NASA's Rotary Wing Project is investigating technologies that will enable the development of revolutionary civil tiltrotor aircraft. Previous studies have shown that for large tiltrotor aircraft to be viable, the rotor speeds need to be slowed significantly during the cruise portion of the flight. This requirement to slow the rotors during cruise presents an interesting challenge to the propulsion system designer as efficient engine performance must be achieved at two drastically different operating conditions: takeoff and cruise. One potential solution to this challenge is to use a transmission with multiple gear ratios and shift to the appropriate ratio during flight. This solution will require a large transmission that is likely to be maintenance intensive and will require a complex shifting procedure to maintain power to the rotors at all times. An alternative solution is to use a fixed gear ratio transmission and require the power turbine to be designed to operate efficiently over the entire speed range. This concept is referred to as a variable-speed power-turbine (VSPT) and is the focus of the current study. This paper explores the design of a variable-speed power-turbine for civil tiltrotor applications using design optimization techniques applied to NASA's new meanline tool, the Object-Oriented Turbomachinery Analysis Code (OTAC).
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