Overview
Global air traffic is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of around 5% in the next 20 years. This high level of growth makes the need to address the environmental penalties of air traffic all the more urgent.
To reduce CO2 and NOX emissions new turbine cooling systems will be developed under the EU collaborative project ERICKA. The ERICKA project will aim at dramatically advancing greener Air Transport products that will:
- reduce fuel consumption, CO2 and NOx emissions
- encourage the rest of the aviation world to develop greener produce and reduce their ecological footprints
- develop skills and knowledge throughout Europe.
The objective of the ERICKA project is to directly contribute to the reduction in aircraft engine fuel consumption.
Developing new greener designs is essential to protect our environment. Thanks to an accelerated research process, ERICKA will contribute to a rapid progress in the introduction of green technologies into aviation. ERICKA will validate technology breakthroughs that are necessary to make major steps towards the environmental goals set by ACARE (Advisory Concil for Aeronautics Research in Europe) to be reached in 2020:
- 50% reduction of CO2 emissions through drastic reduction of fuel consumption;
- 80% reduction of NOx (nitrogen oxide) emission.
The project, coordinated by Rolls-Royce, involves the main European aeronautic industrial organisations (Rolls-Royce, AVIO, MTU, Snecma) and other research institutes and universities from around Europe.
The members of ERICKA represent 18 organisations from 8 countries, among which: 7 industries,4 SME's, 3 Research Centres and 4 Universities.
Funding
Results
Improved cooling for future aero engines
Manufacturers of gas turbine engines are experimenting with continuously increasing operating temperatures to improve engine efficiency. EU-funded scientists developed technology and produced significant test results to find suitable cooling solutions.
Jet engine fuel efficiency largely depends on turbine performance. Turbine cooling system designs remain one of the most challenging parts of engine development, and designers rely heavily on empirical tools to produce new designs.
The EU-funded ERICKA (Engine representative internal cooling knowledge and applications) project conducted several tests in stationary and rotating test rigs to optimise cooling designs of turbine blades. Experimental work was supplemented by computational analysis and modelling.
Leading-edge cooling technology represents a critical area for improved gas turbine blade cooling design. A major part of the work was geared toward optimising the cooling performance of impingement systems. Different positions, angles and shapes for jet holes were tested to evaluate blade cooling performance. To achieve better results, the jet hole and fin positions were also shifted.
Project partners extensively investigated static and rotating cooling geometries typical of current and future engines. Experiments resulted in the selection of new geometries being designed, manufactured and tested.
ERICKA provided world-class measurement data of the heat transfer coefficient (HTC), and developed computational methods to advantageously exploit rotation to improve cooling design and turbine efficiency. Computational fluid dynamic analysis helped predict internal flows.
The project supported the development of design software specifically for designing cooling systems. Based on the HTC measurements, project partners developed code to find the optimum cooling passage designs for high- and low-pressure turbines. A database containing heat transfer data and pressure loss measurements from the optimised static rig geometry is available for download from the project website.
ERICKA aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1 % compared to the year 2000 reference engines. The project significantly enhanced understanding of heat transfer and cooling to enable development of new cooling solutions. Project dissemination activities include a presentation and a poster presented at a workshop as well as the project website.