NIFTI (Non-Intrusive Flow distortion measurements within a Turbofan Intake) is a joint project launched under Grant Agreement 864911 of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. It aims to advance the state of the art in non-intrusive inlet flow distortion measurements for modern, civil aero-engines.
The experimental measurements within the project were carried out in the low-speed tunnel at DNW - German-Dutch Wind Tunnels in the Netherlands. A stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (Stereo-PIV) was implemented to characterize the flow field upstream of the fan face within a short and slim aspirated intake configuration under various crosswind and high angle of attack conditions.
The successful measurements resulted in a recently published paper that demonstrates the ability to perform robust, non-intrusive flow measurements in modern air intake systems in an industrial wind tunnel environment under various operating conditions. It clearly shows that Stereo-PIV can become part of standard industrial testing.
Please feel free to read the full paper here. K. U. Kempaiah et al., “High-resolution turbofan intake flow characterization by automated stereoscopic-PIV in an industrial wind tunnel environment,” Meas. Sci. Technol., https://doi.org./10.1088/1361-6501/ad0ea0 | CC-BY
The NIFTI consortium includes the following partners: German-Dutch Wind Tunnels (DNW, The Netherlands - coordinator), Imperial College London (UK), Cranfield University (UK) and LaVision GmbH (Germany), Rolls-Royce (UK) acts as the topic manager.
More about the NIFTI project here.