Author Description

This report documents the development of the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC) Aviation Engine Simulation Facility (AESF). The objective of this effort was to develop a facility which can repetitively expose candidate pavement specimens to convective heat transfer rates equal to those which pavements at operational airfields experience due to jet exhaust impingement. Damage of concrete pavements has become a chronic problem at Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force bases. The damage is due to impingement of vertically directed jet exhaust flow from auxiliary power unit (APU) engines of the F/A. 18 and B-1 aircraft, and from the main propulsion engines of the AV-8B aircraft during vertical takeoff and landing. The main component of the AESF is a burner and nozzle assembly in which there is combustion of natural gas. By controlling the combustion chamber pressure and temperature, along with the nozzle diameter and distance from the specimen, the AESF can impose convective heating rates on the specimen that equal the heating rates imposed on operational airfields by full scale engines. The experimental data validated the applicability of the exhaust simulation. Specimens can be repetitively exposed to the simulated exhaust flow to evaluate their performance under the simulated exhaust conditions.