Michael Flouros

Reduction of power losses in bearing chambers using porous screens surrounding a ball bearing

Trends in aircraft engine design have caused an increase in mechanical stress requirements for rolling bearings. Consequently, a high amount of heat is rejected, which results in high oil scavenge temperatures. An RB199 turbofan bearing and its associated chamber were modified to carry out a survey aiming to reduce power losses in bearing chambers. The test bearing was a 124 mm PCD ball bearing with a split inner ring employing under-race lubrication by two individual jets. The survey was carried out in two parts. In the first part, the investigations were focused on the impact on the power losses in the bearing chamber of the operating parameters, such as oil flow, oil temperature, sealing air flow, bearing chamber pressure, and shaft speed. In the second part, the investigations focused on the reduction of the dwell time of the air and oil mixture in the bearing compartment and its impact on the power losses. In this part, porous screens were introduced around the bearing. These screens would aid the oil to flow out of the compartment and reduce droplet-droplet interactions as well as droplet-bearing chamber wall interactions. The performance of the screens was evaluated by torque measurements. A high-speed camera was used to visualize the flow in the chamber. Considerable reduction in power loss was achieved. This work is part of the European Research programme GROWTH ATOS (Advanced Transmission and Oil Systems).

The Impact of Oil and Sealing Air Flow, Chamber Pressure, Rotor Speed, and Axial Load on the Power Consumption in an Aeroengine Bearing Chamber

Trends in aircraft engines have dictated high speed rolling element bearings up to 3 million DN or more with the consequence of having high amounts of heat rejection in the bearing chambers and high oil scavenge temperatures. A parametric study on the bearing power consumption has been performed with a 124 mm pitch circle diameter (PCD) ball bearing in a bearing chamber that has been adapted from the RB199 turbofan engine (DN∼2 × 10 6 ) The operating parameters such as oil flow, oil temperature, sealing air flow, bearing chamber pressure, and shaft speed have been varied in order to assess the impact on the power consumption. This work is the first part of a survey aiming to reduce power losses in bearing chambers. In the first part, the parameters affecting the power losses are identified and evaluated.

Comparison of Power Losses and Temperatures between an All-Steel and a Direct Outer Ring–Cooled, Hybrid 133-mm-Bore Ball Bearing at Very High Speeds

ABSTRACT Next-generation aircraft engines will have to face more stringent requirements for reliability, thrust to weight, efficiency, environment protection, and profitability. These requirements affect all engine modules and components, including rolling element bearings. To cope with the above-mentioned requirements, next-generation aircraft engine main shaft bearings will operate under higher loads, speeds, and temperatures and increased reliability. In addition, lighter weight components are desirable. Hence, new material and cooling technologies including weight- and stress-optimized designs need to be developed. In this article, the experimental investigation results of a novel main shaft ball bearing featuring ceramic balls, direct outer ring cooling, squeeze film damping, as well as surface-nitrided raceways are presented. Bearing rig testing under typical aircraft engine flight conditions has been performed. Savings for oil flow quantity of more than 45% and for power loss of more than 15% were identified. Outer ring temperature reductions of more than 20 K were achieved due to the use of ceramic ball material and the direct outer ring cooling concept. The ultra-high-speed capability of the bearing was demonstrated. Rotational speeds of 24,000 rpm were achieved at bearing temperatures below 200°C. The fundamental experimental results including oil and bearing temperature distribution, power dissipation, and bearing efficiency are presented. In addition, experimental power loss and temperature results are compared with data for a conventional all-steel bearing.

Active Outer Ring Cooling of High-Loaded and High-Speed Ball Bearings

Bearings for aero engine applications are subjected to a high thermal impact because of the elevated speeds and loads. The high rate of heat generation in the bearing cannot be sustained by the materials used and, in the absence of lubrication, will fail within seconds. For this reason, aero engine bearings have to be lubricated and cooled by a continuous oil stream. The heat that is generated in the bearings through friction is transferred into the oil. Oil itself has limited capabilities and can only remove heat as long as its temperature does not reach critical limits. When the critical limits have been reached or even exceeded, the oil will suffer chemical decomposition (coking) with loss of its properties and subsequently cause a detrimental impact on the rotating machinery. Oil is normally transferred into the bearings through holes in the inner ring, thus taking advantage of the centrifugal forces due to the rotation. On its way through the bearing, the oil continuously removes heat from the inner ring, the rolling elements, and the bearing cage until it reaches the outer ring. Since the oil has already been heated up, its capability to remove heat from the outer ring is considerably reduced. The idea to provide the bearing with an “unlimited” quantity of oil to ensure proper cooling cannot be considered, since an increase in the oil quantity leads to higher parasitic losses (churning) in the bearing chamber and increased requirements on the engines lubrication system in terms of storage, scavenging, cooling, weight, etc., not mentioning the power needed to accomplish all these. In this sense, the authors have developed a method that would enable active cooling of the outer ring. Similar to fins, which are used for cooling electronic devices, a spiral groove engraved in the outer ring material would function as a fin body with oil instead of air as the cooling medium. The number of “threads” and the size of the groove design characteristics were optimized in a way that enhanced heat transfer is achieved without excessive pressure losses. An experimental setup was created for this reason, and a 167.5-mm pitch circle diameter (PCD) ball bearing was investigated. The bearing was tested with and without the outer ring cooling. A reduction of 50% of the lubricant flow through the inner ring associated with a 30% decrease in heat generation was achieved.

