Ps3 (psi) 268.06 277.92 +3.68% 267.94 +0.04%