O uso de ligas de alumínio pela indústria aeronáutica é sabidamente consagrado. Neste tipo de uso os carregamentos e seu histórico acabam por ter uma importância ímpar na determinação da vida em fadiga das peças estruturais. Este trabalho busca estudar e apresentar a modelagem em uma série de pacotes fechados de análise de fadiga para carregamentos de amplitude constante e variável, em ligas de alumínio usadas na indústria aeronáutica. Neste contexto, modelam-se carregamentos simples ou complexos espectros de voos comerciais e militares. Outro aspecto importante da pesquisa consiste em aliar as técnicas da formulação de elementos finitos, no estudo da vida em fadiga de corpos de prova e demais propriedades do material, com os modelos bem consagrados para problemas de propagação de trinca, comumente presentes na indústria em questão. Obtiveram-se boas respostas, no tocante à representação dos fenômenos estruturais e de material, sobretudo aqueles relacionados à propagação. Ademais, o Método dos Elementos Finitos Estendidos ajuda significativamente na melhoria da resposta numérica, contudo sem aumentar de forma restritiva o custo computacional das análises. Os principais resultados ao final do trabalho foram uma contribuição ao estudo deste material relacionado à modelagem via elementos finitos conseguindo-se representar bem campos de tensões e propagações de trinca e, em especial, a representação obtida do ensaio de KIC. Por outro lado, com o uso de pacotes fechados e abertos no estudo da vida em fadiga, conseguiu-se simular de forma satisfatória problemas de fadiga, em situações envolvendo carregamentos de amplitude constante e variável, tais como picos e espectros de voos civis e militares. / The use of aluminum alloys by the aeronautical industry is well known. In this application, load time-histories resulting important for fatigue life determination of aircraft structural components. Present work aims to study and present the modeling in some closed packages of fatigue analysis for both constant and variable amplitude loads in aluminum alloys used for aeronautical purposes. In this context, simple or complex loading spectra are modeled, for commercial and military flights. Another important issue of the research is to combine techniques of finite element formulation in order to predict the fatigue life of test specimens and properties of the material, using well-established models for crack propagation commonly used in the industry of concern. Were obtained good results, regarding the representation of stress states, especially those related to crack propagation. Moreover, the Extended Finite Element Method (X-FEM) significantly helps in improving the numerical response, however saving the computational cost of the analyzes. The main result of present work is the increase of the knowledge about modeling aeronautical alloys via finite elements, where were possible to represent accurately tension fields, crack propagations and especially the KIC test. On the other hand, with the use of closed and open packages for fatigue life prediction, it was possible to simulate satisfactorily problems involving constant and variable amplitude loading, such as peaks and spectra of civil and military flights.

This study explores the variable speed operation and shift response of a prototype of a two speed single path CVT rotorcraft driveline system. Here a Comprehensive Variable Speed Rotorcraft Propulsion system Modeling (CVSRPM) tool is developed and utilized to simulate the drive system dynamics in steady forward speed condition. This investigation attempts to build upon previous variable speed rotorcraft propulsion studies by: 1) Including fully nonlinear first principles based transient gas-turbine engine model 2) Including shaft flexibility 3) Incorporating a basic flight dynamics model to account for interactions with the flight control system. Through exploring the interactions between the various subsystems, this analysis provides important insight into the continuing development of variable speed rotorcraft propulsion systems.

The present study considers the numerical simulation of the different flow characteristics involved in the conjugate heat transfer analysis of an internally cooled gas turbine blade. Conjugate simulations require full coupling of convective heat transfer in fluid regions to the heat diffusion in solid regions. Therefore, accurate prediction of heat transfer quantities on both external and internal surfaces has the uppermost importance and highly connected with the performance of the employed turbulence models. The complex flow on both surfaces of the internally cooled turbine blades is caused from the boundary layer laminar-to-turbulence transition, shock wave interaction with boundary layer, high streamline curvature and sequential flow separation. In order to discover the performances of different turbulence models on these flow types, analyses have been conducted on five different experimental studies each concerned with different flow and heat transfer characteristics. Each experimental study has been examined with four different turbulence models available in the commercial software (ANSYS FLUENT13.0) to decide most suitable RANS-based turbulence model. The Realizable k-&epsilon / model, Shear Stress Transport k-&omega / model, Reynolds Stress Model and V2-f model, which became increasingly popular during the last few years, have been used at the numerical simulations. According to conducted analyses, despite a few unreasonable predictions, in the majority of the numerical simulations, V2-f model outperforms other first-order turbulence models (Realizable k-&epsilon / and Shear Stress Transport k-&omega / ) in terms of accuracy and Reynolds Stress Model in terms of convergence.

