Investigating the use of alternative fuel pumps designs for cleaner aviation

研究替代燃油泵设计的使用以实现更清洁的航空

• 批准号: 2828040
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2828040
• 关键词: Investigating; use; alternative; fuel; pumps

With the continuing drive towards cleaner aviation in recent years, there have been active investigations into alternatives to traditional aviation fuel. Liquid hydrogen is one of the leading candidates as identified by a recent (March 2022) report from the Aerospace Technologies. Fuel pumps have traditionally used fuel-lubricated bearings including plain bearings and rolling-element bearings. These bearings face very specific challenges with liquid hydrogen due to the very low temperatures, low viscosity, low density, the tendency to cause brittleness of the bearing materials and the possible chemical effects that might exist. This PhD project sets out to investigate the selection and engineering design of bearings suitable for use in liquid hydrogen pumps. Such pumps have been used in rockets for decades but the rocket applications require an active service life measured only in minutes. This work will explore both the customisation of conventional bearing designs and the development of novel bearing designs suitable for service within a fuel pump that could operate at the required loads and rotational speeds whilst also having a long operational life spaces (>10,000 hours). It is expected that the study will embrace traditional fluid bearing designs (including plain journal bearings) as well as (electro- )magnetic bearings and it may also consider the possible exploitation of controllable unbalanced magnetic pull within an electrical machine to assist in managing bearing transverse loads.

近年来，随着清洁航空的不断发展，人们对传统航空燃料的替代品进行了积极的研究。航空航天技术公司最近（2022 年 3 月）的一份报告指出，液氢是主要候选材料之一。燃油泵传统上使用燃油润滑轴承，包括滑动轴承和滚动轴承。由于液态氢的温度极低、粘度低、密度低、容易导致轴承材料脆化以及可能存在的化学效应，这些轴承面临着非常特殊的挑战。该博士项目旨在研究适用于液氢泵的轴承的选择和工程设计。此类泵已在火箭中使用了数十年，但火箭应用要求的有效使用寿命仅以分钟为单位。这项工作将探索传统轴承设计的定制以及适合在燃油泵内使用的新型轴承设计的开发，该燃油泵可以在所需的负载和转速下运行，同时还具有较长的使用寿命（> 10,000 小时）。预计该研究将涵盖传统的流体轴承设计（包括滑动轴颈轴承）以及（电磁）轴承，并且还可能考虑利用电机内的可控不平衡磁拉力来协助管理轴承横向载荷。