Design and Application of a Multi-Disciplinary Pre-Design Process for Novel Engine Concepts

Central targets for jet engine research activities comprise the evaluation of improved engine components and the assessment of novel engine concepts for enhanced overall engine performance in order to reduce the fuel consumption and emissions of future aircraft. Since CO2 emissions are directly related to engine fuel burn, a reduction in fuel consumption leads to lower CO2 emissions. Therefore improvements in engine technologies are still significant and a multi-disciplinary pre-design approach is essential in order to address all requirements and constraints associated with different engine concepts. Furthermore, an increase in effectiveness of the preliminary design process helps reduce the immense costs of the overall engine development. Within the DLR project PEGASUS (Preliminary Gas Turbine Assessment and Sizing) a multi-disciplinary pre-design and assessment competence of the DLR regarding aero engines and gas turbines was established. The application of modern preliminary design methods allows for the construction and evaluation of innovative next generation engine concepts. The purpose of this paper is to present the developed multi-disciplinary pre-design process and its application to three aero engine models. First, a state of the art twin spool mixed flow turbofan engine model is created for validation purposes. The second and third engine models investigated comprise future engine concepts: a Counter Rotating Open Rotor and an Ultra High Bypass Turbofan. The turbofan used for validation is based on publicly available reference data from manufacturing and emission certification. At first the identified interfaces and constraints of the entire pre-design process are presented. An important factor of complexity in this highly iterative procedure is the intricate data flow, as well as the extensive amount of data transferred between all involved disciplines and among the different fidelity levels applied within the smoothly connected design phases. To cope with the inherent complexity data modeling techniques have been applied to explicitly determine the required data structures of those complex systems. The resulting data model characterizing the components of a gas turbine and their relationships in the design process is presented in detail. Based on the established data model the entire engine pre-design process is presented. Starting with the definition of a flight mission scenario and the resulting top level engine requirements thermodynamic engine performance models are developed. By means of these thermodynamic models, a detailed engine component pre-design is conducted. The aerodynamic and structural design of the engine components are executed using a stepwise increase in level of detail and are continuously evaluated in the context of the overall engine system.