Aircraft Life Support Systems Part 1: Oxygen System









Figure 1-Crew oxygen system
Figure 1-Crew oxygen system

The main challenges of oxygen equipment are:

  • Fitting the dimensions of the plane
  • Secure (no leakage for example)
  • Responsive (to cabin pressure and cabin altitude)
  • At 25,000 ft: a person has 3 minutes of consciousness
  • At 41,000 ft: a person has 30 seconds of consciousness




Performance Testing of Axial Compressors


Industrial gas turbine for power generation.
Figure 1. Industrial gas turbine for power generation. Source
Figure 2. Turbofan engine for aeropropulsion.
Figure 2. Turbofan engine for aeropropulsion. Source

Performance Testing of Axial Compressors


The History of Turbochargers, Part 2

Hello! And welcome back for part 2 of our series on “A Brief History of the Turbocharger”. To read part 1, which compares superchargers and turbochargers, and explains the early history of turbochargers and forced induction from the turn of the century through to World War 1, click here. Having covered all of that, let’s pick up from where we left off!

Following World War 1, and the work of Dr. Sanford Alexander Moss, Alfred Büchi, who had created the first true turbocharger, had continued innovating following the failure of his first design. By 1925, he had a working turbocharger design that consistently and reliably worked (1).

Following this breakthrough, the turbocharger saw its first commercial application on ten-cylinder diesel engines. Since diesel engines are typically built to withstand the high-pressures required by their operating conditions, the pressures generated by using forced induction are easily accommodated. As a result of adding the turbochargers, the engines upped their horsepower ratings from 1750HP, all the way to a whopping 2,500HP. (1)

The Hansestadt Danzig, one of the German ships fitted with the 10 cylinder turbodiesel engine described above
The Hansestadt Danzig, one of the German ships fitted with the 10 cylinder turbodiesel engine described above. (

For Büchi, this was a great achievement, as it marked the first commercial application of a machine that he had first begun working with more than 20 years prior. For the turbocharger, however, this was just the beginning. Read More

Active Magnetic Bearings – When Magic Serves Engineers

From the beginning of the turbomachinery era, in the 19th century, engineers have been thinking about ways to reduce losses in rotating machines. Losses connected with fluid motion or producing the useful effects are related to the main purpose of machine operation,while losses in rotor bearings are just annoying and inevitable. Fluid film and rolling element bearings are effective solutions, but their operational principles cause increased friction – the best predictor of losses. But what if we could reduce the losses in rotating machines by avoiding the friction in required supports? What if a rotor could levitate and rotate in the air held by some magic forces? And furthermore, what if this magic could give us even bigger dividends, for example, enabling variable stiffness of rotor supports and safe passing through resonances? Luckily, engineers have already invented how to turn this magic into reality with active magnetic bearings.

The early patents of active magnetic bearings principles were recorded during the World War II, but the decisive breakthrough in production and applications of them were made during the the last three decades when the latest research about the active magnetic bearing operation and control made utilization feasible and economically viable [1].


Active Magnetic Bearing and its Components
Active Magnetic Bearing and its Components [2]
The main idea of an active magnetic bearing is based on the electromagnetic processes. Electrical current passing through densely wound copper coils creates magnetic fields which interact with a magnetized sleeve connected to the rotor.

Sounds pretty simple, right? But why on Earth did it take so much time to go from the general ideas to a real industrial application of active magnetic bearings? Read More

Anti-Icing Systems in Airplanes: Boeing 737-300/400/500

Through the decades, the aircraft industry always improved their onboard systems to get the best performances, security and comfort. In order to build a lasting travel type, security of the aircraft is one of the main goals for engineers. Due to rough exterior conditions while flying, especially at high altitude, with relative humidity and very low temperatures, the freezing temperature can cause the plane to ice. Ice can have major impacts on the aircraft’s weight and aerodynamical phenomena, – especially the lift – (the lift can decrease to 40% due to ice). Modeling and installing a specific system to prevent ice is a necessity. Therefore, aircraft designers developed an anti-icing system inside the wing to prevent ice.

There are several anti-icing systems on aircraft, mostly depending of the engine’s type. Most of aircrafts use the bleed air system, which consists of using a hot bleed air to warm up the wing leading edge. Another system named de-icing boots system is mostly used on turboprop aircrafts and consists of black rubbers at locations prone to icing which inflate and literally break the ice. Another system is simply an electrical leading edge warm up directly installed in the wing leading edge. Those examples are just an introduction to some anti-icing systems that aircraft industry has develop and are using. Each have pros and cons.

Here, we will focus on the anti-icing system using hot bleed air. This approach is used by the Boeing 737-300/400/500 anti-icing system with hot bleed air warming the leading edges.

