Chapter 265 WS-30 Test!
Chapter 265 WS-30 Test!
After making sure that everyone had entered the test control room, Kang Chi finally nodded to Yan Hui.
The first round of ground tests of the WS-30 engine began.
In this round of tests, the main purpose is to simulate the engine’s operating conditions under ground conditions.
After completing the first round of tests, it will be transferred to a special outdoor venue for a second round of tests in rain, freezing, high temperature, dust, bird strikes, smoke swallowing, and other special climates and conditions.
For example, in the water swallowing test, in order to simulate the engine’s working conditions under water vapor, clouds, fog, rain, snow, and hail, there will be a special water spraying device in front of the engine, and then when the engine is running, it will spray several tons of water in just a few minutes. The engine must not be shut down to be qualified.
However, this test method is usually only for jet aircraft and engines. For tilt-rotor aircraft such as Yinhe, especially electric aircraft, this extreme simulation is not very useful…
Electric aircraft test the balance of the fuselage in actual flight, and the motor does not shut down. If it is fixed on the test bench, except for the test of foreign objects hitting the propeller, other tests are of little reference value.
After the second round, special high-altitude simulation test equipment will be used to conduct high-altitude test benches. This high-altitude simulation bench is a “wind tunnel” specially used to test aircraft engines. It can simulate various environments of engines flying at high altitudes, such as different air pressures, airflow speeds, airflow angles, temperatures, etc.
In this simulation environment, more complex tests such as thrust transients, surge induced by intake distortion, high-altitude thrust, fuel consumption rate, ignition within the flight envelope, and stable combustion can be performed.
However, the high-altitude simulation platform is more difficult to build than the wind tunnel. There are only two in the country. The first SB101 took 30 years to build, which is enough to show the preciousness of its resources.
Therefore, generally, an aircraft engine will not be sent directly to the high-altitude platform after it is built. At least it must pass the initial ground simulation test before the third round of high-altitude bench testing will be carried out.
According to statistics, the design of an aircraft engine only accounts for 10%, the manufacturing accounts for 40%, and the testing accounts for 50%.
Although Kang Chi is very confident in the engine he built, this link is indispensable, otherwise no one dares to use his engine…
”All departments are in place, the first round of testing, cold operation begins.”
As Kang Chi issued an order, an engineer decisively pressed the button.
At this time, the simulation was only about starting the engine, filling oil and other preparations. After about two minutes, after confirming that all the data was normal, Kang Chi continued: “Start the slow test.”
”Start the slow test, engine ignition!”
As the test engineer pressed the ignition button, the engine inside finally started running. Even though there was a wall between them, everyone could still hear a sharp engine sound, and the atmosphere gradually became heated.
The slow test mainly simulates the warm-up, ground taxiing, and final approach and landing stages after the engine is started.
In this state, the engine is basically controlled at the lowest speed.
The wind tunnel also only blows at the lowest power to maintain basic air circulation.
It is worth mentioning that the working time of the wind tunnel is usually not very long, because the working principle of the wind tunnel is to compress the air into the can. Once the air is exhausted, it is gone, and the air must be compressed again to continue the next round of testing.
How long it can be released depends entirely on how fast you want to blow the wind.
According to the performance of the wind tunnel at the Aoying Base, a wind of Mach 10 can only last for 3 seconds, and Mach 1 can last for 30 seconds. For example, the JF-22 in Huairou can only last for 100-300ms when it blows Mach 33.
After all, the speed of Mach 33 is too fast. It can cross the Pacific Ocean in 14 minutes. If you want to build a wind tunnel that can blow Mach 33 for 14 minutes…
It is basically impossible! Think about how much air you have to store? Storing air is also expensive! Many cars are sent to wind tunnels for wind resistance testing. They shout that it is a waste of money to blow a few hundred yards of wind, saying that the sound of the wind tunnel is worth a lot of gold, not to mention the aircraft blowing a few Mach winds…
However, the WS-30 is not an engine designed for supersonic aircraft. It is enough to blow Mach 1 at most, so it can greatly save the time and cost of the entire test process.”The slow-run test is complete, the blades are running stably, the engine temperature is normal, and no special vibrations are found.”
”Received, prepare for takeoff simulation.”
After the slightly boring slow-run phase, the next step is the takeoff test that everyone is most looking forward to. In this phase, the engine power will gradually increase until the designed maximum power.
