Napier Nomad Engine Data

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and I apologise for immediately submitting a request!

I am undertaking a research project at the University of Bath, to simulate the thermodynamics and performance of the Napier Nomad II E145 Turbo-Compound engine, to help develop a tool which will predict the performance of similar engines, and also to investigate the predicted efficiency and power increases which might be possible with the application of modern materials and components.

I have visited the Napier archive at the IMechE in London and have acquired a number of useful documents, however I am still seeking data on the thermodynamics, pressures losses, temperature limits, intake and exhaust dimensions and anything else which will help me simulate the engine as realistically as possible. Furthermore, I am seeking detailed engineering drawings to help with these measurements, particularly of the intra-engine ducting and exhaust manifold arrangements.

If anyone might be able to help me get hold of this information, I would be very grateful indeed for their assistance!

Many thanks,

Colin
cjfield at gmail dot com

Try these two places as they have actual engines:
There are at least two examples of Nomad II engines remaining, one in the Science Museum at Wroughton and one at the Smithsonian in the USA.
Really interesting project.... keep us posted on progress!

Try the Museum of Flight at East Fortune near Edinburgh. They restored one about 10 years ago.

http://www.apss.org.uk/projects/completed_projects/nomad/index.htm

Chris

The page Chris mentioned includes a reference to the Napier Power Heritage Trust: http://www.napierheritage.org.uk/

If anyone knows, it's them.

Also search the Flight/Flight Global archives circa 1946 for a very detailed article by Bill Gunston on the engine. Not sure if it has all of the data you are seeking, but it's a good starting point.

I first ran across the Smithsonian Nomad about 12 years ago on a tour of Silver Hill. I had no idea it was there and almost **** myself with surprise. It's in the Udvar-Hazy now, and looks as if it was never run.

Anyone know how it got to the US?

Thanks very much to all who've replied.

I'm aware of the Nomad at Wroughton and also at the Udvar-Hazy Center - in fact I also walked right past the one in the Udvar-Hazy Center when I visited in 2010, but of course I hadn't come up with this project then! However I don't think these guys are going to be particularly helpful, compared with the IMechE archive. What I really need now are the design drawings (rather than external views etc) and short of letting me dismantle the thing, I don't think I'm going to get much further.

The IMechE archive and librarians has, and continues to be, a rich source of information since it has the bulk of the Napier archive and I have scanned and bought many of the reports from there. There's still quite a lot missing though, some of which I am chasing, but I have reached the stage now where I have no choice but to fill in the gaps with my own estimations of models.

GeorgeA - I've combed the FlightGlobal archives, and if 'WTG' is Bill Gunston, then I have his very detailed article dated April 1954. Is this the one you mean? This report has been one of my core sources of good information, so thanks for recommending it.

CJGibson - I've been in touch with the Napier Power Heritage Trust, who have been very co-operative. However they remark that the majority of their archive is with the IMechE in London, which I believe closes that particular loop, since I now have all the information I can use from there.

So, a project update then. Having collected as much information as I think is available in the timescale, I am busy modelling the engine in Ricardo WAVE, which is a 1-D engine simulation package. I have had to come up with a number of different sub-models to allow for features which the package can't model by itself (for instance, the complex inlet manifold). Meanwhile, a couple of very highly regarded British engine manufacturers are helping me develop models for the compressor/turbine and port valves/fuel injection respectively. They are sponsoring this project with expertise and advice where I need it.

Work continues in WAVE but once I have a fully-functioning model, I will see how sensitive each of my assumptions has been, to determine which areas need more detailed analysis in future. After that I will try to predict what improvements could be made if the Nomad were made today with modern materials, injectors, compressor etc.

In addition to the IMechE archives, it's probably worth a trip to the National Aerospace Library at Farnborough. FAST might have some stuff in the archives from NGTE as well.

If you're at Bath University, I seem to remember there's a book in the library there on diesel turbocompounds. There's also a book "High Speed Diesel Engines" by AW Judge there but I can't remember if it stops before the Nomad.

PM me if you need to contact APSS at East Fortune.

Chris

Dear All,

The thermodynamic model of the Napier Nomad is so very near completion, but there is one glaring omission - I do not have an efficiency map for either the compressor or the turbine. I do, however, have peak efficiencies, dimensions, blade numbers (based on an estimated solidity) and almost every other piece of required information.

I understand that the Nomad compressor and turbine were designed using the experience that Napier had designing the Naiad turboprop in 1948. Is anyone aware of any Naiad archives or enthusiasts who might have access to data about this, the holy grail being some sort of efficiency map?

Many thanks,

Colin Field

The RAE did a turbo charger called the E5... I wondered whether that was the basis of Nomad. Blade numbers we should get from the remaining Nomad if someone is nearby.

Tartle - is that the Mazda turbocharger? I imagine it would be a centrifugal blower, rather than an axial one, so I'm thinking that the most comparable engine for the map would be a small early turboshaft (Allison Model 250 etc). But I'd like to know more?

Blade numbers - yes I'd love to get these from a real Nomad. I've arranged to see the Wroughton one in May, but a) that's a bit too late and b) I doubt I could disassemble or even boroscope it to count the blades!

No this was done in early 40's... on reflection I think it was more likely they used the information from what became ASX engine (Armstrong Siddeley) just like everyone one else was using the Farnborough stuff. see attached for interest.

also you could use the info in the article starting here There areas perspective dwgs that should enable you to scale numbers... I expect the compressor blade numbers will stay constant, as was practice then.

Metrovick F2 Compressor Map attached from "The Early History of the Aircraft Gas Turbine in Britain" by William Hawthorne

This is all really useful stuff, thank you very much guys!

tartle - this is very interesting and quote close to the Nomad quoted figures. I'll have a look.

red admiral - I don't suppose it is recorded which Metrovick F2 this map is from? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers_F.2, it could the be F.2 Freda, F.2/2, F.2/3 or F.2/4 Beryl, the latter having a very different compressor and is probably closer to the vintage of the Nomad.

