Experimental Flow Analysis of Aerospace Duct of Equipment Cooling System in an Aircraft

This paper discusses about the Flow analysis of Aerospace ducts of Equipment cooling system of an aircraft. Equipment Cooling is provided to maintain assigned temperature conditions in equipment compartment for satisfactory working of Line Replaceable units (LRUs), which are installed inside equipment compartment. Forced air cooling is provided to these LRUs using Air Conditioning system (ACS) air. The life span of aircraft is approximately 30-40 years, and various up-gradations are required to be carried out to meet the operational &mission requirements. Up-gradation programmes of aircraft required installation of new LRUs, thus a requirement of redistribution of flow through complex duct geometries to meet their additional cooling requirements is mandatory. In the present practice, designers carryout the redistribution of flow of air through these complex ducts using Continuity & Bernoulli's equation. It was experienced that new LRUs at so many times not function properly due to inadequate cooling condition resulting malfunctioning of LRUs. This Paper aims to identify the reason for not achieving the designed cooling condition at designated LRUS. To analyse the flow through Aerospace ducts in transient condition, an experimental Environmental Control System (ECS) test rig has been newly designed to simulate the actual layout of installation of Aerospace ducts into aircraft. Theoretical analysis correlated by experimental trials analysis was carried out on Environmental Control System Test Rig. The results analysed and concluded the reason for not achieving the required cooling to LRUs.