{"id":35146,"date":"2013-11-18T12:15:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T12:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=6e5ab12acfbb4e3578bda3066123b712"},"modified":"2013-11-18T12:15:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T12:15:22","slug":"news-story-defence-scientists-investigate-helicopter-engine-erosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=35146","title":{"rendered":"News story: Defence scientists investigate helicopter engine erosion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Materials experts from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl<\/abbr>) are working to protect helicopter engines from sand erosion.<\/p>\n

Gas turbine engines in helicopters suck in air from the surrounding environment. In desert conditions, particularly during take-off and landing, the air contains sand particles that damage the engine\u2019s components.<\/p>\n

When components are damaged by sand erosion, the engine is forced to work harder, burning more fuel and struggling to produce the required power. Sand-eroded components need to be replaced more often, resulting in costly repair bills and loss of capability as helicopters are taken out of service for maintenance.<\/p>\n

To investigate whether erosion-resistant coatings could be the answer, an international project was set up by The Technical Cooperation Program<\/a> (TTCP<\/abbr>). <\/p>\n

TTCP<\/abbr> enables technical collaboration on specific issues between defence organisations in the UK, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\n
\"An<\/div>
An RAF Merlin helicopter takes off with an underslung load in Afghanistan (library image) [Picture: Sergeant Andy Reddy, Crown copyright]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UK contribution was to design and conduct effective and reliable tests that would indicate the relative strengths and limitations of a number of commercially available coatings. <\/p>\n

Dstl<\/abbr><\/a> identified that the University of Birmingham<\/a> had suitable facilities within its metallurgy and materials department to support this work.<\/p>\n

The tests that have been conducted include measuring bending stress on small specimens. Since the specimen is rotating at 3,000 revolutions per minute, a test of 1 million cycles can be conducted in around 11 hours.<\/p>\n

Tests undertaken in Australia, Canada and New Zealand looked at hardness, adhesion and erosion, enhancing the international defence community\u2019s understanding of commercially available products. <\/p>\n

Industry suppliers in the UK and Canada applied their coatings to the test specimens without charge. In exchange, they will find out how their coatings performed in 5 tests and have ongoing support from the international defence organisations, helping them to improve their technology for defence applications.<\/p>\n

Dstl<\/abbr>\u2019s involvement in this project was funded by the Ministry of Defence (MOD<\/abbr>) via the Materials and Structures Science and Technology Centre.<\/p>\n

The results of the tests are already being used by MOD<\/abbr> as it assesses technologies to protect its helicopter engines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defence scientists are investigating how to protect helicopter engines from a common problem that occurs in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}