Typically, this type of anti-icing system consists of a hot bleed air flow provided by the engine compressor’s stages to warm up the plane’s wing leading edge. The wing anti-icing system is made of two independent pneumatic systems among others, providing hot bleed air from each of the two turbofans separately. The hot bleed air is ducted via the engine bleed valve from the fifth compressor stage. If the pressure isn’t enough, bleed from the ninth compressor stage can additionally be used. Note that the fifth stage bleed air temperature is approximately 340°C and the ninth stage one is approximately 540°C which are too hot to be used in aircraft’s pneumatic systems such as hydraulic pressurization or potable water system pressurization for example. The hot air then runs through a pre-cooler to reduce the temperature to 200°C and this cooled air is distributed via the bleed ducts to consumers like the air conditioning packs for example and the wing anti-icing system. In order to know the moment to use the anti-icing system, the aircraft’s pilots use the visual ice indicator which is situated in the middle beam of the window. Once the probe is icing, the pilots enable the anti-icing system. Hence, hot bleed air is provided to the slates number three, four and five as shown in Figure 1.

Landing Edge Slats
Figure 1 – Leading Edge Slats

Due to the larger diameter and the aerodynamics phenomena, slates number one and two do not need any anti-icing devices. Once the anti-icing system is enabled, the hot bleed air is guided along telescopic pipes then is distributed via piccolo tubes as shown in Figure 2. From there, it exits the piccolo tubes through little holes, warms the wing leading edge and flows out of the wing through exit holes situating on the wing’s lower surface. Read More

Centrifugal Compressors for Fuel Cells

The development of fuel cell technologies and improvements in fuel cells power densities combine to make the use of fuel cells possible in different power sectors as primary or secondary power sources for commercial purpose, residential power requirements, and automobiles, etc. The fuel cell harnesses the chemical energy of a fuel along with an oxidizing agent by converting it into electrical energy through a pair of reactions. For example, in a hydrogen fuel cell, as shown in Figure 1, the hydrogen combines with oxygen from the air to produce electricity and releases water.

Fuel Cell System
Figure 1 Fuel Cell System [1]
The design of a fuel cell system is quite complex and depends on fuel cell types and their applications. With so many possible combinations of fuel cells, this article will not focus on different type of fuel cells, but on Air Management Systems which may significantly affect the overall performance of a fuel cell system.

Air Management Systems

Key sub-systems of any fuel cell system are the fuel processor, fuel cell stack, air management and power management systems. The air management system strongly affects the fuel cell stack efficiency and the power loss of the fuel cells. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a clean, reliable, cost-effective oil-free air system [2].

Major tasks in air management system are Air Supply, Air Cleaning, Pressurization and Humidification.
Read More

Introduction to Performing Torsional Rotor Dynamics Analysis

Previous Blog 

Hello and welcome to the last part of our series on Rotor Dynamics! In today’s blog we’ll be concluding with torsional analysis, and the steps needed to perform this type of analysis. If you haven’t had a look at the other entries in this series, you can find them here:

Series Preface

  1. What is Rotor Dynamics? And Where is it Found?
  2. Why is Rotor Dynamics so Important?
  3. What API Standards Govern Rotor Dynamics Analysis?
  4. Basic Definitions and Fundamental Concepts of Rotating Equipment Vibrations
  5. The Purposes and Objectives of Rotor Dynamics Analyses
  6. The Importance of Accurately Modeling a Rotor-Bearing System­
  7. Modeling Bearings and Support Structures in a Rotor Bearing System
  8. Introduction to Performing Lateral Rotor Dynamics Analysis


In an earlier blog, we covered the basic definitions of lateral and torsional analysis. Lateral analysis is concerned with the bending behavior of a rotor train. Torque is a measurement of force that causes an object to rotate on an axis such as when a component needs to be “torqued to spec” in a car’s engine, for example. Torsional analysis, meanwhile, looks at the twisting behavior of the rotor train.

In the context of rotor dynamics, torsional vibrations refer to the oscillatory torsional deformations encountered by the shafts in the rotor train.

Pictured - A shaft undergoing torsional vibration
Pictured: A shaft undergoing torsional vibration.

If these torsional vibrations and excitations are left undamped and aren’t analyzed properly, breakages and catastrophic failures can occur similar to undamped lateral excitations. For more on that, you can read up on the importance of rotor dynamics analysis here.

Read More

A Brief History of the Turbocharger – Part 1

Turbochargers are one of the more common turbomachines out there today! As everyone is making efforts to lower carbon dioxide emissions in automobiles, and the automotive OEMs engage in a “horsepower war”, the turbocharger will likely continue to grow in popularity for both civil and commercial uses.