If you look in IMechE Proceedings 1945 vol153 pages 411-426 Hayne Constant's paper includes the Ch'ics for Freda and Sarah which should help you determine where the anonymous F2 set belongs.

The text is noncomittal unfortunately but mostly talks about the F2/1 as mounted on the Meteor. As can be noted from the diagram tartle posted, there was significant wartime development of the F2 compressor even before getting to the F2/4 Beryl.

Freda? Beryl?

Fascinating nomenclature story.... Were the Metrovick people naming their engines after their girlfriends, until the establishment imposed a normal engine naming convention (ie Rolls recips=raptors, Bristol engines=Roman gods) and called the follow-on Sapphire?

LowObservable said:

Fascinating nomenclature story.... Were the Metrovick people naming their engines after their girlfriends, until the establishment imposed a normal engine naming convention (ie Rolls recips=raptors, Bristol engines=Roman gods) and called the follow-on Sapphire?

Click to expand...

Well to fair, Beryl was also named for the stone as the first production engine. Not sure about Freda... but that line seems to have started with "Anne" and then moved onto "Betty", with "Alice" "Ruth" "Edith" and "Doris" along the way.

It would be fascinating if Beryl had started as someone's wife/gf/favorite barmaid, at which point some Prodnose from The Ministry said "I say, that isn't quite the thing" and some smarta**e said "Oh no, Mr Prodnose, it's a semi-precious stone and the next engine's called Sapphire".

The fact that the previous engines were all women's names, and Beryl happens to be both a then-popular name and a stone, is suggestive....

Could be worse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubarite

Which could be applied to many UK aerospace projects.

Chris

The nomenclature of engines was agreed with the Air Ministry.. in order help people know the origins of the powerplants. The RAE somehow started to name their compressor/turbine projects using women's names.. maybe stage/movie stars??... to differentiate the projects from industry.
The sequence went Anne, Alice, Betty, Doris, Ruth, Edith, Freda, Sarah. Sarah was the basis of the Armstrong Siddeley snakes -Adder/Python; Metrovick went bejewelled with Freda becoming Beryl and led to Sapphire, also RR Clyde (river class); Edith may have led to Nomad; and Bristol picked up on Sarah etc to yield the Gods Theseus/Proteus etc.

They were a randy bunch of lads at RAE, they were.

By the early Fifties the effects of the bromide in the wartime tea was wearing off.

I recall that the RAE's projects in the Sixties had Shakespearean names, Falstaff etc. Apparently Puck was frowned upon.

Chris

It's a shame they were not inspired to name one Beatrice after the most famous female at the RAE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Shilling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling's_orifice

Thought this might be of interest in a Nomad thread as it tweaked my curiosity.

Last time I was rummaging in Kew, I found a reference to a couple of R-R Griffon developments, but could find no more info on these. The file was Avia 54/100 on the R2/48 flying boat and it appears from the file that the Griffon was modified with turbo-compound equipment a la R-5330, and called the Compound Griffon (RGC.30.SM). This was cancelled in 1949 and replaced by the Turbo Griffon (RGT.30.SM) that was along similar lines to the Napier Nomad. (in the file the designations are reversed, but RRHT put me right)

I've seen mentions of a Turbo-Griffon in Flight, but despite a few enquires with the usual suspects, no further details have turned up.

Anyone aware of a Rolls-Royce Nomad-esque project? I believe the Crecy was to have such turbomachinery, but the Griffon was a surprise.

I'll be pursuing this next trip south.

Thanks

Chris

Interesting Chris. Keen to hear more.

+1

It is logical that there would have been a project at RR.... the Nomad was developed for Shackleton which was a Griffon powered aircraft. So RR would have also put up an offer to compete with Napier and given the timescale and priorities I would guess they would have scaled the Crecy turbo supercharger to suit Griffon... and Crecy s/c was designed to deliver power to prop shaft... so one of us will get to Kew and be able to share the post soup research (good value in cafe on site!).

I favour carry-in Waitrose sandwiches myself. Don't have Waitrose in Sunderland.

Makes sense for R-R to do a compound / turbo Griffon, but why has it never been mentioned in Griffon histories (at least the ones I've seen)? Low activity project or a victim of the dash for gas (tubines) at R-R?

Chris

The book "Major Piston Aero Engines of World War II" by Victor Bingham has a drawing of the gear train of the Turbo Griffon on page 132. It shows the exhaust gas turbine mounted with the shaft vertical, turbine wheel slightly above the camshafts. The output of the turbine was channeled into the gears driving the single stage supercharger. Page 133 of the same text shows another drawing labeled "Turbo supercharged Griffon mk.74".

How much modification would have been required to make a Turbo Griffon work might have been the problem. I read in another text that the Merlin did not have adequate coolant flow in the cylinder heads to deal with the extra heat trapped in the engine by an exhaust gas turbine, Could be the same problem with the Griffon. Major modifications to the cooling system on a piston engine that late in the shift to turboprop/jet power might have seemed a loosing proposition.

Chris,
You brought back memories of a recent BLT from our local mini-Waitrose.... in Barry Jones 'Avro Shackleton' he writes on page 133:
"With Rolls-Royce no longer interested in further development of the Griffon, any thoughts of increasing the range of the Shackleton lay in the installation of different engines....."
So you are right in your speculation... we are talking October '52 when a Shackleton was sent to Napier for installation of mock-up Nomads so work may have started when the Nomad Lincoln was started in early '51. That would fit in with RR not wishing to divert resource as it had its hands full with the Avon and its 'exciting' compressor.