Aircraft manufacturers face ever increasing economic, environemental and regulatory challenges when developing new aircraft. These include
- Increasing Fuel Efficiency
- Varying Operating Conditions
- Tighter regulations on safety of systems and Comfort/Health
of passengers
- Shorter Development Cycles
- Workforce Reductions
- Globalization
For fuel system development aerospace engineers have to ensure that as the fuel level depletes - over a complete flight profile – they have the ability to validate the system's performance at a concept stage. By simulating the pressurisation and venting process to ensure the correct flow rate is achieved, they can prevent over pressurisation of the tank and minimise the risk of explosion.
To conform to FAA rules on
inerting fuel systems
Fuel tank inerting sub-systems are designed to
inject and distribute Nitrogen Enriched Air (NEA)
within the tank ullage in order to reduce fuel
flammability below limits deemed acceptable
by FAA regulations. It is increasingly vital for
engineers to simulate fuel tank inerting at a
concept stage, as physical testing even on
scale models of aircraft fuel tanks, can be very
expensive and time consuming. Flowmaster V7 Aerospace includes an
advanced Multi-Arm Tank component that
has been specifically designed to simplify the
modelling of multi cell fuel tanks. The component can account for the movement of fuel
from one cell to another while also internally tracking the changing oxygen and nitrogen
concentrations within the ullage.
The successful development of an Environmental Control Systems (ECS) is dependent on maintaining a comfortable environment for passengers and tolerable working conditions for safety and electrical equipment while also ensuring the system is optimised to minimise material wastage and weight. Flowmaster V7 Aerospace can be used at the concept stage to model and simulate all the sub-systems of an aircraft's entire environmental control system. Using the in-built 'Flow-Balancing'
functionality engineers can optimise the properties of individual components around system, identifying where waste can be minimised, without risking the performance of the overall system.
“Flowmaster is a design tool used by our engineers on a daily basis to investigate the fluid mechanics of the fuel system. It helps us understand how changes to the fuel system design will affect performance, and the simulation results are frequently used in conjunction with test results in certification reports for the fuel system”
Ellis Griffiths,
Head of Fuel Systems, Fluids Mechanical. Airbus UK |
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Space Customers include: NASA, MHI, Boeing Space Division, ESTEC
Military Aircraft Customers include: Agusta Westland, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems
Comercial Jet Customers include: Airbus, Boeing, Cessna, Embraer,
AVIC,
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