THE EFFECTS OF POWERPLANT ON MILITARY MISSION PERFORMANCE

During the last years the TERA (Techno-economic Environmental Risk Assessment) concept has become more and more important in order to design any mechanical system. TERA has been widely used in the civil aircraft field, and starting from 2014 the Cranfield University Propulsion Centre has also shifted into the military field. Two areas have been investigated: the aircraft survivability during an air battle and the mission performance. This project research focuses on mission performance. In particular, the author has focused on the effect of the powerplants on the military mission performance. The EJ200 and the F100-PW- P-100 have been integrated with the Eurofighter Typhoon. Then, a pre-existing mission simulation code, exploiting the Energy Maneuverability theory and optimization modules, has been used to simulate any kind of military mission, giving important performance parameters as output in order to make comparisons. The InfraRed and noise signature modules were already integrated with the code in order to achieve a more complete overview of the mission; in fact, without these modules, a higher thrust would be the only preferable feature, even if it causes higher IRSL, which greatly threatens the survivability of any military aircraft.