Introduction of a Cost Effective Method for Analysing Engine Intake Ice Removal Device for Small Aircraft

Abstract

As the need for personal air transport increases significantly, new aircraft and/or its components are required to be designed and developed together with expectations for guarantying the high level flight safety. Since smaller aircraft manufacturers don’t have the infrastructural and experimental resources for complex investigations, analysis of engine components with especial care for the behaviour of particle separation components in the inlet air duct for example, smarter, more efficient solutions have to be developed. CFD software gives an opportunity to simulate the trajectories of different type of particles, such as hailstones, dust, or even liquid water droplets. Hence, in this study an upper-wing type, two engines thrusted, small turboprop aircraft’s integrated engine air intake device has been analysed, to prove the effectivity of the aircraft performance in the considered raining and icing conditions. The flow field has been discretized with a detailed, hybrid mesh using hexa elements at the simpler parts, and tetra elements, where the geometry is more complex. Inflation layers have been inserted on the wall-type surfaces, with especial care to the problematic parts, where the y+ number is predictably higher. The inlet boundary conditions of the model have been extracted from a larger, complex pre-simulation, performed in a previous study. Standard Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations have been considered with Shear Stress Transport turbulence model. Solid (ice) and liquid particles have been defined, and their trajectories are investigated by using fully coupled model. The interaction of the wall-fluid particle has been taken into consideration.