Two-Phase Flow Pressure Drop in Corrugated Tubes Used in an Aero-engine Oil System

In modern aero-engines, the lubrication system holds a key role due to the demand for high reliability standards. An aero-engine bearing chamber contains components like bearings and gears. Oil is used for lubrication and for heat removal. In order to retain the oil in a bearing chamber, pressurized seals are used. These are pressurized using air from the compressor. In order to avoid overpressurization of the bearing chamber, air/oil passages are provided in the bearing chamber. At the top, a vent pipe discharges most of the sealing air and at the bottom, a scavenge pipe is used for discharging the oil by means of a pump (scavenge pump). The scavenge pipe is setup in most cases by tubes of circular or noncircular cross sections. When the scavenge pipe has to be routed in a way that sharp bends or elbows are unavoidable, flexible (corrugated) pipes can be used. Because of the corrugation, considerable flow resistance with high-pressure drop can result. This may cause overpressurization of the bearing compartment with oil loss into the turbomachinery with possibility of ignition, coking (carbon formation), or contamination of the aircraft’s air conditioning system. It is therefore important for the designer to be capable to predict the system’s pressure balance behavior. A real engine bearing chamber sealed by brush seals was used for generating different air/oil mixtures thus corresponding to different engine operating conditions. The mixtures were discharged through a scavenge pipe which was partly setup by corrugated tubes. Instead of a mechanical pump, an ejector was used for evacuating the bearing chamber. An extensive survey covering the existing technical literature on corrugated tube pressure drop was performed and is presented in this paper. The survey has covered both single-phase and multiphase flows. Existing methods were checked against the test results. The method which was most accurately predicting lean air test results from the rig was benchmarked and was used as the basis for extending into a two-phase flow pressure drop correlation by applying two-phase flow multiplier techniques similar to Lockhart and Martinelli. Comparisons of the new two-phase flow pressure drop correlation with an existing correlation by Shannak are presented for mixtures like air/oil, air/water, air/diesel, and air/kerosene. Finally, numerical analysis results using ansys cfx version 15 are presented.

Best Strategies for the Development of a Holistic Porosity Model of a Heat Exchanger for Aero Engine Applications

In an attempt to manage CFD computations in aero engine heat exchanger design, this work presents the best strategies and the methodology used to develop a holistic porosity model, describing the heat transfer and pressure drop behavior of a complex profiled tubular heat exchanger for aero engine applications. Due to the complexity of the profile tube heat exchanger geometry and the very large number of tubes, detailed CFD computations require very high CPU and memory resources. For this reason the complex heat exchanger geometry is replaced in the CFD computations by a simpler porous medium geometry with predefined pressure loss and heat transfer.The present work presents a strategy for developing a holistic porosity model adapted for heat exchangers, which is capable to describe their macroscopic heat transfer and pressure loss average performance. For the derivation of the appropriate pressure loss and heat transfer correlations, CFD computations and experimental measurements are combined. The developed porosity model is taking into consideration both streams of the heat exchanger (hot and cold side) in order to accurately calculate the inner and outer pressure losses, in relation to the achieved heat transfer and in conjunction with the selected heat exchanger geometry, weight and operational parameters. For the same heat exchanger, RAM and CPU requirement reductions were demonstrated for a characteristic flow passage of the heat exchanger, as the porosity model required more than 80 times less computational points than the detailed CFD model. The proposed porosity model can be adapted for recuperation systems with varying heat exchanger designs having different core arrangements and tubes sizes and configurations, providing an efficient tool for the optimization of the heat exchangers design and leading to an increase of the overall aero engine performance.Copyright

Ejector Scavenging of Bearing Chambers: A Numerical and Experimental Investigation

