Testing of the world's first internal combustion engine completely made of aluminum has taken place in the end of January 2019 at Mochishche airport near Novosibirsk. The experimental unit had its durability tested for many hours and the high performance of ultra-hard coating of the engine aluminum parts was confirmed. "The micrometric measuring does not detect any wear of parts, it is virtually absent. It’s so inspiring!", – says Ilya Zverkov, the head of the development team, Professor of the Aircraft Department, NSTU.
Testing of the world's first internal combustion engine completely made of aluminum has taken place in the end of January 2019 at Mochishche airport near Novosibirsk. The experimental unit had its durability tested for many hours and the high performance of ultra-hard coating of the engine aluminum parts was confirmed. "The micrometric measuring does not detect any wear of parts, it is virtually absent. It’s so inspiring!", – says Ilya Zverkov, the head of the development team, Professor of the Aircraft Department, NSTU.
However, the tests were not without emergency situations. At one of the test stages a piece of innovative coating chipped which lead to damaging the oil system seal. The engine began to smoke, but it did not stall which confirmed the high reliability of the unit. The analysis of the problem showed that it happened due to manufacturing defects in the parts processing and is not related to the technology itself. "The tests of new engines with traditional technologies are never devoid of problems, to say nothing about the revolutionary unit whose main mechanism is not a single steel part. We are even glad that it happened, because we saw that the engine did not stop, it continued to work and did not lose the power. It means that if the engine was on the plane, it would easily return to the airport, "- says Professor Zverkov.
The aircraft engine completely made of aluminum was first demonstrated by the designers of the flagship Novosibirsk State Technical University in January 2018. The use of aluminum instead of steel has reduced the weight of the engine by 30-40% in comparison with traditional steel engines of similar power. At the same time, the calculated power of the new engine increased by 40 hp (up to 400 hp), and fuel consumption decreased by about 15 %. The experimental engine was tested on conventional motor gasoline AI-95.
Aluminum has already been used in aircraft and automotive engines, but high-load parts are still made of steel. Scientists of the flagship Novosibirsk University managed to replace the steel parts with aluminum ones using a special technology of plasma-electrolytic oxidation (PEO) created at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry SB RAS. The idea of the technology is that aluminum parts are processed by plasma discharges resulting in a thin layer of aluminum oxide, known as corundum formed on the surface of the aluminum part. Corundum has a high hardness and melting point enabling the aluminum parts with corundum coating to replace the steel ones in the engine. The parts of the new engine have been specially designed for the efficient application of PEO technology.
The work on the design of the engine production model was carried out alongside the testing. The developers preferred the V-shaped scheme over the H-shaped scheme of the experimental engine. This made it possible to significantly reduce the size of the engine which allows installing it on different aircraft models, not only on YAK-52 for which it was made. The new engine can also be installed on Yak-18T, Il-103, Be-103. The production engine will run on aviation gasoline B-91, with its production being resumed in Russia. The designed engine will be modular; two power blocks with capacity of 200 hp can be used both jointly and separately for the light aircraft motorization. The new 200 hp engine will weigh 98 kg, which is at least 30% less than the steel counterparts.
Now the development is at the stage of the new engine parts production which will be completed by the beginning of summer 2019. All the main parts of the new engine will be cast from aluminum in Novosibirsk. This is another advantage of the new scheme: it allows abandoning the imported components which were used in the experimental unit. In future, this will make it possible to use the engine on the aircraft of the Russian air force.
The engine is developed by the company of NSTU graduates "ZK-Motor". The developer of the engine is Professor of the Aircraft Department of NSTU Ilya Zverkov, a team of developers consists of graduate and undergraduate students of NSTU.
Scientific and technological support for the development is provided by the Institute of theoretical and applied mechanics SB RAS. The development of the engine is financed mainly by the funds of the "Domestic Aviation Revival" fund.
