Abstract

Open Rotor propulsion systems have the potential to significantly reduce fuel burn relative to conventional turbofan engines. Maintaining this high propulsion efficiency in an acoustically acceptable system is one of the challenges in making open rotor propulsion commercially feasible. The NASA/GE collaboration is exploring the design space for lower noise while maintaining the high propulsive efficiency from a counter-rotating open rotor system. A low-noise open rotor system is being tested in collaboration with General Electric. Candidate technologies for lower noise will be investigated as well as installation effects such as pylon and fuselage integration.

Aerodynamic performance and acoustic testing is ongoing at Glenn Research Center and will cover flight Mach numbers from 0.1 up to 0.82. Additionally, detailed flow field diagnostics are planned as part of the NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation program. These diagnostics include Acoustic Phased Array, Pressure Sensitive Paint, Hot Wire Anemometry and 3D Particle Image Velocimetry for a comprehensive, unique data set. This presentation will be an overview of the test program plans and objectives.

Biography

Dale received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University in 1997. His graduate research was done at NASA Glenn Research Center (then NASA Lewis) in the area of unsteady flows in high-speed compressors.

He joined the Fan and Compressor at NASA Glenn in 1999 and worked on numerical simulations of the UEET compressor.  His research focuses were tip clearance flows in transonic compressor rotors and blade row interactions in highly loaded compressors. In 2003 he moved to the Acoustics Branch and has been involved in scale model fan testing, detonation tube-turbine coupling and, most recently, is the NASA Open Rotor Research Team Lead.