Ejector Application for Scavenging of an Aero Engine Bearing Chamber

Abstract

Oil system architecture in aero engines has remained almost the same for the last 35 years. At least one mechanically-driven oil feed pump is responsible for distributing pressurized oil into the bearing chambers and several scavenge pumps, also mechanically driven, are responsible for evacuating the bearing chambers from the oil and air mixture. Air is used as the sealing medium in bearing chambers and is the dominant medium in terms of volume occupation and expansion phenomena. In order to simplify the oil system architecture, improve the system's reliability with less mechanical parts, and also decrease weight, an ejector system has been designed for scavenging bearing chambers. In Flouros et al. (2013, “Ejector Scavenging of Bearing Chambers. A Numerical and Experimental Investigation,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 135(8), p. 081602), an ejector system was presented which used aviation oil (MIL-PRF-23699 Std.) as the primary medium. In the course of further development, the original design was modified leading to a much smaller ejector. This ejector was tested in the rig using alternatively pressurized air or pressurized oil as primary medium. Additionally, three in-house developed primary nozzle (jet) designs were introduced and tested. The design of an ejector for application with compressible or incompressible media was supported through the development of an analysis tool. A momentum-based efficiency function is proposed herein and enables comparisons among different operating cases. Finally, ANSYS cfx (ANSYS, 2014, “ANSYS® CFX, Release 14.0,” ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA) was used to carry out the numerical analysis. Similar to the ejector described in Flouros et al. (2013, “Ejector Scavenging of Bearing Chambers. A Numerical and Experimental Investigation,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 135(8), p. 081602), the new design was also manufactured out of pure quartz glass to enable optical access. Through suitable instrumentation for pressures, temperatures, and air/oil flows, the performance characteristics of the new ejector were assessed and were compared to the analytic and numerical results. This work was partly funded by the German government within the research program Lufo4 (Luftfahrtforschungsprogramm 4/Aeronautical Research Program 4).