Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mechanical Engineering By
JOSIAH PRINCE (1EP08ME042)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The satisfaction and euphoria that accompany the successful completion of any task would be incomplete without mention of the people who made it possible, whose constant guidance and encouragement crowded our efforts with success. I extend my sincere thanks to the management of The East Point College of Engineering and Technology for their support.
I thank Prof. H.R.VITALA, Department of Mechanical for his efforts and motivation.
I also thank all the faculty members of Mechanical department for their support. I also thank all non- teaching staff members for providing the necessary guidance, support, help and cooperation without which the seminar would have been incomplete. My sincere thanks to all those who have directly or indirectly supported us in all aspects, in bringing out this seminar efficiently and successfully.
We would like to thank our parents for their constant moral support.
Above all I thank the Almighty for constantly helping me to overcome the hurdles and giving me the strength to execute this seminar
ABSTRACT
The Apache Helicopter is a revolutionary development in the history of war. It is essentially a flying tank- a helicopter designed to survive heavy attack and inflict massive damage. It can zero in on specific targets, day or night, even in terrible weather. As you might expect, it is a terrifying machine to ground forces.
In this topic, we look at the Apaches amazing flight systems, engines, weapon systems, sensor systems and amour systems. Individually these components are remarkable pieces of technology. Combined together they make up an unbelievable fighting machine the most lethal helicopter ever created.
Page: 01
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..02 HELICOPTER BASICS.03 BACKGROUND....06 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS07 POWER AND FLIGHT.08 MAIN ROTOR ASSEMBLY11 HELLFIRE MISSILES..12 ROCKETS AND CHAIN GUNS..14 CONTROL AND SENSORS16 EVASION AND ARMOURS...19 CONCLUSION..21 REFERENCE.21
Page: 02
Page: 03
HELICOPTER BASICS
Helicopters are the most versatile flying machines in existence today. This versatility gives the pilot complete access to three-dimensional space in a way that no airplane can. The amazing flexibility of helicopters means that they can fly almost anywhere. However, it also means that flying the machines is complicated. The pilot has to think in three dimensions and must use both arms and both legs constantly to keep a helicopter in the air! Piloting a helicopter requires a great deal of training and skill, as well as continuous attention to the machine. To understand how helicopters work and also why they are so complicated to fly, it is helpful to compare the abilities of a helicopter with those of trains, cars and airplanes. There are only two directions that a train can travel in -- forward and reverse. A car, of course, can go forward and backward like a train. While you are traveling in either direction you can also turn left or right: A plane can move forward and turn left or right. It also adds the ability to go up and down. A helicopter can do three things that an airplane cannot: A helicopter can fly backwards. The entire aircraft can rotate in the air. A helicopter can hover motionless in the air. In a car or a plane, the vehicle must be moving in order to turn. In a Helicopter, you can move laterally in any direction or you can rotate 360 degrees. These extra degrees of freedom and the skill you must have to master them is what makes helicopters so exciting, but it also makes them complex.
Page: 04
To control a helicopter, one hand grasps a control called the cyclic, which controls the lateral direction of the helicopter (including forward, backward, left and right). The other hand grasps a control called the collective, which controls the up and down motion of the helicopter (and also controls engine speed). The pilot's feet rest on pedals that control the tail rotor, which allows the helicopter to rotate in either direction on its axis. It takes both hands and both feet to fly a helicopter! Imagine that we would like to create a machine that can simply fly straight upward. Let's not even worry about getting back down for the moment -- up is all that matters. If you are going to provide the upward force with a wing, then the wing has to be in motion in order to create lift. Wings create lift by deflecting air downward and benefiting from the equal and opposite reaction that results straight upward. A rotary motion is the easiest way to keep a wing in continuous motion. So you can mount two or more wings on a central shaft and spin the shaft, much like the blades on a ceiling fan. The rotating wings of a helicopter are shaped just like the airfoils of an airplane wing, but generally the wings on a helicopter's rotor are narrow and thin because they must spin so quickly. The helicopter's rotating wing assembly is normally called the main rotor. If you give the main rotor wings a slight angle of attack on the shaft and spin the shaft, the wings start to develop lift. In order to spin the shaft with enough force to lift a human being and the vehicle, you need an engine of some sort. Reciprocating gasoline engines and gas turbine engines are the most common types. The engine's drive shaft can connect through a transmission to the main rotor shaft. This arrangement works really well until the moment the vehicle leaves the ground.