”Takeoff simulation, power will slowly increase in 5 seconds…”
As the test staff began to slowly push a throttle lever that was similar in shape to the cockpit of an aircraft, the engine sound in the test room suddenly began to get louder and louder, and the wind tunnel airflow also slowly accelerated.
Until it accelerated to 0.2 Mach, everyone heard that the sharpness of the engine sound suddenly increased by one level, and the thrust curve that rose sharply on the big screen was about to enter the valley slope and slow down, but after this sharp sound, it suddenly began to rise sharply again…
What’s going on? When Dong Jun’s eyes quickly shifted from the data screen to the live picture of the engine, he was immediately stunned.
The tail of this so-called ‘high bypass ratio engine’ actually emitted a clear red flame tail!
This is…
Variable cycle afterburner? ! Are you kidding me?
At this moment, he finally believed that this engine, which is a circle smaller than the WS-20, could theoretically produce a thrust three times higher than the WS-20…
Because this is simply a dimensionality reduction attack!
After the afterburner is turned on, the turbofan engine actually has no distinction between internal and external ducts. It is more like a turbojet engine, at least in terms of space utilization, it maximizes the performance of the entire engine.
But the afterburner technology is usually only used on small bypass ratio engines that pursue extreme performance.
No one has ever used this technology on a high bypass ratio engine…
It feels like installing a performance car’s nitrogen accelerator on a truck or a family car…
This is a dimensionality reduction attack.
And this thing is different from installing a nitrogen accelerator on a car. The afterburner is part of the engine, so it is a complete redesign of the engine. Whether it is the difficulty of design or manufacturing, it is completely on a different level.
Even if you install a nitrogen accelerator on a truck, you have to consider whether the truck’s body strength, balance, tires and other things can withstand it, not to mention the aircraft engine which is a hundred times more complex.
So it is very likely that this is not something that can be achieved with existing materials.
“Takeoff simulation is over. The maximum thrust of the test bench during takeoff is 49.52KN. Continue the 30S continuous maximum power state test!”
“491.3KN!?”
“Awesome, it has reached 50 tons of thrust!”
“…”
Looking at the thrust curve on the screen, everyone was excited.
KN is a more professional unit of expression in the field of aviation power. If it is replaced with kilogram force, which is easier for ordinary people to understand, 491.3KN is equivalent to 50098Kgf (1 kilonewton = 101.971621 kilogram force), which is exactly 50.09 tons of thrust.
Even the two leaders who have always been calm were moved after seeing this data.
Regardless of whether Kang Chi has cheated by adding the afterburner technology, this result alone has completely broken the records of all current aviation engines in China.
However, although everyone was excited, because the test was still in progress, everyone quickly controlled their emotions and stared at the thrust curve.
After all, in the past engine tests, there were also some engines that achieved amazing results, but suddenly had an accident in the next second, so that the prototype was directly scrapped…
However, in the following 30 seconds of continuous maximum power test, the engine’s thrust curve also remained very stable, which made everyone feel a little relieved.
”The continuous maximum power state test is completed, the engine is running normally, the temperature is normal, the gas pressure pulsation in the reflow area of the afterburner is normal, and no oscillating combustion phenomenon is found.”
After 30 seconds, the engine power began to slowly decrease, and the next step was the relatively boring finishing steps such as slowing down, stopping, and cooling. ”Mr. Kang, the first round of tests was successfully completed. This is the specific data analysis.”
Not long after the finishing steps were completed, Yan Hui handed the data that had just been printed to Kang Chi.
”Everyone take a ten-minute break, and then prepare for the secondround of tests.”
”Okay.”
Although Kang Chi said to take a ten-minute break, everyone was in no mood to rest at the moment, and they all began to discuss the test intensely.
As the head of the Y-20 engine design, Chi Jinliang couldn’t help but approach Kang Chi and asked, “How did you use the afterburner technology on the large bypass engine?”
”And the length of this engine looks less than 7 meters… It doesn’t look like an engine with an afterburner.”
Dong Jun couldn’t help but add, “Are you sure this is a high bypass ratio engine?”
Kang Chi smiled and pulled out a design drawing of the engine directly: “Bypass ratio 6:1, it is definitely a large bypass engine.”
