Mission-Based Performance Assessment of a Highly Integrated Flush Intake Considering Aircraft and Engine Interaction

This paper presents a mission-based performance assessment of multiple flush intake configurations integrated into the SHARCS unmanned aerial system (UAS). The evaluation is conducted using the Engine Mission Simulation System (EMSS), a modular co-simulation framework combining high-fidelity propulsion modeling in NPSS, flight dynamics and control in MATLAB/Simulink, and aerodynamic computation via X-Plane 11. Intake aerodynamics are represented through CFD-based surrogate models, exported as Functional Mock-up Units (FMUs) for rapid integration into EMSS. A parametric design study generates multiple intake geometries, each optimized for different segments of the mission envelope. The mission simulation includes time-resolved interactions between intake distortion, engine response, and aircraft behavior. The results indicate that while the intake geometry has only a minor effect on overall mission performance, the choice of interface parameter used to quantify distortion at the Aerodynamic Interface Plane (AIP) influences engine operability. Parameters based on mass flow partitioning (��Ψ, ��Υ) show improved consistency on compressor performance compared to the classical ����60 metric. The study demonstrates that FMU-based integration of CFD-derived intake models offers a computationally efficient yet physically meaningful approach to evaluating coupled aircraft-engine systems under realistic mission conditions.