The past and present of a piston aircraft engine

In the early 18th century, Watt took his steam engine to show the world an unprecedented power device, making the world realize that there are other power drive methods besides human, animal power, hydraulic power, and wind power. In the following hundreds of years, humans began to explore the engine endlessly.

Since the steam engine was carried on the first steam locomotive, countless sparks began to burst out. After more than a dozen generations of pioneers, they have now got rid of the bulky boilers. The cars flying on the overpass are equipped with internal combustion piston engines with precision design, reasonable volume and powerful power.

The internal combustion piston engine of the automobile is composed of two major mechanisms and five major systems, namely the crank connecting rod mechanism including connecting rod, crankshaft, bearing bush, flywheel, and piston; the air distribution mechanism including cylinder head, camshaft, valve, intake and exhaust pipe, air filter, and supercharger; the ignition system, start-up system, lubrication system, fuel system and cooling system. With the connection and operation of the two major mechanisms and five major systems, the chemical energy of the fuel is converted into mechanical kinetic energy.

After hundreds of years of development, the technology has become more mature and stable, and has conquered one power and torque mark after another. The enthusiasm for car engines has gradually faded. But people are always uneasy, and the passion that has nowhere to shed makes us look at the blue sky above our heads again. The internal combustion piston engine has achieved great success on the road, and people think of applying it to the aircraft as a source of flight power for the aircraft.20At the beginning of the century, the Wright Brothers of America transformed an inline four-cylinder engine and loaded it on their Flyer One. The engine drove the propeller through two chains. This attempt was successful, although there was only time left for free.12Seconds, flight distance36.6rice. Then, driven by the war, aircraft engines began to develop vigorously.

The working principle of the piston aircraft engine and the combustion piston engine in the car is basically the same, but compared with the automobile engine, the working environment is harsh and requires a higher power-weight ratio. The coordination requirements between major systems are more stringent: the air engine working in an empty work has a low external temperature and low oxygen pressure, but the more power requirements make the heat generated during operation much more than the automobile engine, making the air distribution mechanism and cooling system of the aircraft engine more reliable. The take-off and cruising power requirements of aircraft engines are several times or even more than that of general automobile engines. The normal working state during cruising is the ultimate speed.60%As mentioned above, the working state during take-off has approached the limit speed, which requires that the connection and coordination of all mechanism systems in the engine cannot be made in any errors. The power-to-weight ratio of an aircraft engine is also an important criterion for judging. Compared with automotive engines, aircraft engines also need to overcome the influence of gravity. The lighter the engine weight at the same fixed power, the more advanced the aircraft it carries. Therefore, when developing aircraft engines, we need to consider the weight loss of the entire engine, and the selected materials have also been transformed from cast iron parts to aluminum alloys, titanium alloys and other materials with light weight, temperature resistance and strength. In addition, the interior of an aircraft engine is more precise and complex than that of a car engine. The combustion chamber, intake passage, exhaust passage, piston, propeller, and even each bolt of the engine must be strictly for dimensional tolerances. From the casting, processing, to assembly and the quality traceability and quality management of individual parts must be fast and controllable.

Piston aircraft engines are mainly used in small aircraft and light aircraft. Although they cannot compare with the strong thrust of gas turbine engines carried by large civil aircraft, they have many advantages that turbo engines cannot replace. The price of providing strong thrust by turbine engines is that they consume a lot of fuel. The fuel consumption of turbine engines during startup generally reaches full power.80%The response mechanism of the turbine engine is poor, and it takes a long time from starting to speed up to taking off the plane. The piston aircraft engine has a low fuel consumption, the power it can provide is not bad, and it is less noise than a turbo engine. The piston engine has a good response mechanism, speed-up and slowdown can be achieved by controlling the opening and closing of the damper, and the increaseECUAuxiliary control can be controlled quickly. The rapid increase and decrease of oil in turbo engines can easily cause combustion failure, and must be coordinated.ECUOnly by achieving speed regulation. At the same time, the maintenance of piston engines is more convenient. Replacing parts can generally be solved if problems occur. Turbine engine maintenance requires professional equipment and personnel to balance the impeller, and the life span is not very long. Therefore, piston aircraft engines are more suitable for small and light aircraft installations, which is one of the indispensable powers of the aviation industry.

In order to make China's aviation industry more advanced and have more say in piston aerodynamic power. Haery Aviation Power Equipment Co., Ltd. was born in Wuhu. Since its establishment, it has overcome difficulties and independently developed and manufactured a number of piston aircraft engines, including:2018Year10moon27Sun to2018Year11moon10On the day, at Kunlun Pass, Golmud, Qinghai, altitude4767The "hummingbird" was completed under the original environment of rice7hpThe altitude environmental test of the aviation heavy oil piston engine tests a number of important indicators such as power, stability, start-up, and performance consistency of this engine. The collected data meet the expected target requirements. same year11In the month, under relatively high altitude and low temperature environments, the "Skylark" was carried out to carry a more original test, and the20It has made significant progress in many days. As the first four-stroke opposing aviation heavy oil engine in China developed independently: full-machine liquid-cooled and dry lubrication system; heavy oil pressure ignition, compatible with multiple fuels; double redundantFadecThe system has real-time engine health management functions; lightweight design and development are carried out in structural design, new materials and new processes, and achieves extremely high power-to-weight ratio. The design goals of this engine are verified: power-to-weight ratio, low fuel consumption, long flight time, strong environmental adaptability, etc.

Haery people are willing to contribute and explore for the common blue sky dream of you and me, and will also bring more surprises to everyone. We have been working hard!