Research on Simulation and Performance Optimization of Mach 4 Civil Aircraft Propulsion Concept

Abstract

Supersonic civil aircraft is of a promising area in the development of future civil transport, and aircraft propulsion system is one of the key issues which determine the success of the aircraft. To get a good conceptual design and performance investigation of the supersonic civil aircraft engine, in this article, a fast, versatile as well as trust-worthy numerical simulation platform was established to analyze the Mach 4 turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine concept so as to be applied to the supersonic civil aircraft. First, a quick and accurate task requirement analysis module was newly established to analyze the mission requirement of the Mach 4 supersonic civil aircraft. Second, the TBCC engine performance simulation model was briefly presented and the number of engines on the supersonic civil aircraft was analyzed, considering single engine inoperative. Third, the Stone model and the DLR method were investigated to estimate the engine jet noise and the NOx emission of the Mach 4 supersonic civil aircraft. Finally, a multiobjective optimization tool made up of a response surface method and a genetic algorithm was developed to optimize the design parameters and the control law of the TBCC engine, in order to make the Mach 4 supersonic civil aircraft engine with better performance, lower noise, and lower emissions. The uniqueness of the developed analysis tool lies in that it affords a numerical simulation platform capable of investigating the task requirement analysis module of the supersonic civil aircraft, engine jet noise prediction model, and the NOx emission prediction model, as well as a multiobjective performance optimization tool, which is beneficial for the conceptual design and performance research of Mach 4 supersonic civil aircraft’s propulsion system.

Development of a method for selecting a cruising mode and engine control program of a ramjet aircraft

“…The required fuel mass for a ramjet aircraft was estimated by the same approach based on P [5]. At the same time, the influence of the engine CP on P is also not taken into account explicitly.…”

“…It is known that for low supersonic cruising speeds, turbofan engines are preferable, and for high supersonic speeds -ramjets [3]. But ramjets have no starting thrust and low efficiency at subsonic speeds, which necessitates the use of combined power plants (PP) [4][5][6]. In this case, takeoff, climb and achieving supersonic cruising speed are carried out using a gas turbine engine and cruising -a ramjet.…”

“…With regard to the development of transoceanic supersonic aircrafts [1,2], including ramjet as the PP [4][5][6], the problem of developing a method for selecting the cruising mode and ramjet PP control program providing the maximum P value is relevant.…”

Reliability Based Multi-Objective Thermodynamic Cycle Optimisation of Turbofan Engines Using Luus-Jaakola Algorithm

“…Optimisation problems that involve only single discipline is called single-discipline optimisation (SDO) while multi-discipline optimisation (MDO) involves problems that involve multiple disciplines (e.g., thermodynamics, aerodynamics, structure, acoustic, etc.). MDO is inherently more difficult to solve than SDO, due to large search space and inter-disciplinary coupling of components involved (see references [3,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14]. Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) methods such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) [1,3,5,7,8], Differential Evolution (DE) [10], Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [4,15] are favoured over deterministic optimisation methods such as gradient based optimisation [9,13] and Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) [6], due to EA is more capable in handling discontinuous, non-differential, and multi-modal functions [16].…”