Techsburg is also planning to attend and have a presence at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012 (August 6-9, Las Vegas). Please be contact us if you will be at this show, which is the unmanned industry’s premier event of the year.

Show page: www.auvsishow.org

Date: Aug 16-19, 2011

Location: Washington, DC

For more information click here

Abstract:

Onboard waste heat recovery systems for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) offer improved efficiency and operational capability. Systems based on modern thermoelectric generator technology offer the most practical and cost-effective option for near-term development into a commercial product. Techsburg will build on prior thermoelectric generator-UAV system integration research and development to show feasibility of solid-state waste heat conversion on a modern UAV. Thermoelectric systems can provide waste heat energy recovery for additional power on long endurance missions, and also provide on-demand heating or cooling of critical aircraft components during the mission. Previous work has shown fuel efficiency gains which result in significantly improved endurance and time on station. Compact, conformable systems will be designed and modeled during Phase I, and analyzed for both small and large UAVs to show the overall concept feasibility over a range of aircraft sizes.

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Abstract:

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would like to improve debris trajectory predictions using an improved and comprehensive database of lift and drag characteristics for fragments that are the result of missile engagements. Analytical solutions have been generally limited by available solutions for common shapes that don’t represent the complex and irregular debris fragments. Direct measurements of characteristics such as drag and ballistic missile coefficient have been limited to low-speed flow regimes. Techsburg, Inc. proposes to address MDA’s requirements by modifying our existing in-house supersonic wind tunnel facility to enable measuring lift and drag characteristics of missile intercept fragments at speeds ranging from subsonic to Mach 3. Techsburg anticipates that the result of the Phase II effort will be an extensive database of intercept fragment lift and drag characteristics. The database may then be used to develop correlations of aerodynamic properties as a function of flow and fragment geometry parameters. Such correlations will improve the accuracy of existing impact debris trajectory prediction codes.

Abstract:

Techsburg, Inc. proposes to perform experimental proof-of-concept testing of a flow-controlled inflatable fairing concept for helicopter hub/shaft drag reduction. The proposed system includes a rigid hub fairing coupled with an inflatable shaft fairing. Flow control jets emit from the shaft fairing and produce an aerodynamic seal between the hub and shaft fairings, utilizing the Coanda Effect to convert the jet momentum to aerodynamic lift on the hub fairing. During Phase I, a subscale helicopter fuselage model employing the proposed drag reduction technology will be tested in a continuous, subsonic wind tunnel with a 6 ft by 6 ft test section. The drag reduction due to the proposed system will be quantified in the wind tunnel tests, and the concept will be further optimized using both computational fluid dynamics and further experiments in Phase II.

Preliminary studies of the next generation mobility aircraft have produced aircraft designs with high bypass turbofan engines embedded in the wings, a configuration that will place high demands on the inlet design. It has already been considered that an active flow control system will likely be necessary in order to maintain acceptable distortion levels at the fan face of the engines. In order to be effective, an accurate and non-intrusive inlet distortion measurement system must be available. The work studied in this Phase I SBIR investigates three acoustic-based sensing schemes designed to meet this need. Experiments were performed using a serpentine inlet coupled to a 4″ turbofan simulator. Each of the three sensing schemes showed some promise for accurately estimating the distortion level. A number of recommendations were developed for improving the technology including improvements in instrumentation and data processing as well as detailed Phase II development plan.

Click here for additional project summary.

Techsburg’s BLI Inlet Test Facility

BLI Inlet Model Coupled with Turbofan Simulator, Static Test Configuration

Abstract:

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would like to improve debris trajectory predictions using an improved and comprehensive database of lift and drag characteristics for fragments that are the result of missile engagements. Analytical solutions have been generally limited by available solutions for common shapes that don’t represent the complex and irregular debris fragments. Direct measurements of characteristics such as drag and ballistic missile coefficient have been limited to low-speed flow regimes. Techsburg, Inc. proposes to address MDA’s requirements by leveraging our expertise in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel testing to provide a validated, cost-effective approach to compiling a database of fragment aerodynamic characteristics. Techsburg will numerically predict the lift and drag characteristics of irregularly shaped intercept fragments and experimentally validate a subset of the results using our in-house supersonic wind tunnel facility. We will apply 3D laser scanning technology to digitize the geometry of sponsor-supplied intercept fragment samples, and then construct CFD grids based on this geometry. CFD simulations will be conducted over a wide range of fragment geometries and flow conditions. Aerodynamic loads acting on the fragments at Mach 1.6 will be measured over a range of orientations using the Techsburg Supersonic Blowdown Wind Tunnel, with the goal of experimentally validating the CFD results.

Preliminary studies of the next generation mobility aircraft have produced aircraft designs with high bypass turbofan engines embedded in the wings, a configuration that will place high demands on the inlet design. It has already been considered that an active flow control system will likely be necessary in order to maintain acceptable distortion levels at the fan face of the engines. In order to be effective, an accurate and non-intrusive inlet distortion measurement system must be available. The work studied in this Phase I SBIR investigates three acoustic-based sensing schemes designed to meet this need. Experiments were performed using a serpentine inlet coupled to a 4″ turbofan simulator. Each of the three sensing schemes showed some promise for accurately estimating the distortion level. A number of recommendations were developed for improving the technology including improvements in instrumentation and data processing as well as detailed Phase II development plan.

Click here for additional project summary.

Techsburg’s BLI Inlet Test Facility

BLI Inlet Model Coupled with Turbofan Simulator, Static Test Configuration