• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.107-114
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• 2019

In many military aircraft, s-shaped diffusers are used to prevent the fan blades of the turbofan engine from being exposed to the outside. The inlet configurations of the air intakes for military aircraft vary, such as the rectangular intake of the F-22, the crescent-like intake of the F-16, elliptical intake of the MQ-25. In this study, the aerodynamic performance of s-shaped diffusers with various inlet configurations was evaluated using numerical analysis. In addition, the configuration of the middle section of an s-shape duct was changed to the crescent shape, and the effects on its aerodynamic performance were investigated. As a result, there was a slight difference in total pressure recovery according to various inlet configurations with ellipse-shaped middle sections. Also, the total pressure distortion was the lowest in the rectangular inlet shape. When the configuration of the middle section was changed from an ellipse to a crescent shape, the total pressure recovery remained at a high level, except for the ellipse-shaped inlet configuration. In terms of total pressure distortion, the duct with the crescent-shaped middle section showed a significantly more uniform pressure distribution than that with the ellipse-shaped middle section.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.221-231
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• 2021

In the present study, numerical simulation was performed to investigate aerodynamic characteristics of a ducted fan-upper/lower vanes system in hover. Sensitivity analysis of aerodynamic forces for a system component was conducted with the deflection angle of upper vanes varying but at the constant rotational speed and the collective pitch angle of fan blades. Then, vane control performance and duct airload distributions were analyzed in detail to physically understand operating mechanisms of individual vane and interference effect between duct and vanes. Finally, new control concept of operating upper vanes has been proposed to improve the control performance of the full configuration. It is found that the side force and rolling moment of upper vanes increase linearly with the variation of those deflection angle; however, the total side force is significantly small due to the reaction force acted on the duct. It is also found that upper vanes close to the duct contraction side have a key role in changing vane control forces. It is revealed that the duct suction pressure is induced by the interaction with the suction side of upper vanes, while duct pressure recovery by the interaction with the pressure side, leading to increase in duct asymmetric force. When four upper vanes are kept in situ at 0° deflection angle or removed, the total control performance was improved with duct asymmetric force reduced and the total magnitude of roll remarkably increasing up to 80%.