INGENIEUR
workspaces tend to be clustered around the aircraft
being maintained.
Within the aviation maintenance industry,
there are at least three major categories of
workplaces, namely hangars, ramps, and shops.
Of these, ramps are the least controllable in terms
of workspace and environmental factors such
as lighting and noise. Technical shops such as
those in which avionic components are repaired
are similar to an office environment. They are
relatively easy to control for workspace layout
and environmental factors. Hangars represent a
middle ground for controllability of work factors.
Therefore, the study focuses on aviation hangars
which handle most aircraft maintenance work.
It is being conducted to determine the risks that
technicians and engineers might incur during their
working hours. This is parallel to current statistics,
where maintenance is the primary cause of
accidents. When safety issues are presented
alongside fatalities that have resulted from
them on worldwide airline operations, deficient
maintenance and inspection emerges as the
second biggest threat to safety, after controlled
flight into the terrain. According to the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) board member
John Goglia, maintenance has been implicated in
50% of the recent US airline incidents. In addition,
the study will go deeper into the factors that affect
personnel performance working in a confined
space including air ventilation, air temperature,
humidity and other factors. However, the main
focus is on the improvement of air ventilation and
thermal comfort in aircraft hangars.
#2. Development of Partially Averaged
Navier-Stokes Turbulence Model for
Hypersonic Airbreathing Propulsion
by National Defence University of Malaysia
Accuracy in turbulence modelling is the most
important aspect in a hypersonic flow regime. The
very high Reynolds number (the ratio of the inertial
force in a fluid to viscous forces) and complex
shock-boundary layer interaction have impeded
the progress in modelling realistic hypersonic
airbreathing propulsion devices. The challenge lies
in correctly predicting the heat generated at the
6
30
VOL
2019
VOL 80
55 OCTOBER-DECEMBER
JUNE 2013
wall, which is critical in designing a suitable heat
exchanger system.
Most of the literature reported that the
Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model
of SST k-omega can give satisfactory results in
the hypersonic regime, but our own experimental
observation shows that more can be potentially
achieved. This is especially true, for instance, in
forecasting the structure of the shock-train inside
a scramjet engine.
Obviously using Direct Numerical Simulation
(DNS), where the whole range of temporal and
spatial scales are resolved, can better fit the
empirical observation. However, the extreme
flow speed would render the endeavour totally
impractical. The DNS requires a very fine resolution
of the flow domain in order to fully capture all flow
structures.
Recent literature has also suggested that a
hybrid of RANS and DNS can produce tremendously
realistic results whilst at the same time reduce
much of the total computation time. This hybrid
model is called Partially Averaged Navier-Stokes
(PANS) which relies on the specialised equation
that is mesh size sensitive. At a certain region
where fine mesh is applied, the whole turbulence
model will switch to behave more like DNS and at
another region, the model resolves the flow using
the RANS approach.
It has been shown that PANS can achieve
superior results in comparison with more
typical RANS models for the simulations of the
incompressible backstep flow. However, this
project still has to work out the more challenging
aspect of incorporating the compressibility effect
on the turbulence model in order to simulate a
hypersonic engine more accurately.
#3. My Drone Tech
by Universiti Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian Institute
of Aviation Technology
The My DroneTech project deals with a fixed wing
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platform that can
be customised into multiple configurations. This
platform is designed based on several requirements
including low material cost, low manufacturing
cost, and stable flight design. The platform is