The information kept surging and refining in Wu Tong's mind. Wu Tong took out a piece of draft paper and wrote down on it one by one the technical essence she had refined, the reference direction, and the shortcomings they wanted to overcome.
As for the fan defect, the reserves of super blade materials currently developed for WS-15S should be able to basically cover this shortcoming and prevent it from becoming a technical obstacle.
The wake vortex is too high, and this still needs to be solved from the engine itself. If the problem of too high wake vortex cannot be solved, their ultra-high temperature resistant coating, reinforced coating, and new super roadbed material combination can all become technical reserve options to overcome this shortcoming, or be used in combination.
The engine is too large and too heavy, which are the two most important problems that need to be solved urgently. The engine should be moderate and not take up too much space, freeing up important space for increasing the payload.
Similarly, the engine's own weight cannot be too heavy, which is almost proportional to the excessive size. When the size is reduced, the weight will naturally not increase, but will automatically decrease!
In fact, at the current level of technology, the basic performance of WS-15S is already superior enough. However, the foundation of WS-15 is developed based on conventional take-off and landing fighters, and it cannot be directly used.
If we want to apply it to the ST0VL fighter, we still have to go a step further on this basis and let it break through the current situation where the combat radius of the ST0VL fighter is less than 300 kilometers.
The Chinese Sea is vast, but the combat radius is too narrow, which is really useless. It is not that there is no value in investing a lot of money, although it is necessary, but money should always be spent wisely and not wasted.
In particular, compared with the current J-20's 20,000-kilometer range and the H-20's 30,000-kilometer basic range, the combat radius is ten times, twenty times, and three hundred kilometers, which makes it look even more pitiful.
The battlefield is changing rapidly. The army relies on tankers to keep working and has a narrow combat radius... These are all fatal in battle. Without making changes, there is no practical significance.
A breakthrough is imperative. How can we make the same tank of fuel, which can only fly 300 kilometers after the original engine's super-maneuvering operation, be reduced accordingly if it is fully loaded with ammunition, and optimize it to increase it tenfold, to a combat radius of 3,000 kilometers or even more?
Various ideas flashed through Wu Tong's mind one by one. As if it was a premonition, Wu Tong unconsciously drew a circle with his hands. This circle also attracted Wu Tong's attention, and the light of inspiration lit up in Wu Tong's mind!
Circle means cycle. The repetition of cycles is the natural order of things.
Over and over again, cycle after cycle, cycle, cycle, change... change into a cycle!
Yes, it’s a cycle.
Wu Tong's eyes lit up, and the storm in his mind stirred up waves, swirling more continuous thoughts, and began to build blocks to gather more breakthrough clues.
The thermodynamic cycle characteristics of traditional aviation turbine engines are fixed. When designing traditional turbofan engines, a trade-off must be made between high thrust and high efficiency. It is not possible to have both, nor can it be switched at any time.
An engine can only operate in one mode and only achieves peak performance within a limited flight range. This traditional mode cannot meet the consumption requirements of short vertical takeoff and super maneuverability. So, can she change this tradition?
Variable Cycle Engine (VCE) is a conceptual theory proposed in the 1950s and 1960s.
At that time, with the advent of the turbofan engine, its superior subsonic performance and high propulsion efficiency made engine designers constantly pursue engines with larger bypass ratios.
In supersonic flight, the fuel consumption rate of a high bypass ratio turbofan engine is significantly higher than that of a low bypass ratio turbofan engine of the same thrust level, which limits the further increase of the bypass ratio of supersonic aircraft engines. In order to make the aircraft engine have better performance in both subsonic and supersonic states, the concept of VCE variable cycle engine was born.
As fighter aircraft technology continues to improve and their flight envelopes continue to expand, after the 1980s, the world began to pay more attention to the integrated design of aircraft airframe/propulsion systems. Since variable cycle engines have obvious advantages in meeting the above indicators, research on variable cycle engines for military fighter aircraft has gradually begun.
Domestic research in this area cannot be said to be completely blank, but it is not much better than this aspect. It can only be said to be in its embryonic stage. Wu Tong has seen some fragmentary information in this aspect in confidential materials, and there is not much room for reference.
Wu Tong didn't think of this plan at first, until she suddenly drew a circle and thought of the cycle, and then pulled out the concept of changing the cycle from the depths of her memory.
However, this wasn't something Wu Tong needed to worry about. Having a clear direction was the most important thing for her. Everything else was just a matter of building on the foundation step by step. Especially since she had the aid of absolute deduction.
"Brother Lu, I have a direction for engine optimization. Please inform Brother Cai to arrange for me to extend my return to school time!" Wu Tong didn't even raise her head. It seemed that she reflexively asked Lu Xiao to help her convey the instructions. She also gave Lu Xiao the good news of certain progress.
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, Wu Tong entered a state of focused research, his hands constantly pushing and extending the work.
Wu Tong continued to refine the elements of the variable cycle engine, noting down key points on a piece of scratch paper. It was a multi-design-point engine that adjusted its thermodynamic cycle parameters by changing the geometry, size, or position of certain components.
Such as compression ratio, turbine inlet temperature, air flow and bypass ratio, changing the engine cycle working mode, high thrust or low fuel consumption enables the engine to work in the best condition under various flight conditions.
At the same time, the variable cycle engine can operate in multiple modes, including turbine mode, turbofan mode and ramjet mode, so it has good performance in subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight conditions.
Wu Tong held the pen and began to calculate based on the quasi-perfect aerodynamic layout parameters he had just derived.
With this as his foundation, the required engine thrust, the dynamic parameters for super-maneuverable lift, and the concept of variable cycle engine elements, Wu Tong began to construct two sets of three-dimensional perspective models in the deductive space. One set represented the existing WS-15S, and the other was a simplified, still vague, parametric model.
"Okay!" Lu Xiao's voice was soft and steady. Although he hadn't caught the moment Wu Tong's inspiration struck, he was familiar with Wu Tong's completely absorbed research state. This wasn't the first time he'd seen Wu's state. Every time, it was a miracle! Joy welled up in his heart, and he looked forward to Wu Tong's breakthrough!
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