The overall goal of CORNERSTONE is to support Rolls-Royce in remaining ahead of its competition in terms of its capability to develop high performance power-conversion machines for aerospace.
The EPSRC-funded project set out to achieve this overall goal by delivering significant advances in the six main areas, each defined by its own respective aim:
- Complete the understanding of high power density contacts in engines
- Achieve a step change in understanding and managing impacts on rotating systems
- Develop and apply methods for calculating and managing dynamic loads in complex m/cs
- Integrate aero-structural interaction with complex dynamic models and exploit this interctn
- Release the potential of “bearingless motor” effects for inline electric machines in engines
- Engineer radically new thermal management methods to permit new power density levels
The effect of these combined strands of work will be to enable:
- Reduced emissions from flight
- Reduced noise pollution in flight
- Increased power-density
- Maintained / increased reliability
Work being undertaken at Queens University Belfast (QUB) complements the above work-strands by streamlining the engine design process such that the characteristics of the engine support structure (i.e. the aircraft – but particularly the wing) are properly taken into account during the engine design.