Performance characteristics monitoring of turboprop engine for the development of preliminary requirement of an engine testing facility

Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) has acquired a Pratt and Whitney PT6A-20 turboprop engine to be used in its aeronautical engineering technology programme. However, to fully utilize the engine, a solid familiarity with its current performance and a proper testing arrangement are important. The main concern on the engine is the age of the engine and lack of information on its previous performance. Therefore, in this study, the actual performance of this turboprop engine was evaluated experimentally. The performance evaluation is also important for the development , ,- , of preliminary requirements for the engine test cell. A better performance , , investigation and testing can be conducted in an engine test cell. Altogether, a total of three engine tests were performed by varying engine speed from 55 percent rpm to 75 percent rpm. Performance data obtained include the engine's torque, propeller speed, fuel flow rate, and inter-turbine temperature. They were captured by using data acquisition software from AeroTrain Corp. An averaging was done to the data in order to study engine shaft horsepower, specific fuel consumption, and thermal efficiency. From the result of manual calculation, the engine can produce power up to 34.8 kW while running at 75 percent rpm. The specific fuel consumption is 7.07 kgikW-hr while the thermal efficiency is at 1.19 percent. On the other hand, the data acquisition system shows that the engine managed to deliver 89.5 kW of power, 3.15 kg/kW-hr of specific fuel consumption and thermal efficiency of 19.5 percent. It was found that the results of manual calculation were significantly lower than the one obtained using the software with 88 percent different in shaft horsepower and 77 percent different in specific fuel consumption. Although the current engine performance is acceptable and satisfactory to be used for aircraft propulsion education, a safer and more reliable testing arrangement is still needed. Considering that a proper test facility will be essential to obtain a highly accurate result on the engine performance, an engine test cell was proposed to be built. The test cell was proposed to be an indoor test cell and it was planned to accommodate engine testing on small turboprop engine with power range between 200 to 450 kW

Job Satisfaction and Quality of Work Life As a Commercial Flight Crew – A Review

The rapid growth of aviation industry resulted in a growing pilot demand globally from year to year. The increasing rate of pilot employed triggers all airliners to meet the needs of the organization that affect job satisfaction. Now, much attention has been given to the issue regarding quality of work life as flight crew by the management in the aviation sector as it is pertains to employee behaviour. Job satisfaction of flight crew describe on how well the job provides fulfilment and it serves as a source or means of enjoyment to every flight crew. Job satisfaction is important as it represent the degree to which flight crew feel positively or negatively about their job. There are many studies conducted to show the level of working satisfaction. However, not many studies have clearly demonstrated and discussed the quality of work life as a flight crew working in aviation industry. Therefore, this study aims to highlight the quality of work life as a flight crew working in aviation industry. All data from books, journal and articles were analysed. The result revealed that the job meaningfulness factor has the greatest impact on job satisfaction among flight crew working with commercial airlines in aviation industry. On the other hand, the lowest satisfied aspect among flight crew is related to reward and fairness aspect

Effect of air flow rate on the emission of burning coconut shell for biofuel product

The increasing awareness of the depletion of fossil fuel resources and their bad impact towards environmental lead to an application of biofuel as alternative choice. The production of biofuel from waste offers a triplet-facet solution includes economic, environmental and waste management. In the present study, the use of biofuel that most abundantly available for power generation is applicable in the form of waste. Coconuts are the abundant renewable resource of energy can be found in all around the world especially Southeast Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. In this study, the waste of coconut shell was prepared to become a biofuel in form of powder or pulverized. The sample was undergo burning process at five different air flow rate that been set up. The effect of burning pulverized coconut shell on environmental impact was studied from CO2 and CO emission. The influence of air flow rate on ash properties were studied using SEM image and EDX analysis. The results revealed that microstructure of coconut shell ash are irregular, asymmetrical, disperse and non-overlap compare to coal. The influence of air flow rate of primary gave effect on the CO2 and CO emission. As the air flow rate increased, the weight of carbon fly ash increases while oxygen experiencing the decreases. In addition, the existed elements such as C, O, Mg, Fe and Ni for each cases were determined. It was also found that the coconut shell is lower in ash content, it tends to produce less particulates and has almost no Sulphur oxides compare to coal. At the end of this work, research would like to recommend use of coconut shell as an additive material in heat generation as it is not containing harmful ash content

Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis of parachute canopies design for aludra SR-10 UAV as a parachute recovery systems (PRS)

Unmanned Systems Technology (UST) Aludra SR-10 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was purposely designed for survey and mapping mission. In the early design stage of Aludra SR-10 UAV, skid and belly landing method was used as a recovery method. This type of landing method may encounter a harsh landing on hard soil and gravel, producing high impact momentum on the aircraft body and may cause structural or system damage. To increase the safety of Aludra SR-10 UAV operation, Parachute Recovery System (PRS) are purposely design to replace the belly landing technique for landing method. This study was performed by simulation approach (using Computational Fluid Dynamic, CFD) to analyse an aerodynamic performance for selecting the best canopy design that can produce higher drag during recovery process. This computational study focuses on an aerodynamic flow simulation over threedimensional surface on two different canopy designs (i.e. annular canopy and cruciform canopy), and also focuses on drag coefficient in a steady and turbulent condition. Two‐equation k-ε turbulence flow was modelled by adopting Navier-Stokes numerical equations to simulate aerodynamic characteristics and drag. The computational results with an efficient grid study shows an annular parachute canopy produced highest drag coefficient (1.03) than cruciform parachute canopy (0.91). The findings also highlighted the significance of separation and recirculating flows behind studied geometries, which in turn was responsible in producing the drag. This computational simulation analysis successfully provided a baseline annular parachute design was about 2.41 meter of the nominal diameter was selected as the main parachute which can be applied for this research