Renewed interest in reducing aircraft noise has spurred the development of a new testing facility. One of the major sources of jet aircraft noise is the engine nozzle exhaust, so wind tunnel and freejet testing have been used to evaluate nozzle concepts for thrust and noise reduction. In the past, the NASA Lewis Research Center used its Jet Exit Rig to supply hot, high-pressure air to the nozzle to simulate engine exhaust, but the flow capacity of this rig was not large enough to supply larger nozzles, which are needed for more accurate noise assessment. Therefore, Lewis developed a new testing tool for this effort, the High-Flow Jet Exit Rig.
The High-Flow Jet Exit Rig is a single-stream, strut-mounted sting that can accommodate up to 33 lb/sec of ambient temperature air at nozzle pressure ratios up to 4.5, or accommodate up to 20 lb/sec of heated air at up to 2000 °R at nozzle pressure ratios up to 4.5. This range of flow is suitable for nozzles with throat areas up to 22 in.2 Air is heated by a combustor unit based on a J-58 combustor, and forces are measured with a single-component, loadcell-based force balance. The rig can be mounted in either the Nozzle Aeroacoustic Test Rig (NATR) freejet or the 8- by 6-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel at Lewis.
Lewis' Engineering Design and Analysis Division designed the rig in-house, and fabrication was done at West Tool and Die, Inc. Checkout testing was performed in Lewis' Propulsion System Laboratory, including static-force balance calibration and cold- and hot-flow testing with a standard nozzle.
Find out more about the--
NATR
freejet
8-
by 6-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel
Propulsion
System Laboratory
Lewis contact: John D. Wolter, (216) 433-3941,
John.D.Wolter@grc.nasa.gov
Authors: John D. Wolter and Raymond S. Castner
Headquarters program office: OASTT
Programs/Projects: HSR
Previous articleLast updated April 15, 1998, by Nancy.L.Obryan@nasa.gov
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