A New proTection devIce for FOD

Electrical Environment Control System (eECS) takes external fresh air from an inlet. Depending on aircraft altitude and type of inlet, debris and contaminants may be ingested and cause premature degradation of pack performances, affect the cabin air quality and reduce eECS components life time. The project aims at developing protective solutions to prevent eECS performance degradation due to FOD.

In this context, ANTIFOD project is well aligned with Clean Sky 2 which aims to achieve up to a 30% reduction in fuel burn and related CO2 emissions; similar or greater reductions in NOx emissions and to drive the European aviation industry to
be commercial competitive in a 30 years period (from 2020-2050).

The main objective of this innovation action is to develop a Foreign Object Debris (FOD) protection device applied to an electrical ECS fresh air inlet, validated to TRL5. This will be achieved through the following two-stage design
process, each with their own secondary objectives:

1. Preliminary design, which aims to:
- Capture the top level requirements through a survey of the user needs and used to develop a set of baseline candidate concepts.
- Use innovative design methods to conduct a concept study
- Verify prototypes rapidly using a combination of CFD and additive manufacturing, as measured by comparing calculated separation efficiency and pressure loss.
- Refine the highly ranked concepts via a trade-off study and determine the best suited solution that meets all the top-level requirements, measured through a scoring system.
- Produce a preliminary design from the winning concept, including feasibility study, sensitivity analysis, risk assessment, and system requirements report, measured through a preliminary design review (PDR) which demonstrates compliance with the user needs.

2. Detailed design, which aims to:
- Define an aerodynamic geometry for the intake protection and FOD separation device which demonstrably meets the relevant requirements and integrates with the mechanical interfaces of the
existing intake scoop inlet, scoop ducting and eECS inlets, and is measured through Wall-Modelled LES simulations.
- Produce a detailed design and subsequent manufacture of the full-scale intake protection and FOD separation device.
- Design a test bench to validate the intake protection and FOD separation device
- Deliver a final full-scale working prototype to the Topic Leader which demonstrably meets the user needs, as measure.

The work performed during this first period has been focussed on:

1. Identification of the Top Level Requirements for the design of the FOD protection device:
- Identify and characterize FOD
- Develop FOD test samples according to FOD specification (for further tests)
- Characterize aerodynamic conditions at aircraft air inlet depending on inlet type and position as well as aircraft environment.
- Specify the efficiency breakdown for each item: air intake flap, FOD separation and protection device to reach the overall efficiency (done with the support of the Topic Leader)

2. Trade and selection of the appropriate ANTIFOD system:
- Generation of a baseline for candidate concepts.
- Process for FOD separator development (Design phase, trade-off, verification by tests).

The main expected result aims with the development of a successful protection and separation device to remove a target FOD size with the minimum pressure loss.

From industrial point of view the potential industrial impact is expected on:
1. Establishment, in Europe, of a clear methodology for the design of this kind of device. This will enable to reduce the time and the effort dedicated to the design of similar devices in the future.
2. Increase of the expertise on FOD protection devices for electrical compressors within the European industry.

From technical and scientific point of view different ambitious concepts which implies a progress beyond the state of the art can be detailed as:
1. More realistic simulations of particle trajectories in detached turbulence areas, at feasible cost and time by means of wall-modelled LES based particle-laden flow simulations.
2. More realistic test dusts for more accurate prediction of engine life and cost-of-ownership of IPS and related particle separators based on potential of unseparated particulate to cause damage, thanks to full chemical characterization of unseparated particulate using more realistic sands and dusts for separation efficiency measurements.
3. Improve of actual bulk gravimetric separation efficiency by means of the development of a new metric to assess IPS efficiency through new cost function for optimization of IPS systems.
4. Multiple measurement techniques (PIV, PSP and/or hot wire) for duct flow characterization across FOD separator instead of actual characterization based on total pressure rakes or PIV.
5. Use of narrow size fraction material to dully understand the behavior of the separation through a range of particle sizes.

Safety and environmental protection are growing concerns in the context of an expected rise of the aeronautical transport. To provide products for this increasing demand, the civil aircraft industry of the EU needs to improve the environmental and economic impact of the whole life cycle of its aircraft. This project is a necessary step towards the safe operation of the eECS and also towards More Electrical Aircrafts (MEA) technologies and All Electrical Aircraft (AEA) systems, contributing to make aircrafts more environmentally sustainable and more commercially competitive because of:
- Improved fuel consumption, due to a more efficient secondary power management.
- Reduced maintenance costs due to the elimination of the maintenance-intensive bleed system.
- Improved reliability due to the use of power electronics and lesser components in the engine installation.
- Expanded range, and reduced fuel consumption due to the reduction of weight.
- Reduced maintenance cost and improved reliability due to the reduction of components.

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ANTIFOD (A New proTection devIce for FOD)

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