Test Facility Cold Air Supply for Small Engines

Existing aircraft engine test facilities are intended for relatively big engines with large air flow rates. These facilities have been extremely valuable for aircraft engine development and testing. However, the emergence of unmanned aircraft has increased emphasis on significantly smaller engines, creating a persistent need for testing with lower flow rates. Although the cold-air supply systems used to simulate altitude for the existing facilities can be used to test small engines, they consume unnecessary energy and require excessive effort to operate because they are oversized for small engines. An appropriately sized cold-air supply system can be created, but would require miniature turbo-expanders that are smaller than units that can be purchased commercially. The companies that manufacture turbo expanders focus on much larger units, where revenue and profitability are greatest. It is also challenging to produce small turbomachines with good efficiency because greater precision is required to achieve high efficiency at small scales. In response, Creare has focused specifically on developing the features and fabrication processes needed to produce small, high efficiency turbo expanders and turbo compressors. We now propose to apply this technology to create a facility that is optimized for testing small aircraft engines at simulated altitude operating conditions.