Power dense heat recuperation for aircraft engines

Research Project, 2013 – 2015

Objective and Goal
The project aims to increase the knowledge of opportunities for an air based system to recover mechanical energy from the exhaust heat of an aircraft engine. The goal is to propose a design for such a system and analyze its technical viability. The system will be co-designed with an adapted aircraft engine and analyzed to show the potential for reduced fuel consumption and emissions.

Result and Expected Effects
The results of the project will include a conceptual design of an aircraft engine in the form of a analysis model of the engine system, as well as the geometrical design for significant components, especially for the heat recovery system such as ducts, heat exchanger and heat engine for energy recovery. The results are also anticipated to have application to heat exchangers for other applications on aircraft engines.

Approach and Implementation
The project is a cooperation between the aircraft engine manufacturer GKN Aerospace, heat recovery system developper RANOTOR, turbine specialists at Lunds Tekniska Högskola as well as experts at systems analysis of aircraft engines at Chalmers. The project will be a part of the research cluster propulsion systems and will be led by the cluster leader from GKN Aerospace. One or more alternative engines will be defined in a parametric way in cooperation between the partners, after which each part performs conceptual layout and analysis of subsystems. The result will be examined jointly.