S & C Thermofluids championed its analytical and experimental capabilities at Farnborough Airshow 2018 through two successful projects supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute. The ATI stand was located in the Innovation Zone in Hall 3.

The three-year SANTANA project was completed in March 2017, and S & C provided engineering design, rig build and experimental testing in two work packages. The first challenge was to design and operate a rig to test the performance of novel anti-icing system designs within a Trent 700 nacelle subjected to external cooling flow - leading to the creation of the flight stream arrangement for nacelle system testing capability. The second strand of work developed a capability to visualise the plume trajectory of thrust reverser systems in landing conditions, using a scaled half model of an airframe, engine and rolling road. A video celebrating this project, filmed at the Kemble Engine Test Facility, was presented at the inaugural ATI Conference in November 2017, and was on display again in the central area of the ATI stand at Farnborough. Staff from S&C attended the drinks reception at the ATI stand on Tuesday afternoon.

You can watch the full video here.

Diffusion Bonded Aero Heat Exchangers (DBAHx) was led by Meggitt Control Systems Birmingham and ran from October 2015 - March 2018. The project objective was to design and manufacture a solid-state bonded aerospace heat exchanger from chemically etched aluminium plates, achieving advanced heat transfer, lower weight and lower cost of manufacture than current units. A demonstrator unit was produced and displayed on the ATI stand.

S & C researched advances in CFD analytical methods for complex heat transfer surfaces and designed a parametric tool for the rapid creation of CFD models for the etched plates within the heat exchanger core. This design and analysis work has now been extended into the advanced thermal systems research for Ultra High Bypass Ratio Engines (UHBR Thermals) project, which Meggitt Aerospace will be leading until 2020.