Oil system architecture in aero engines has remained almost the same for the last 30 years. At least one oil feed pump is responsible for distributing pressurized oil into the bearing chambers, and several scavenge pumps are responsible for evacuating the bearing chambers from the oil and the air mixture. Air is used as the sealing medium in bearing chambers and is the dominant medium in terms of volume occupation and expansion phenomena. In order to simplify the oil system architecture and thus improve the systems reliability with less mechanical parts and also decrease weight, an ejector system has been designed for scavenging bearing chambers. The idea behind the ejector is to use high-pressure oil from the feed pump and use it for feeding the ejectors primary jet. Through the momentum transfer between the pressurized oil at the jets tip and the two-phase mixture of air and oil from the bearing chamber, the mixture will be discharged into the oil tank. In order to design the ejector for aero engine applications, engine-relevant performance conditions had to be considered. The design was performed using a one-dimensional analysis tool and then considerably refined by using the numerical tool ansys cfx. In a further step, the ejector was manufactured out of pure quartz glass and was tested in a lube rig with a bearing chamber, which has evolved from a real engine application. In the bearing chamber, engine-relevant performance conditions were simulated. Through the provided instrumentation for pressures, temperatures, and air/oil flows, the performance characteristics of the ejector were assessed and were compared to the analytic and numerical results. A high-speed camera was used to record the two-phase flow downstream of the bearing chamber in the scavenge pipe. This work is part of the European Union-funded research program Engine LUBrication System TechnologieS (ELUBSYS) within the 7th EU Frame Programme for Aeronautics and Transport (AAT.2008.4.2.3).

Direct Outer Ring Cooling of a High Speed Jet Engine Mainshaft Ball Bearing: Experimental Investigation Results

Operating conditions in high speed mainshaft ball bearings applied in new aircraft propulsion systems require enhanced bearing designs and materials. Rotational speeds, loads, demands on higher thrust capability, and reliability have increased continuously over the last years. A consequence of these increasing operating conditions are increased bearing temperatures. A state of the art jet engine high speed ball bearing has been modified with an oil channel in the outer diameter of the bearing. This oil channel provides direct cooling of the outer ring. Rig testing under typical flight conditions has been performed to investigate the cooling efficiency of the outer ring oil channel. In this paper the experimental results including bearing temperature distribution, power dissipation, bearing oil pumping and the impact on oil mass and parasitic power loss reduction are presented.Copyright

Conceptual design study of a geared turbofan and an open rotor aero engine with intercooled recuperated core

The development of more efficient aero engines is becoming a matter of great importance due to the need for pollutant emissions reduction (e.g. CO2, NOx). Toward this direction, two of the most promising aero engine architectures that have been proposed are the ultrahigh by-pass geared turbofan and the open rotor configurations, both of which are targeting the low thrust-specific fuel consumption and reduced NOx production. In the current study, investigations are performed in order to determine the improvements in thrust-specific fuel consumption for these configurations. More specifically, on the basic geared turbofan and open rotor configurations an intercooler and a recuperator are implemented between the compressors and the exhaust nozzle, respectively. The intercooler is installed in order to reduce the high pressure compressor work demand, while the recuperator is used in order to preheat the compressor discharge air by exploiting the otherwise wasted increased enthalpy content of the exhaust hot gas. The recuperator consists of elliptically profiled tubes and its design is based on the innovative tubular heat exchanger core arrangement that has been invented and developed by MTU Aero engines AG. The intercooled recuperative geared turbofan is evaluated against a nonintercooled recuperative geared turbofan, while the intercooled recuperative open rotor is evaluated against a nonintercooled recuperative open rotor. The results showed that the implementation of intercoolers and recuperators can further improve specific fuel consumption and can also lead to NOx emission reduction.

Efforts to improve aero engine performance through the optimal design of heat recuperation systems targeting fuel consumption and pollutant emissions reduction

The present work is focused on the conceptual development and numerical assessment of various new heat recuperation system configurations, specifically designed and optimized for a state-of-the-art turbofan application developed by MTU Aero Engines AG. The optimization efforts were performed through CFD computations, experimental measurements and aero engine thermodynamic cycle analysis. A critical part of the optimization phase was conducted using a customizable numerical tool modelling the recuperation system heat transfer and pressure loss characteristics and including the effect of important heat exchanger design decisions. The numerical tool was based on an advanced porosity model approach in which the heat exchangers macroscopic behaviour was included through the integration of predefined heat transfer and pressure loss correlations, calibrated through CFD computations and experimental measurements. The optimization led to two new recuperation configurations with significant improvements regarding the aero engine fuel consumption and pollutant emissions reduction providing direct environmental and economic benefits.