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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DREAM (Design and Realization of equipped engine compartments including cowling for a fast compound rotorcraft)

Teaser

Summary

\"The aim of the DREAM project is to develop and manufacture the main elements constituting the engine compartments of the High Speed Rotorcraft (Cowlings, Air Intake, Engine Bay Ventilation).

Development in the field of rotorcraft and parallel improvement of a fixed-wing aircrafts, resulted in new concepts, that were designed to combine airplane and rotorcraft capabilities, giving birth to a VTOL aircraft that will reach speeds greater than helicopters and that will be able to hover. Creation of different concepts and prototypes speeded up in 40\'s, since that time many projects were initiated, however most of them ended up on the prototype phase. The latest achievements in this field belong to Sikorsky and Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) companies. Eurocopter in the recent years successfully built and tested the X3 compound rotorcraft (first compound rotorcraft built in Europe since the 1950\', when the Fairey Rotodyne was flown).

RACER demonstrator will help to improve industrial and scientific capabilities in the field of compound rotorcrafts giving Europe opportunity to stay on a predominant position in the rotorcraft industry across the globe. It is worth to emphasize, that within completion of the RACER project, not only industrial but also societal and environmental aspects shall be taken into account. Continuously increasing number of flights and predicted further growth of air travel, results in increased impact on environment and is a challenge facing aviation industry in terms of finding new and more environmentally-friendly solutions that can enter into service in a relatively short period of time, taking into account dynamic (observed and predicted) congestion increase in the airspace. The above is confirmed by the Clean Sky 2 Factsheet: \"\"Air transport contributes today about 3% to global greenhouse gas emissions, with traffic expected to triple by 2050. Although other sectors are more polluting (electricity and heating produces 32% of greenhouse gases), this expected growth makes it necessary to address aviationâ€™s environmental impact. Meeting the EUâ€™s climate and energy objectives will require a drastic reduction of the sectorâ€™s environmental impact by reducing its emissions. Maximising fuel efficiency, using less to go farther, is also a key cost-cutting factor in a very competitive industry â€“ and as air traffic increases, better noise reduction technologies are needed.\"\". Moreover increasing expectations in terms of door-to-door mobility underlines the need of searching for more affordable and better performance solutions.

Realisation of the DREAM project will include searching for cutting-edge solutions in aviation engineering field, allowing to:
â€¢ manufacture innovative engine compartments of the Compound Rotorcraft demonstrator
â€¢ find the best solution especially in terms of:
- weight of the final product;
- cost of the manufacturing process;
- high shape fidelity\"

Work performed

First reporting period has been covered by design and FEM activites (input was delivered by the Topic Manager). Tasks within this part of work were focused on general and detailed geometry development, FEM analysis, material and manufacturing process definition of Upper Cowlings, Air Intake and Ventilation Ducts for the LifeRCraft Demonstrator, paying particular attention to weight, cost, shape and other requirements. It resulted with a documentation including set of detailed 3D Catia models for every System and reports from Finite Element Method Analyses. During this reporting period also series of screening tests were performed, which resulted in the choice of composite material for parts manufacturing.

To assure the proper flow of information and that work of DREAM Consortium is in line with AH requirements several meetings between the partners took place (full list can be found below). Current issues, problems and results were discussed during weekly teleconferences between DREAM â€“ AH. Minutes of the Meeting (MoM) also were prepared. On the 25th of April 2018 DREAM Consortium completed one of milestones â€“ Preliminary Design Review during the meeting held at Airbus Helicopters facility in Marignane France, during which the work carried until this time was validated.

During the first reporting period the following publication, prepared at the VZLU facility was prepared and published:
â€¢ Doubrava, R., Kadlec, M., Hron, R.: Honeycomb Sandwich Material Modelling for Impact Analysis of a Complex Composite Structure, proceeding of conference Mechanika kompozitnÃch materiÃ¡lÅ¯ a konstrukcÃ, ISBN 978-80-261-0776-7, University of West Bohemia, 2018 -
The composite structures are often subjected to impact damage during fabrication, maintenance or in-service operations. Application of a sandwich composite structure allows to increase its strength and stiffness capability and at the same time to improve the energy absorption property. The paper discusses verification and application of material models for numerical simulations of Nomex honeycomb core behaviour. Detailed and simplified finite element (FE) models were verified on the base of flatwise compression tests. The simplification of the FE models was needed in order to fulfil requirements for application of explicit analyses on global structure behaviour. Among these requirements, a uniform mesh, size of elements considering critical time step and type of elements are used. The results will be applied for analyses of bird strike simulation on a composite engine cowling of a newly developed high-speed helicopter.

Final results

Proposed herein project realisation, will strongly contribute to the established goals and expected impact of the LifeRCraft compound helicopter. Not only will it improve innovation capacity and knowledge integration, but will strengthen the European competitiveness as well. Also it will have strong impact on every Partner of the DREAM Consortium.
Through the Project strengthening of cooperation between research and manufacturing centres in Poland and Czech Republic was possible. It results also in design processes improvement and new technologies introduction through transferring know-how, experience and guidelines between Partners. Realisation of the project contributes also to the cooperation between the participants, strengthening European competitiveness of the general aviation sector. Planned research on new technologies carried out in parallel with design activities focused on searching for solutions providing the best performance will develop innovations meeting the needs of the European and global markets.