Hawker de Havilland
Jet Engine Test Cell
Engines for the sevenq-five F/A718 Hornet fighters supplied to the Royal Australian Air Force by McDonnell Douglas were assembled and tested at Hawker de Havilland's factory in Port Melbourne.
Assembly of the General Electric F404 engines is followed by run up testing in the new air cooled, after burner Jet Engine Test Cell. Overhauled engines are also sent to the Test Cell for run up before installation into the aircraft.
As exhaust temperatures run in excess of 3000°C, the
structural, dynamic and thermal loads are enormous.
NAP Silentflo won an acoustic contract from Fletcher
Watts for the Jet Engine Test Cell exhaust shaft
silencing. This was the most complex in the entire cell.
Approximately 290 high grade stainless steel exhaust
modules were assembled together to form an exhaust
silencer 9.5 metres square and approximately 12 metres in length. It was designed to handle the enormous mass flow of hot, exceptionally turbulent,
exhaust gases and to reduce the noise levels at the
boundary to the specified criterion.
As the exhaust silencer weighed in excess of 100 tonnes; it required 10 acoustic beams which broke the silencer down into smaller sections, thus facilitating easier installation and fabrication.
NAP Silentflo was involved in the project for a total of eight months and excelled in meeting all manufacturing, engineering and quality control requirements. Installation was carried out quickly and with minimal problems.
The NAP group has also been involved in other test cell work for Ansett and Australian Airlines, Normalair Garrett, Melbourne, 2nd Garrett, Singapore, as well as acoustical equipment at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne.