Description du projet
Un moteur à pistons innovant conçu pour l’utilisation de carburants économiques
Les avions traditionnels utilisés dans l’aviation générale dépendent fortement de l’essence aviation, dont la production est limitée et qui présente des contraintes de compatibilité avec les moteurs Continental ou Lycoming, ce qui entraîne des coûts élevés. Le projet EINSTAIN, financé par l’UE, s’est fixé pour objectif de proposer une solution révolutionnaire en lançant un moteur à pistons innovant à allumage par compression. Cette technologie novatrice permet de réduire considérablement, de l’ordre de 50 %, la consommation de carburant, et ainsi de réaliser d’importantes économies de coûts. En adaptant le moteur pour qu’il puisse utiliser du kérosène ou des carburéacteurs, le projet ambitionne de réduire encore les coûts et ainsi d’améliorer l’accessibilité et la rentabilité de l’aviation. Le projet EINSTAIN prévoit de faire la démonstration de l’efficacité de son moteur et devrait transformer l’avenir de l’aviation générale.
Objectif
"Nowadays, almost all General Aviation piston-powered aircrafts are powered by Avgas fuel. For decades, piston engines like Lycoming and Continental were allowed to burn only this type of fuel, which is characterized by high-octane values, very low vapor pressure indexes and high costs because of its poor production quantity, tracked and certified production and high performances.
The “compression ignition” engine can provide a fuel consumption reduction from 30% to 50% compared to Avgas engine. An additional benefit of the replacement of Avgas piston engine with a diesel engine is obtained due to the reduced fuel price.
This “compression ignition” piston engines are able and certified to operate with kerosene and/or Jet fuels, so their use is justified in areas, such as Europe, Africa, Russia, China and many others, where aviation gasoline (Avgas, also known as 100LL) cost is significantly higher than jet fuels.
Therefore the objective of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of an efficient “diesel” engine installation on a FAR/EASA Part23, 9 to 11 seats twin engine aircraft configuration and reduce as much as possible the related increase in drag, respect to a conventional engine, by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in the design phase.
In order to achieve this goal the SR460, a six-cylinders, air/oil-cooled turbo-diesel engine produced by SMA, will be used as reference and installed on the TECNAM P2012 TRAVELLER aircraft. The main advantages are reported as following:
• The average fuel consumption will be of around 45kg/hr/engine against an average of 130kg/hr of a turboprop engine;
• P2012 will be the first twin engine aircraft available in both ""Avgas"" and ""kerosene"" capable variants;
• P2012 with SR460 will have a very competitive acquisition cost, comparable to the same-passengers’ capability of the single engine turboprop.
"
Champ scientifique
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsliquid fuels
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaircraft
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsfluid dynamicscomputational fluid dynamics
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaeronautical engineering
- social sciencessocial geographytransportpublic transport
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
CS2-IA - Innovation actionCoordinateur
80042 BOSCOTRECASE (NA)
Italie
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.