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PES2020-Prosj.etabl.støtte H2020

ValvePhysics

Awarded: NOK 0.40 mill.

(Notice that we started working on this proposal already in 2016) Adding controlled airflows over aircraft wings and flaps is an emerging technique for reducing drag, reducing fuel consumption and increasing the ability to recover from stalls. The added air, either bled off the turbine or from auxiliary compressors, is controlled through butterfly valves, used for their precise control potential. However, the harsh temperature and vibration environment on an airframe distorts the frictional and mechanical properties of materials, making it difficult to get reliable virtual designs with reliable control characteristics to avoid unstable airflows. An improperly controlled valve in such a safety critical application is simply unacceptable, and this has prevented the technique from becoming widespread on passenger aircraft. The objective of this project is therefore to provide new, verified, multi-physics models using experimental data on friction and mechanical properties across the range of expected harsh conditions, that will feed into the next generation of valve design simulators to help design highly capable valves to unlock the potential of active flow control. The partners will use their Europe-leading prototyping and test facilities to derive the friction coefficients and mechanical data on special test rigs; this will be transferred to expert model-builders and simulators to verify the results and to validate the reliable operation of final valve designs. New Design of Experiments techniques will be used to ensure that the maximum usable information is derived from across the large experimental space for the lowest effort and cost. The finalised modeling information will be initially used by the topic manager for design optimisation on aircraft valves; other exploitation applications in gas&oil and process control will be investigated.

Funding scheme:

PES2020-Prosj.etabl.støtte H2020