Aerodynamic parameter estimation from closed loop data has been developed as another research area since control and stability augmentation systems have been mandatory for aircrafts. This thesis focuses on aerodynamic parameter estimation of an air to ground missile from closed loop data using separate surface excitations. A design procedure is proposed for designing separate surface excitations. The effect of excitations signals to the system is also analyzed by examining autopilot disturbance rejection performance. Aerodynamic parameters are estimated using two different estimation techniques which are ordinary least squares and complex linear regression. The results are compared with each other and with the aerodynamic database. An application of the studied techniques to a real system is also given to validate that they are directly applicable to real life.

Aerodynamic parameter estimation from closed loop data has been developed as another research area since control and stability augmentation systems have been mandatory for aircrafts. This thesis focuses on aerodynamic parameter estimation of an air to ground missile from closed loop data using separate surface excitations. A design procedure is proposed for designing separate surface excitations. The effect of excitations signals to the system is also analyzed by examining autopilot disturbance rejection performance. Aerodynamic parameters are estimated using two different estimation techniques which are ordinary least squares and complex linear regression. The results are compared with each other and with the aerodynamic database. An application of the studied techniques to a real system is also given to validate that they are directly applicable to real life.

This thesis presents the calibration processes of the pitot-static system, which is a part of the air data system of a military transport aircraft through flight tests. Tower fly-by method is used for air data system calibration. Altitude error caused by the position of the static port on the aircraft is determined by analyzing the data collected during four sorties with different weight, flap and landing gear configurations. The same data has been used to determine the airspeed measurement error. It has been shown that both the altitude and airspeed errors are within the allowable limits specified by FAR 25. Same method is also used for trailing cone calibration that is used for high altitude test flights for RVSM certification.

ST Aerospace located at Arlanda airport maintain and repair aircraft components. The maintenance activities that the workshop conducts require testing of the component’s function. For a long time the repair shop has experienced problems with the efficiency in this hydraulic testing. The efficiency problems are partially derived by the fact that the manufacturer’s component maintenance manuals (CMM) are not adapted to the specific test equipment that the shop uses. A lack of suitable training material also causes problems for new operators. The purpose of this thesis work was therefore to streamline this part of ST Aerospace’s operation, first by rewriting the test section of the manuals but also to produce a basic description of the test bench that is used in the testing activities. By studying the operator’s work with component testing a fundamental understanding of the test bench was obtained along with the specific knowledge that was required in order to rewrite the manuals to a version that ST can use with their specific test equipment. Along with the training material a total of four rewritten component manuals were produced on ST’s behalf. Since the purpose of this work was to streamline the company’s entire testing business, there are post-doubts about whether the correct way to address the issue was chosen. As the work continued it became increasingly more obvious that a more appropriate way of handling the efficiency problems should have been to fully focus on the training material for the test bench. By performing the work this way around the future rewriting of the hundreds of component manuals can be drastically simplified and more efficient, therefore the time required for rewriting can be drastically reduced. / ST Aerospace på Arlanda underhåller och reparerar flygplanskomponenter. I de underhållsåtgärder som verkstaden bedriver krävs testning av komponenternas funktion. Under en lång tid har verkstaden upplevt problem med effektiviteten i denna hydrauliska provning. Problemen med effektiviteten härstammar till viss del av att komponenttillverkarens testningsmanualer inte är anpassade till den specifika testutrustning som verkstaden använder sig av. Problemen härstammar också till viss del av att verkstaden haft problem med att utbilda nya operatörer av testutrustningen då lättförståeligt utbildningsmaterial till den avancerade utrustningen saknats. Syftet med detta examensarbete var därför att effektivisera denna del av ST Aerospace:s verksamhet genom att dels skriva om manualers testavsnitt men även att tillverka en lättförståelig beskrivning av verkstadens testutrustning i utbildningssyfte. Genom att följa operatörerna i deras arbete med av företaget utvalda komponenttester kunde en grundläggande förståelse både för testbänken men även för de utvalda testerna erhållas. Erfarenheten från testningen användes till att producera en lättförståelig beskrivning av provbänken samt till omskrivning av de utvalda komponentmanualerna. Utöver utbildningsmaterialet producerades totalt fyra omskrivna komponentmanualer för ST:s räkning. Då syftet med arbetet var att effektivisera hela ST:s provningsverksamhet är det i efterhand tveksamt till om angripningssättet av effektiviseringsproblemen varit rätt. Alltefter arbetets gång insågs i ökande grad att ett mer lämpligt angripningssätt hade varit att lägga all arbetstid på utbildningsmaterialet till provbänken för att på så sätt förenkla de framtida omskrivningarna av komponentmanualer. Ett mer utförligt utbildningsmaterial till testutrustningen kan effektivisera produceringen av omskrivna komponentmanualer betydligt då företaget i dagsläget testar hundratals komponenter.