At that moment, there is nothing to keep the engine (and therefore the body of the vehicle) from spinning just like the main rotor does. So, in the absence of anything to stop it, the body will spin in an opposite direction to the main rotor. To keep the body from spinning, you need to apply a force to it.
Page: 05
The usual way to provide a force to the body of the vehicle is to attach another set of rotating wings to a long boom. These wings are known as the tail rotor. The tail rotor produces thrust just like an airplane's propeller does. By producing thrust in a sideways direction, counteracting the engine's desire to spin the body, the tail rotor keeps the body of the helicopter from spinning. Normally, the tail rotor is driven by a long drive shaft that runs from the main rotor's transmission back through the tail boom to a small transmission at the tail rotor. What you end up with is a vehicle that looks something like this: A helicopter's main rotor is the most important part of the vehicle. It provides the lift that allows the helicopter to fly, as well as the control that allows the helicopter to move laterally, make turns and change altitude. The adjustability of the tail rotor is straightforward -- what you want is the ability to change the angle of attack on the tail rotor wings so that you can use the tail rotor to rotate the helicopter on the drive shaft's axis. To handle all of these tasks, the rotor must first be incredibly strong. It must also be able to adjust the angle of the rotor blades with each revolution of the hub. The adjustability is provided by a device called the swash plate assembly. The main rotor hub, where the rotor's drive shaft and blades connect, has to be extremely strong as well as highly adjustable.
Page: 06
BACKGROUND:
The first fully equipped U.S. Army unit with the Apache Helicopter was fielded in November 1998. The U.S. Army fielded its first overseas Apache unit in October 2001. Between 1984 and 1997, Boeing produced 937 Apaches for the U.S. Army, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More than 1,800 Apaches have been delivered to customers around the world since the Apache went into production. The U.S. Army Apache fleet has accumulated more than 3 million flight hours since the first prototype aircraft flew in 1975.
CUSTOMERS:
In all, 12 nations fly, have ordered or have selected Apache helicopters for their defense forces. The U.S. Army has ordered more than 600 Apache aircraft through multiyear contracts and follow-on purchases. Boeing delivered the first Apache to the Army in April 1997, and the first production AH-64D Apache Block III in October 2011. Follow-on orders and upgrades will keep the Apache in production well into the next decade. International customers include Egypt, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. The first international Apache was delivered to the Royal Netherlands Air Force in May 1998, and the first international AH-64D Apache Block III will be delivered in 2012. More than 300 new and remanufactured international AH64Ds have been delivered or are in production.
Page: 07
MISCELLANEOUS:
The U.S. Army has fielded Apache Longbow units around the world. As of December 2011, U.S. Army Apache helicopters have logged nearly 900,000 combat hours in operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn, and in overseas contingency operations. Army aviators in the first battalion that will fly the Apache Block III helicopters have begun simulator and flight training, with the first class completing training in December 2011. The Apache performs across the full spectrum of operations as a force multiplier for Combatant Commanders and supports the safe return of troops.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
LENGTH: 58.17ft (17.73m) HEIGHT: 15.24ft (4.64m) WING SPAN: 17.15ft (5.22m) GROSS WEIGHT: 15,075lb (6838kg) MAXIMUM FLIGHT SPEED: 153kt (284kmph) CRUISE SPEED: 150kt (279kmph)
In the next topics, we'll look at the Apache's amazing flight systems, weapons systems, sensor systems and armor systems.
Page: 08
The main rotor, attached to the top of the helicopter, spins four 20-foot (6-meter) blades. The pilot maneuvers the helicopter by adjusting a swash plate mechanism.
Page: 09
The swash plate assembly is the component that provides the adjustability. The swash plate assembly consists of two primary elements through which the rotor mast passes. One element is a disc, linked to the cyclic pitch control. This disc is capable of tilting in any direction but does not rotate as the rotor rotates.
