Basic Methodology for Studying High-Temperature Performance of Airspace Structural Elements Made of Composite Materials. Part 1. Examination of Air Intake Edges

Based on the literature data, various factors of different natures influence the strength characteristics of high-temperature composite materials, and the performance of aerospace engineering structural elements under operating conditions is analyzed. The general approaches to modeling the operating conditions of structural elements on gas-dynamic benches are presented. The study used approaches to model the external impact on the structural element and equivalence of material damage processes in model and full-scale conditions. These approaches are based on the classical theories of similarity and dimensionality, the main provisions of which have been transformed and adapted to the problems of studying the strength of composite materials and the kinetics of damage to structural elements made of them in high-temperature gas flows. The methodology’s basic principles and the corresponding methods for studying their performance have been implemented for structural elements as the edges of direct-flow jet engines’ air intakes. As the basic equipment, a test complex of gas-dynamic test benches was used, the design features of which and methodological solutions provide a full cycle of bench tests to solve the tasks. Based on the experimental and analytical generalization of the boundary conditions of heat transfer in bench conditions, numerical modeling of the dependence of the thermal stress state of the models on the geometric parameters and thermal and physical characteristics of the studied materials was performed. It is shown that such comparative tests with several materials should be carried out on models of the same shape and geometric dimensions since the difference significantly affects structural elements’ stress state.