But how did these machines get so popular? That’s what we’ll be exploring in this blog miniseries! Today’s blog will introduce the concept of the turbocharger, and the beginnings of its development around the turn of the 20th century.

Turbocharging engines and the idea of forced induction on internal combustion engines are as old as the engines themselves. Their intertwined history can be traced back to the 1880’s, when Gottlieb Daimler was tinkering with the idea of forced induction on a “grandfather clock” engine. Daimler was supposedly the first to apply the principles of supercharging an engine in 1900, when he mounted a roots-style supercharger to a 4-stroke engine.

The birth of the turbocharger, however, would come 5 years later, when Swiss engineer Alfred Büchi received a patent for an axial compressor driven by an axial turbine on a common shaft with the piston of the engine. Although this design wasn’t feasible at the time due to a lack of viable materials, the idea was there.

Turbochargers vs Superchargers

What idea was that, exactly? And how did it differ from supercharging?

I think it’s important to quickly go over the basic differences between turbocharging and supercharging. Both offer “forced induction” for piston engines. A naturally aspirated engine simply will draw in atmospheric air as the intake valve opens, and the piston travels down to bottom dead center. A forced induction engine, pushes more air into the cylinder than what the dropping of the piston would pull in, allowing more air to be combusted, and thus generating more power and efficiency. While turbochargers and superchargers are both forced induction , how superchargers and turbochargers go about compressing that air is different. Superchargers are driven by the engine themselves, typically via a belt or gear. This uses some of the engine’s available horsepower, but doing so provides more horsepower back to the engine. The compressors can be either positive displacement configurations (such as a Roots or Twin-Screw), or a  centrifugal supercharger.

supercharger configurations
A very helpful image of the 3 kinds of superchargers, courtesy of

Turbochargers, as mentioned before, use the air from the exhaust of the engine to drive a turbine, and the work of the turbine is transmitted on a common shaft to a compressor. The most common configuration is a radial turbine driving a centrifugal compressor similar to the one above in the supercharger diagram. However, there are other configurations ,seen in larger examples, such as an axial turbine driving a centrifugal compressor. Read More

Introduction to Performing Lateral Rotor Dynamics Analysis

Previous Blog  Next Blog

Hello and welcome to the Lateral Analysis section of our Rotor Dynamics Blog Series! If you haven’t had a look at the other entries in this series, you can find them here: Series Preface

  2. Why is Rotor Dynamics so Important?
  3. What API Standards Govern Rotor Dynamics Analysis?
  4. Basic Definitions and Fundamental Concepts of Rotating Equipment Vibrations
  5. The Purposes and Objectives of Rotor Dynamics Analyses
  6. The Importance of Accurately Modeling a Rotor-Bearing System­
  7. Modeling Bearings and Support Structures in a Rotor Bearing System

We’ve finally made it to the analysis part of the rotor dynamics and bearing analysis intro series! Let’s get into it, this blog will have a lot to cover!

Read More

Aircraft Fuel Systems

The airplane is a complex technical object. Like a human or other organisms, it consists of numerous vital systems; with one of the more critical ones being the fuel system. It is important part of any vehicle, let alone aircraft, aside from  the newest electric powered vehicles.

An aircraft’s fuel system provides fuel that is loaded, stored, managed and transported to the propulsion system of the vehicle[1, 2]. As aviation fuel is liquid, this system can be considered as hydraulic. Therefore, it’s able to be mapped out and modeled for analysis in a program like AxSTREAM NET™.

The Typical Fuel System of a Narrow-body Passenger Plane

For an example of a conventional aviation fuel system, consider a typical narrow-body airliner with two engines. Some of the popular planes in this category include the Boeing 737, the Tupolev Tu-204, Airbus A320, Comac C919, Sukhoi Superjet 100, Bombardier CRJ, Embraer E-Jet and Mitsubishi Regional Jet[3].

The storage fuel system is shown in figure 1 is for the Boeing 737-300. The fuel is kept in an integral tank that is divided to five separate subdivisions. They are the central, wing (main) and surge tanks[4].

Storage fuel system of a Boeing 737
Figure 1 – Storage Fuel System of a Boeing 737-300 [4]
The hydraulic scheme of the Boeing 737’s fuel system is shown in Figure 2. For fueling and defueling the storage system there are ports on the starboard wing. The system does not have pumps to onboard fuel, so fuel is pumped into the plane via a fuel truck. The other critical part of the fuel system is the line which delivers fuel to the two engines and the auxiliary power unit. In this line there are two boost centrifugal pumps by each engine.
Read More