Small Turbine Engine Rapid Nozzle Fabrication and 3-Axis Thrust Measurement

The United States Air Force is developing new turbine engines with variable cycles and integrated exhaust systems through the Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology and the Advanced Turbine Technologies for Affordable Mission-Capability initiatives.  These new engines will have integrated serpentine exhausts nozzles for improved overall aircraft performance.  Because the serpentine nozzles introduce special challenges that need to be explored, new measurement and analysis techniques are needed to ensure representative ground tests are performed during development.  Core Parts proposes to solve the small engine serpentine manufacturing limitations and multi-axis thrust needs by leveraging their commercially proven PMA manufacturing process and supply chain to provide a solution to AEDC’s T-11 test cell.  Core Parts will leverage the application of commercially available Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) manufacturing capability to rapidly iterate and improve serpentine nozzle performance and upgrade AEDC test cell T-11 to include a multi-axis thrust measurement capability.  DMLS is a rapidly emerging additive manufacturing technology that uses layer by layer, laser sintering of a powder bed to rapidly produce complex parts. The SBIR will also lead to refinement of the new ground test techniques on small engines so lessons learned can be applied to larger engines at a much-reduced cost.