Page: 10
The swash plate changes each blade's pitch (tilt) to increase lift. Adjusting the pitch equally for all blades lifts the helicopter straight up and down. Changing the pitch as the blades make their way around the rotation cycle creates uneven lift, causing the helicopter to tilt and fly in a particular direction. As the main rotor spins, it exerts a rotation force on the entire helicopter. The rear rotor blades work against this force -- they push the tail boom in the opposite direction. By changing the pitch of the rear blades, the pilot can rotate the helicopter in either direction or keep it from turning at all. An Apache has double tail rotors, each with two blades.
Page: 11
Page: 12
HELLFIRE MISSILES
The Apache's chief function is to take out heavily armored ground targets, such as tanks and bunkers. To inflict this kind of damage, you need some heavy firepower, and to do it from a helicopter, you need an extremely sophisticated targeting system.
Page: 13
The Apache carries the missiles on four firing rails attached to pylons mounted to its wings. There are two pylons on each wing, and each pylon can support four missiles, so the Apache can carry as many as 16 missiles at a time. Before launching, each missile receives instructions directly from the helicopter's computer. When the computer transmits the fire signal, the missile sets off the propellant. Once the burning propellant generates about 500 pounds of force, the missile breaks free of the rail. As the missile speeds up, the force of acceleration triggers the arming mechanism. When the missile makes contact with the target, an impact sensor sets off the warhead. The original Hellfire design uses a laser guidance system to hit its mark. In this system, the Apache gunner aims a high-intensity laser beam at the target (in some situations, ground forces might operate the laser instead). The laser pulses on and off in a particular coded pattern. Before giving the firing signal, the Apache computer tells the missile's control system the specific pulse pattern of the laser. The missile has a laser seeker on its nose that detects the laser light reflecting off the target. In this way, the missile can see where the target is. The guidance system calculates which way the missile needs to turn in order to head straight for the reflected laser light. To change course, the guidance system moves the missile's flight fins. This is basically the same way an airplane steers. The laser-guided Hellfire system is highly effective, but it has some significant drawbacks: Cloud cover or obstacles can block the laser beam so it never makes it to the target. If the missile passes through a cloud, it can lose sight of the target. The helicopter (or a ground targeting crew) has to keep the laser fixed on the target until the missile makes contact. This means the helicopter has to be out in the open, vulnerable to attack.
Page: 14
The Hellfire II, used in Apache Longbow helicopters, corrects these flaws. Instead of a laser-seeking system, the missile has a radar seeker. The helicopter's radar locates the target, and the missiles zero in on it. Since radio waves aren't obscured by clouds or obstacles, the missile is more likely to find its target. Since it doesn't have to keep the laser focused on the target, the helicopter can fire the missile and immediately find cover.
Page: 15
Page: 16
Page: 17
On the Longbow Apache, three display panels provide the pilot with most navigation and flight information. These digital displays are much easier to read than traditional instrument dials. The pilot simply presses buttons on the side of the display to find the information he or she needs.
Page: 18
The pilot and the gunner both use night vision sensors for night operations. The night vision sensors work on the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) system, which detects the infrared light released by heated objects. The pilot's night vision sensor is attached to a rotating turret on top of the Apache's nose. The gunner's night vision sensor is attached to a separate turret on the underside of the nose. The lower turret also supports a normal video camera and a telescope, which the gunner uses during the day. The computer transmits the night vision or video picture to a small Display unit in each pilot's helmet. The video display projects the image onto a monocular lens in front of the pilot's right eye. Infrared sensors in the cockpit track how the pilot positions the helmet and relay this information to the turret control system. Each pilot can aim the sensors by simply moving his or her head! Manual controls are also available, of course.
Page: 19
Page: 20
Page: 21
CONCLUSION
With the design of the apache the very concept of helicopter itself has changed all over the world. Many countries like Russia, Germany etc. have rolled over their versions of attack helicopters. They replaced the main drawbacks of apache. Flying an Apache into battle is extremely dangerous, to be sure, but with all its weapons, armor and sensor equipment, it is a formidable opponent to almost everything else on the battlefield. It is a deadly combination of strength, agility and firepower. And hence it can be surely emphasized that the Apache is the pioneer in the attack helicopter family. Hope that APACHE becomes a part of THE INDIAN ARMY in the near future.
REFERENCE
www.howstuffworks.com www.answers.com www.google.com www.wikiepedia.org www.helicopters.com www.apachehelicopters.com