Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DEVILS (DEVILS (Development of Vhbr engines Innovative Lubrication System))

Teaser

Aircraft Engines usually comprise of a number of complementary systems that have to guarantee their performances throughout the whole flight envelope. Among those systems, the Oil lubrication system is one of the most important due to its roles: • Remove the heat generated...

Summary

Aircraft Engines usually comprise of a number of complementary systems that have to guarantee their performances throughout the whole flight envelope. Among those systems, the Oil lubrication system is one of the most important due to its roles:

• Remove the heat generated in the highly loaded rolling bearings and the gears found in the Engine power and accessory gearboxes;
• Lubricate bearing and Power and Accessory gear boxes.

The current trend of developing aircraft engines that consume less fuel put a lot of pressure on the oil lubrication system cooling requirements due to higher speeds, loads, and temperatures. For this reason Engine manufacturer are deeply looking to innovative design for oil lubrication system implementing architectures that are able to meet the new cooling and lubricating requirements without negatively impacting the Engine weight or operational and maintenance costs.

The objective of DEVILS Project is to research, develop and validate the robustness of a new variable oil flow approach towards the design of an innovative variable flow oil pump to be integrated in a high performance aircraft lubrication systems architecture with the aim of reducing fuel and oil consumption.

DEVILS project has to fulfill four goals.

• Development of a model based systems engineering (MBSE) tool to aid the evaluation and selection of candidate VHBR system architectures.
• Development of methods and techniques required to achieve variable flows that will allow oil feed and scavenge systems to be optimized around the flight envelope.
• Demonstration of a variable flow intelligent oil system and advanced control scheme showing how operation can be optimized across a range of simulated flight conditions.
• Research into autonomous fault detection and correction for future Oil Systems.

Work performed

\"From the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report some tasks of WP 1 – Project Management – and WP 2 – Design activities – have been completed while others are still in progress.
Hereunder a detailed list of the tasks with the status.

WP1:
Project Coordination – ongoing (deadline: end of the project)
Dissemination and implementation activity – ongoing (deadline: end of the project)
Communication activity – ongoing (deadline: end of the project)
Consortium financial and administrative activity – ongoing (deadline: end of the project)

WP2:
Requirements and architecture definition – completed (Inputs form Rolls Royce have been gathered and requirements for the innovative oil lubrication system ahd its componentes have been defined; a Requirements Document have been prepared).
Oil lubrication MBSE – completed (a Model Based System Engineering process/methos has been established; a deliverable showing this method/process has been prepared))
Benefits of the variable oil flow pump- completed (1D and 3D CFD analysis have been carried out on the preliminary oil lubrication circuit and Pump geometry in order to assess the benefits of the variable oil flow. A Deliverable showing the analysis carried out has been prepared)
Variable oil flow pump design – completed (the preliminary and detailed design of the Oil Pump and the other major components of the circuit has been accomplished; (CDR has been done even if not yet formally closed)
Heat exchanger design - completed (the preliminary and detailed design of the Heat Exchanger has been accomplished; (CDR has been done even if not yet formally closed)
Electronic and Software Design - completed (the preliminary and detailed design of the Heat Exchanger has been accomplished; (CDR has been done even if not yet formally closed)
Fault detection and health monitoring algorithms - ongoing (deadline: 31/12/2019)
Safety analysis - ongoing (deadline: dealine 31/12/2019)
Test rig design activities - ongoing (deadline: 30/10/2019)

On April 2018 the DEVILS consortium achieved an important project milestone – the Preliminary Design Review: freezing of the oil lubrication system architecture and geometry of the variable flow rate pump.
om June 2019 it has been done the CDR meeting with the Topic Manager and all design evdence and deliverable have been proviced, CDR Milestone is not yet formally achieved since we are waiting Rolls Royce formal approval, anyway 95% of CDR is performed.


Exploitation and dissemination:
The above mentioned tehcnical reslults at have been dissiminated through some stage/formation on the job. Herefter the list of stage/formation on the job carried out jointly by Abete S.r.l and University of Naplels (name of the students involved and title of the thesis arelisted):
- Emanuele Boccardi - DEVELOPMENT OF AN INNOVATIVE VARIABLE FLOW-RATE GEROTOR PUMP FOR I.C.E.: GEOMETRIC MODELING AND 3D-CFD ANALYSIS OF HYPOTROCHOIDAL ROTORS.
- Gaetano De Mase - DEVELOPMENT OF AN INNOVATIVE VARIABLE FLOW-RATE GEROTOR PUMP FOR I.C.E.: 3D DESIGN, 1D SIMULATION OF THE SYSTEM CHARACTERIZATION AND DOE OPTIMIZATION.
- Salvatore Nunneri - DEVELOPMENT OF AN INNOVATIVE VARIABLE FLOW-RATE GEROTOR PUMP FOR I.C.E.: EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS FOR SYSTEM\'S DYNAMIC CHARACTERIZATION AND ITS PERFORMANCES.
- Salvatore Stuvart -DESIGN OF A TEST RIG FOR LUBRICATION SYSTEMS OF TURBOFAN ENGINES.

Communication Activities:
DEVILS projects objective, consortium and interim results have been presented by:

University of Naples at
- 15th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power – SICFP’17 Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. - Presentation Title: \"\"Development of an Innovative Variable Flow-Rate Gerotor Pump for Lubrication Circuit of I.C.E: Designing, Modelling and Testing\"\"

Abete S.r.l at
- AEROSPACE & DEFENSE Meetings Torino 2017

A section dedicated to DEVILS project has been created in PROTOM, CNR - Istituto Motori, Abete and Euro.sdf\"

Final results

The benefits of the Innovative DEVILS Variable Oil Flow Pump have been demonstrated through simulations (both 1D and 3D) and are listed below. Those benefits are common to all the variable displacement pumps however they are new for a Gerotor pump.

• Adjustment of Circuit Pressure
• Variable Flow Rate and Pressure with Fixed Pump Speed
• Fixed Flow Rate and Pressure with Variable Pump Speed
• Compensation of Viscosity Variation
• Compensation of loss due to Components Wear
• Compensation of loss due to physical-chemical properties of the oil

So, a variable flow control can improve the efficiency of the overall oil lubrication circuit of a turbofan. In fact, the capability of the system to adapt itself independently from the pump speed allows different strategies to optimize and control the complete lubrication circuit according to the engine request and with respect of the temperature limits.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.protom.com/en/devils/.