In this thesis, development of a generic transient aero-thermal gas turbine model is presented. A simulation code, gtSIM is developed based on an algorithm which is composed of a set of differential equations and a set of non-linear algebraic equations representing each gas turbine engine component. These equations are the governing equations which represents the aero-thermodynamic process of the each engine component and they are solved according to a specific solving sequence which is defined in the simulation code algorithm. At each time step, ordinary differential equations are integrated by a first-order Euler scheme and a set of algebraic equations are solved by forward substitution. The numerical solution process lasts until the end of pre-defined simulation time. The objective of the work is to simulate the critical transient scenarios for different types of gas turbine engines at off-design conditions. Different critical transient scenarios are simulated for two di&reg / erent types of gas turbine engine. As a first simulation, a sample critical transient scenario is simulated for a small turbojet engine. As a second simulation, a hot gas ingestion scenario is simulated for a turbo shaft engine. A simple proportional control algorithm is also incorporated into the simulation code, which acts as a simple speed governor in turboshaft simulations. For both cases, the responses of relevant engine parameters are plotted and results are presented. Simulation results show that the code has the potential to correctly capture the transient response of a gas turbine engine under different operating conditions. The code can also be used for developing engine control algorithms as well as health monitoring systems and it can be integrated to various flight vehicle dynamic simulation codes.

In this study, anisotropic shells of revolution subject to symmetric and unsymmetrical static loads are analysed. In derivation of governing equations to be used in the solution, first order transverse shear effects are included in the formulation. The governing equations can be listed as kinematic equations, constitutive equations, and equations of motion. The equations of motion are derived from Hamilton&rsquo / s principle, the constitutive equations are developed under the assumptions of the classical lamination theory and the kinematic equations are based on the Reissner-Naghdi linear shell theory. In the solution method, these governing equations are manipulated and written as a set called fundamental set of equations. In order to handle anisotropy and first order transverse shear deformations, the fundamental set of equations is transformed into 20 first order ordinary differential equations using finite exponential Fourier decomposition and then solved with multisegment method of integration, after reduction of the two-point boundary value problem to a series of initial value problems. The results are compared with finite element analysis results for a number of sample cases and good agreement is found. Case studies are performed for circular cylindrical shell and truncated spherical shell geometries. While reviewing the results, effects of temperature and pressure loads, both constant and variable throughout the shell, are discussed. Some drawbacks of the first order transverse shear deformation theory are exhibited.

This thesis presents the design of Kalman filter based attitude determination algorithms for a hypothetical LEO satellite and for a satellite attitude control test setup. For the hypothetical LEO satellite, an Extended Kalman Filter based attitude determination algorithms are formed with a multi-mode structure that employs the different sensor combinations and as well as online switching between these combinations depending on the sensor availability. The performance of these different attitude determination modes are investigated through Monte Carlo simulations. New attitude determination algorithms are prepared for the satellite attitude control test setup by considering the constraints on the selection of the suitable sensors. Here, performances of the Extended Kalman Filter and Unscented Kalman Filter are investigated. It is shown that robust and sufficiently accurate attitude estimation for the test setup is achievable by using the Unscented Kalman Filter.