Future high-bypass jet engines will require even more reliability, safety, and economy than today’s aircraft engines. On problem affecting engine safety is compressor surge, normally leading to a momentary loss of power and possibly the complete flameout and failure of an engine. This is caused when there is a sudden disturbance of the airflow through the compressor stages. The most effective means to prevent compressor surge is to strategically place bleed valve on the compressor case of the jet engine and to open the valves to “bleed” the pressure out of the combustion chamber when there is a sudden increase in pressure differential.
In the aerospace industry, the level of accuracy needed in the interpretation of test data is paramount. Before the test data can be used to make a correlation between the experimental and theoretical flow, the data is reduced using the flow factor method of flow reduction. The flow factor technique provides a useful method to compare the amount of flow that is flowing through a valve at sea level and testing conditions to the amount of flow exiting the valve at any altitude and flight temperatures by normalizing the mass flow rate for temperature and pressure. Though, a few limitations I encountered using the flow factor method is that it can only be used to analyze the flow not provide a way to predict the amount of flow through a similar valve.