Design of a Retractable Inlet Cover
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Date
2014-12-01
Authors
Entz, Scott
Peerbuccus, Hishaam
Rydberg, Paul
Soriano, Prince
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Abstract
The purpose of this project is to design a retractable cover that can prevent snow and ice from entering the inlet of a 25 foot diameter bell-mouth at the Global Aerospace Center for Icing and Environmental Research (GLACIER) Testing Facility in Thompson, Manitoba. The client is MDS AeroTest and the design team (Team 8 – OmegaTech) is comprised of four undergraduate students from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Team OmegaTech have used their collective engineering skill and experience developed over the past 4-5 years of education and related internship experience to design a fully functioning, retractable cover, which will be operable by one person. In addition to keeping snow out of the bell mouth and being retractable, the design must be safe, structurally stable and operable by a single person. No components may be in front of the bell-mouth when the cover is retracted in order maintain the quality of inlet airflow when testing. The retractable cover must be easily portable and cannot consume track space during the summer testing season. The cover must be durable, reliable, preserve the standards of the current testing and maintenance operations and not exceed $200,000 in cost.
OmegaTech has developed a preliminary design to prevent the ingress of snow into the bell-mouth driven by the needs developed by our team and the client. Our team’s design consists of a 22 oz. vinyl-polyester tarp that deploys downward through a set of retractable guides and covers the entire bell-mouth inlet. Remote operation of a variable frequency drive motorized roller allows for simple retraction and deployment of the tarp from a housing cart located above of the bell-mouth. A variable frequency drive motor is also used to power the cart housing, which may be suspended either in front of the bell-mouth when deployed, or completely behind the plane of the bell- mouth inlet when retracted. The cart moves along a set of tracks that are permanently fixed behind the bell-mouth. The tracks are mounted under a support structure that surrounds the bell-mouth and attaches to the steel members supporting the bell-mouth, facilitating portability of […]