”The length is less than seven meters, that’s because I moved the afterburner forward to the area of the inner bypass combustion chamber. To put it bluntly, this is a turbojet design with two combustion chambers. ”
The two were stunned after hearing this.
Move the afterburner forward to the area of the internal combustion chamber?! Isn’t this putting the internal combustion chamber on the fire?!
”This… how many hours is the design service life of your engine?”
”Twenty thousand.”
”This is impossible!” Chi Jinliang immediately exclaimed, “Your internal combustion chamber will definitely not last more than a thousand, no… it will be scrapped in a hundred hours!”
Because of his excitement, he couldn’t even control his volume, and immediately attracted everyone’s attention.
Faced with this question, Kang Chi just took out another stack of information without changing his expression: “How do you know it won’t last more than a hundred hours? How about taking a look at this first? ”
[A new structural ceramic material composed of Al203, ZrO3, C-BN, Si3N4, Sic and other materials with high temperature resistance, high strength and corrosion resistance – PG01]
After seeing this title, Chi Jinliang’s expression was stunned for a moment, and then he hurriedly read it carefully, and then his hands holding the document began to tremble…
Density 1.06g/cm3,
Tensile strength 300kgf/mm2,
Fracture toughness up to 600kgf/mm The maximum temperature tolerance is 4600℃, …
Looking at these data that completely crush the existing aviation engine materials, some of which even doubled, Chi Jinliang’s mind suddenly went blank.
How is this possible! ! ?
But…
The facts seem to be in front of us.
Otherwise, how could an afterburner be added to an engine that is no more than seven meters long? If there is no afterburner, how can an engine with a shell diameter of only 4.4 meters explode with 50 tons of fuel? Thrust? So the most eye-catching part of Kang Chi’s engine is not the engine itself,
but the material that completely breaks the bottleneck of engine development! What the hell,
What kind of monster is this?
Chi Jinliang returned the information to Kang Chi in a daze, then walked to the corner silently, found a chair and sat down,
At this moment, he just wanted to be quiet…
Seeing that Chi Jinliang was almost autistic after being hit by Kang Chi, Dong Jun couldn’t help but feel powerless.
But soon , he thought of a problem.
Fifty tons of thrust is achieved when the afterburner is turned on.
Although the engine in this state has great thrust, it consumes a lot of fuel, so it cannot be turned on all the time.
Otherwise, the range will drop sharply and it will have no practical value.
It is precisely because of the fuel consumption problem that turbojet engines have been basically eliminated since the fourth generation of fighters.
”If the afterburner is turned off, how much thrust can it have when cruising?”
The angle of the question is very tricky.
Kang Chi smiled mysteriously and replied: “Don’t worry, the test is not over yet. ”
Of course he knew what Dong Jun was thinking.
If the thrust is not enough after the afterburner is turned off, the cruising speed of the aircraft will be very slow. If you want to increase the cruising speed, you have to increase the engine power, which will also consume a lot of fuel.
Therefore, changing from four engines to two may become a small horse pulling a big cart, and the range may be reduced.
Although the maximum thrust increased in this way can also increase the load and reduce the take-off distance, it is also very limited.
At this time, the variable bypass ratio can play a huge role.
Seeing that Kang Chi was a little mysterious, Dong Jun suppressed his curiosity and waited quietly.Looking forward to the next test.
After about an hour, the preparations for the second test were finally completed.
”All departments are in place, ready to start the first round of test, the 8th project, the variable duct cruise test!”
Change…Change duct! ? Dong Jun’s eyes widened immediately.
In the discussion just now, Chief Shen and Chief Lu were just standing by, quietly listening to their technical discussions. They could neither interrupt nor intervene in such technical issues.
Anyway, they could roughly understand the situation through the few words they could understand.
But when they heard the name of this round of tests reported by Kang Chi, the two bosses could no longer remain calm.
”Change duct…your engine…can it also change duct!!?”
Although Chief Shen tried his best to remain calm, his trembling voice could not cover up his excitement and shock at this time.
Variable bypass technology has always existed only in theory, and no one in the world has ever heard of anyone who can build such an engine.
But Kang Chi suddenly told them: Our next test is variable bypass.
Isn’t this surprise too big?
Or is it just a joke? ”Yes, the WS-30 is actually a variable bypass engine with a bypass ratio of 6-10!”
(End of this chapter)