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A piloted simulation investigation of several command concepts for transport aircraft in the approach and landing
No full textWith the introduction of modern fly-by-wire aircraft, the response of an aircraft to a pilot’s input can be augmented to something other than that for a conventional aircraft, with the resultant benefits and problems. The issue of what commanded response a pilot desires has received considerable attention, however no clear conclusions have yet emerged.
The requirements for up and away flight and for the flare and landing seem to be different. Away from the ground rate command systems such as pitch rate and flight path rate seem to be well received for their low pilot workload associated with the control of flight path. However in the flare and touchdown these systems exhibit unnatural floating tendencies, requiring the pilot to push forward on the stick to land the aircraft. As a result most fly-by-wire aircraft incorporate separate up and away control laws and flare laws.
This investigation is designed to consolidate on the work achieved by many organisations over the past ten years and concentrate on pilots’ preferences for the final stages of the approach and into the flare and touchdown.
Twenty nine different flight control law configurations were designed for a regional sized aircraft. These configurations concentrated on several different command philosophies designed to investigate the pilots’ preferred command parameter and covered three different centre of gravity locations. These configurations were then implemented on the fixed base engineering simulator at British Aerospace Regional Aircraft, Hatfield, and evaluated by four test pilots.The Universit
Third quarterly report on the application of modified stepwise regression for the estimation of aircraft stability and control parameters
No full textAn approximate method for estimating the lifting characteristics of thin bodies of non-circular cross-section
No full text
The effect of pitch and yaw on the aerodynamic interference between two identical, unstaggered, axisymmetrical bodies whose centrelines are parallel and separated by 1.11 body diameters
No full textOn the use of approximate solutions for non linear oscillations
No full textFinancial support for this work was provided by the Science Council
Optimum design of a vortex tube for achieving large temperature drop ratios
No full textThe vortex tube, invented by G.J. Ranque, is a simple device which separates a flow of compressed gas into a hot and a cold stream by means of a high speed vortex. It may have useful applications as a refrigerator and one of the aims of the present investigation was to widen the field of application by increasing the vortex tube's cooling performance. The tests, described in this report, determined the effect of the hot valve setting, the cold outlet diameter, the inlet nozzle size and the inlet pressure ratios, upon the temperature drop ratio characteristics of a vortex tube. The results show that, by matching the inlet nozzles and cold outlet diameter to the inlet pressure ratio, it is possible to obtain, over a wide pressure range, a temperature drop which is 0.50 of the isentropic temperature drop. The optimum cold outlet area is almost independent of the inlet pressure, whilst the optimum inlet area decreases as the pressure ratio increases.Prepared under Ministry of Supply contract no. 7/Exptl/565/R
CUSTARD (Cranfield University Space Technology Advanced Research Demonstrator) - A Micro-System Technology Demonstrator Nanosatellite. Summary of the Group Design Project MSc in Astronautics and Space Engineering. 1999-2000, Cranfield University
No full textCUSTARD (Cranfield University Space Technology And Research Demonstrator) was
the group design project for students of the MSc in Astronautics and Space
Engineering for the Academic Year 1999/2000 at Cranfield University. The project
involved the initial design of a nanosatellite to be used as a technology
demonstrator for microsystem technology (MST) in space. The students worked
together as one group (organised into several subgroups, e.g. system,
mechanical), with each student responsible for a set of work packages. The
nanosatellite designed had a mass of 4 kg, lifetime of 3 months in low Earth
orbit, coarse 3-axis attitude control (no orbit control), and was capable of
carrying up to 1 kg of payload. The electrical power available was 18 W (peak).
Assuming a single X-band ground station at RAL (UK), a data rate of up to 1 M
bit s-1 for about 3000 s per day is possible. The payloads proposed are a
microgravity laboratory and a formation flying experiment.
The report summarises the results of the project and includes executive
summaries from all team members. Further information and summaries of the full
reports are available from the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield University
GeoSAR: Summary of the Group Design Project MSc in Astronautics and Space Engineering 2005/06 Cranfield University
No full textStudents of the MSc course in Astronautics and Space Engineering 2005/06 at
Cranfield University took GeoSAR as one of their group projects. This report
summarises their findings. GeoSAR is an initial feasibility study for a
satellite carrying a passive bistatic radar receiver based in geosynchronous
orbit. The feasibility of the radar concept has already been established (e.g.
through the work of Prati et al. of Politecnico di Milano) but no designs have
yet been published for a satellite to support the mission. This project develops
an outline design of the spacecraft and confirms its feasibility within a
(conservative) mass budget of approximately 300 kg. Mission drivers are the
radar antenna diameter and the station-keeping propulsion required for a design
life of 15 years. Technologies such as inflatable structures and (field-
emission) electric propulsion are used to reduce the spacecraft's mass. An
outline cost estimate for the mission suggests that a GeoSAR mission would be
significantly cheaper than conventional low-Earth orbit radar satellites to
achieve similar capability in terms of rapid-response imaging and
interferometry. In several areas the GeoSAR design is conservative and it is
plausible that on further iterations of the design the cost and mass can be
reduced. This suggests that among options for future Earth observation missions,
GeoSAR deserves serious consideration
Design charts for carbon fibre composites
No full textWork carried out as part fulfilment of MinTech contract no. PD/28/040 'Application of Carbon Fibre Composite to an Airbus'.This report contains charts of elastic properties and buckling coefficients of a simply supported compression panel, based on theory of multi layer plates of orthotorpic material, for a typical carbon fibre composite. In addition the optimum orientation of plies, of a three ply system, is considered for a corrugated compression panel together with the modifications necessary for other panel shapes. The computer programmes used are contained in the Appendix