The four-year initiative will take advantage of Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-present Royce’s research collaborations with Virginia Tech as well as the university’s research capabilities in geosciences, instrumentation, and engine operation.
Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney have signed a pre-competitive research agreement with Virginia Tech to study the impact of environmental contaminants on aero-engine operation and testing. The four-year initiative will take advantage of Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-present Royce’s research collaborations with Virginia Tech as well as the university’s research capabilities in geosciences, instrumentation, and engine operation.
The two companies have been working together on research projects for many years, addressing problems that affect the aerospace industry as a whole. The two businesses have collaborated on several government-sponsored research initiatives, including a study on the effects of volcanic ash on aircraft engines.
“At Virginia Tech, we are honored to be given the opportunity to build on the foundation of our existing academic alliances by partnering with Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce on this project,” said Changmin Son, the Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor, Virginia Tech. “The multidisciplinary group, teamed with Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, and Geosciences, will work together to tackle the impact of the airborne particulate on aircraft engines, which is a huge challenge for today’s aviation industry,” he further added.
Various organizations have been working on this front in the US, UK, and other parts of the world, acquiring some of the fundamental knowledge required before comprehensive modeling can be conducted. The goal of this research initiative is to further develop mitigation strategies through a partnership between Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and Virginia Tech, as well as to feed data from actual engine operations back into the more fundamental research activities. Virginia Tech is equipped to conduct more complex engine testing.
“Rolls-Royce has enjoyed a strong relationship with Virginia Tech for decades, collaborating on a variety of research projects to measure and evaluate engine performance under different conditions,” said Lisa Teague, head of Emerging Technologies and Innovation at Rolls-Royce LibertyWorks. “This new joint research project will help further industry understanding of airborne particles – a key contributor to engine degradation – and their impact on operability,” she further added.
Particle ingestion’s harmful effects are frequently a source of worry for the aerospace sector because they can hasten engine ageing and reduce performance. This work’s immediate objective is to use the knowledge gained from smaller engine testing, which will be conducted on a Rolls-Royce M250 engine, to inform large engine test programmes by taking into account the variations in engine architecture and operating conditions.
“Pratt & Whitney sees this as a great opportunity to improve our basic understanding of an issue that is critically important to our entire industry,” said Frank Preli, Vice President, Propulsion and Materials Technologies, Pratt & Whitney. “Virginia Tech has the right expertise and facilities to help us make an impact as the joint research team will investigate the fundamentals of particle (sand/dust) properties as the particles pass through the engine with the goal of improving analysis methods to better predict those effects,” he further added.
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As air travel has increased globally, environmental pollutants have an adverse effect that results in annual losses of hundreds of millions of dollars for both commercial and military operations. The complexity of the chemistry of the ambient toxins inside the engine, as well as fleet management, maintenance methods, engine design, and even weather forecasting, are all aspects of this complicated problem. It covers a broad spectrum of scientific concerns and real-world engineering issues that are ideal for a multi-discipline project.
