Common Core Engine Design for Multiple Applications using a Concurrent Multi-Design Point Approach

摘要

Common core engine technology has been pursued by industry for decades due to the potential of reducing costs for design, development, and operation when applying the same core over a family of engines for multiple applications. This paper investigates the design space for a next-generation technology level common core (high pressure system) for multiple applications at each engine's flight conditions and power requirements. To evaluate the feasibility of a common core between different applications, or market segments, three engine applications for a similar small engine power class were considered: a turboshaft helicopter, a regional turboprop commercial transport, and a regional turbofan commercial transport. To perform this design space exploration, the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation and Weight Analysis of Turbine Engines (WATE++) were used within a Multi-Design Point (MDP) framework. The MDP approach ensures that all design and off-design requirements and constraints for a given engine are simultaneously met. Within MDP, this paper demonstrates how candidate cores can be evaluated concurrently for all three engine applications. This ensures the same core is implemented on each application and allows flexibility for exploring the common core design space, while providing an added degree of freedom in evaluating performance trade-offs. In order to determine how well the common core is suited across applications, the "ideal" cycle design is first selected for each engine independently. This paper discusses the trade-offs and decisions that must be made in order to select a "100% fully common" core while aiming to incur minimum performance penalties compared to independently designed engines. The results show significant penalties for a common core operated across multiple applications, which motivates future work to explore trade-offs for different levels of commonality, development cost, and robust design when selecting a common core for multiple engine applications.