Cooling improvement of an aircraft engine in pusher configuration

The paper presents research related to the cooling of an aircraft engine in pusher configuration, which is more problematic than usually used, tractor configuration. Moreover a complex thermal and fluid flow analysis is necessary in order to verify that an adequate cooling is ensured. Methodology used in this research based on temperature measurements on real object and use of Computational Fluid Dynamics tools to model adequately the internal and the external flow, in order to find the state of cooling system, and to research the results of engine nacelle modifications. Two types of the cover with different sizes of inlets and outlets are tested. The results showed the influence of baffles modifications and changes in inlets and outlet sizes on the mass flow rate and temperature distributions inside the engine nacelle. The best configuration of air inlets and outlets was determined. The work presents original results obtained by the authors during a tests and heat transmission analysis, and is a part of the design project of the OSA patrol aircraft.