Rapid Approaches to Assess Power-Plant Loading for Novel Aircraft Concepts Under Extreme Events

The working title of my topic of research is "Rapid Approaches to Assess Power-Plant Loading for Novel Concepts Under Extreme Events". Currently, aircraft engines go through an expensive and rigorous certification process with the tests being conducted on a physical engine. Analyzing the effects of extreme events on the engine will result in the destruction of the engine during testing. The hope is to work towards a method of "certification by analysis" whereby the expensive and wasteful destruction of the engines would no longer be required.

Extreme events may include a Fan Blade Off, Bird Ingestion, Rotor Disk Failure, Wheels-Up Landing or Emergency Maneuvers. The load from the most severe extreme event is often what will be used to size critical components. The main emerging novel concepts for aircraft include the Blended Wing Body with the power-plants mounted on the top surface of the fuselage, the strut-braced wing with the power-plant mounted under the wing, and the boundary layer ingestion concept where the power-plant is placed at the rear of the fuselage. Novel engine designs might include Ultra-high Bypass Ratio turbofans, Open-Rotor designs or Counter-Rotating Fans with attention also given to the moves made towards electrification.

The current aim of my research is to develop structural modelling strategies to assess emerging aircraft concepts undergoing extreme events at early design stages, with particular focus on powerplant and airframe interactions. This tool could then help inform future design decisions at concept stages to avoid costly re-design later in the development process.

The main objectives would be to conduct a thorough literature review investigating current aircraft certification requirements, emerging concepts, modelling methods and power-plant/airframe structure. Identify gaps in the current knowledge and academic literature. Identifying the most significant extreme events and current certification requirements. Investigating and proposing modelling strategies suitable for early design stages, which can be used to assess novel aircraft concepts undergoing extreme events.

The research is funded by the EPSRC and is aligned with their Engineering Design research area, which is focused on theories, methods, and tools for generating, modelling, optimizing, simulating, and reasoning about complex engineered systems. It is also part-funded and conducted in collaboration with Rolls Royce plc. under the supervision of Dr Declan Nolan and Dr Damian Quinn at Queen's University Belfast.