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The engines used to power small unmanned aerial systems are often modified commercial products designed for use by hobbyists on small model aircraft at low altitude. For military applications, it is desirable to fly at high altitudes. Maintaining power from the engine at the reduced ambient air pressures associated with high altitudes requires some method of increasing air delivery to the intake manifold. Conventional turbochargers and superchargers are typically very inefficient for the low mass flows associated with small engines. Due to its unique characteristics, a pressure wave supercharger (PWS) can avoid many scaling-related losses. This project designed a small-scale PWS for turbo-normalization of a Brison 95 cc two-stroke engine for a small unmanned aerial vehicle. A larger PWS called the Comprex®, designed by Brown Boveri Company, was simulated using a quasi-one-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

Two compact intercoolers are designed for the Rotax 914 aircraft engine to increase engine power and avoid engine knock. A study is performed to investigate the effects of unsteady airflow on intercooler performance. Both intercoolers use air-to-liquid cross flow heat exchangers with staggered fins. The intercoolers are first tested by connecting the four air outlets of the intercooler to a common restricted exit creating a constant back pressure which allows for steady airflow. The intercoolers are then tested by connecting the four air outlets to a 2.4 liter, 4 cylinder engine head and varying the engine speed from 6000 to 1200 RPM corresponding to decreasing flow steadiness. The test is performed under average flight conditions with air entering the intercooler at 180°F and about 5 psig. Results from the experiment indicate that airflow unsteadiness has a significant effect on the intercooler's performance.

An experimental study is performed to investigate the possibility of relaxing the octane requirement of a Rotax 914 engine equipped with a pre-chamber jet ignition system. A pre-chamber jet igniter with no auxiliary fuel addition is designed to replace the spark plug in cylinder two of the test engine and is evaluated across engine speeds ranging from 2500 to 5500 RPM. Experiments are performed across both normally aspirated and boosted configurations using regular 87 AKI gasoline fuel. Normally aspirated results at 98 kPa manifold absolute pressure show a 7-10° burn rate improvement with the jet ignition combustion system. Tests to determine the maximum load at optimal combustion phasing (no spark retard) are then conducted by increasing boost pressure up to maximum knock limits.

A two-port fuel-injection (PFI) system is added to a Rotax 914 four-cylinder spark-ignition engine to allow two fuels of different reactivity to be injected simultaneously in order to vary the fuel octane number during engine operation. Engine performance using the dual-fuel PFI system is compared to that using injection of primary-reference-fuel (PRF) blends via a single-PFI system for fuel octane ratings of 50, 70, and 87 octane. The on-the-fly octane control of dual-PFI system is found to control fuel-octane well enough to produce maximum indicated mean effective pressure (IMEPn) results within ± 2% of single-PFI PRF IMEPn results. IMEPn is compared among dual-PFI blends from 20 to 87 octane, neat n-heptane, neat JP-8, and JP-8/isooctane blends. Maximum IMEPn for these fuels is established for the Rotax 914 engine operating from 2500 to 5800 rev/min.

Current US military small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) rely on engines and propellers sourced from the hobby radio-controlled (RC) aircraft industry. They require special fuel and in general have poor fuel efficiency. There is an urgent need to develop research capabilities to characterize and improve the efficiency of these small engines and develop the ability to operate on the available in-theater heavy fuels (JP8/kerosene). This paper describes the development of a small internal combustion (IC) propeller engine test stand capable of measuring both thrust and torque simultaneously under both static and dynamic conditions. The calculated uncertainty is found to vary from ± 10.4% to ± 1.7% for the range of interest. Torque, thrust, power, brake specific fuel consumption, (BSFC) and propeller efficiency data for a UAS engine are presented.