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Central Institute of Aviation Motors (TsIAM) imeni Baranov

2, Aviamotornaja str., Moscow, 111250, Russia
Phone 7+495+3624950
Fax 7+495+2671354

Aircraft engine-building in Russia has deep traditions. The first domestic aircraft engines were manufactured in 1926 - 1931. The basics of aero jet engine were developed by academician BS Stechkin in 1929. The designing of the first engines and subsequent progress of aircraft engine-building in the USSR is closely associated with the Central Institute of Aviation Motors (TsIAM or CIAM). On December 3rd, 1930 the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR adopted a decree about unification of the TsAGI motor-propeller department, to which in September 1930 the aviation department of the Automobile and Automotor Research Institute (NAMI) and departments of the Pilot Motorbuilding Aviation Plant named after M.V. Frunze were joined, in a unitary Institute of aviation motors (IAM). Since 1932 it carries the name of Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM). In 1933 the Institute awarded the name of P.I. Baranov, outstanding leader of the USSR aviation industry [In 1994 the CIAM got a status of State Scientific Center of Russian Federation].

Two engines having an interesting history were launched into series production. The first is M-34 engine designed by A.A.Mikulin (1931), which turned out to be rather promising and had a long life. Its initial power was 850 h.p. Later on, it was modified (??-38, ??-42) to increase thrust up to 2,000 h.p. In 1937, V.P. Chkalov's and M.M. Gromov’s crews on an A.N. Tupolev single-engine ANT-25 aircraft powered by this engine made non-stop USSR-USA flights crossing the North Pole. The derivatives of the M-34 engine powered many planes, in particular, the S.V.Ilyushin II-2 – one of the best Soviet attack aircraft.

The second engine was developed in TsIAM by A.D. Charomski in 1932. The ACh-30 diesel engine provided initially 1,000-h.p. power. Its high-speed version was successfully used for powering the four-engine Pe-8 aircraft designed by V.M. Petlyakov. Development of Pe-8 was initiated in the Tupolev's OKB as ANT-42 in July 1934. The maiden flight of the first prototype was in December 1936. Some had Charomski M-30B/ACh-30B or M-40/ACh-40 diesel engines and the later aircraft were fitted 1,380 kW (1,850 hp) Shvetsov ASh-82 radials due to low availability of the AM-35A. Neither variant was as successful as the original, the diesel engines giving poorer performance and the radial delivering better performance but often being unreliable.

When in the mid-1930s numerous design bureaus (DB) were established in Moscow, Leningrad, Perm, Zaporozhye and other cities. At that time CIAM focused efforts on research in the field of a theory of operating process in aircraft engines. In January 1935 all the work performed in the Institute on pilot engines were transferred to serial motorbuilding plants at which design bureaus (DB) started to work. Nearly whole scientific and technical staff of those DB was manned of leading CIAM specialists, among them outstanding designers: V.Ya. Klimov, V.A. Dobrynin, A.A. Mikulin, K.I. Zhdanov, E.V. Urmin, A.D. Charomsky. The DB (design bureaus) created the CIAM was engaged in its more typical activity - theoretical and experimental studies of working process and performance of power plants, turbo and fuel feeding aggregates, strength and reliability of engines, as well as provision of scientific and technical aid to the DB at pilot engines creation.

During the Great Patriotic War the Institute worked at increasing the power and altitude of engines for military aircraft and helped the front in their repair and operation. In 1943, in CIAM VV Uvarov, who started to work at gas turbines and gas turbine power plants yet in 1930, developed a turboprop engine of combined scheme with the use of thrust both from propeller and exhaust jet [The first articles of such an engine were built in 1945-47].

Soon after the Great Patriotic war CIAM practically and completely switched on the air breathing jet subject. In the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s the first generation of turbojets was created. In that period, as well as on all the critical stages of aviation technology development, CIAM was an initiator and main developer of conceptual documents in which the priorities of national technological policy in the sphere of aero building were formulated. In 1951 a systematic study of supersonic axial compressor stages commenced. This type of stages has wide application on new engines (RD11-300, D-30KP, AL-7F, VD-7, RD36-51, and others).

In 1947 the Government issued a decree about building in CIAM, for tests of all engines designed in DBs, an experimental research facility with numerous test rigs capable to simulate real flight conditions along altitude and speed. The Soviet government decided to expand CIAM by establishing a national research test center for testing in simulated altitude-speed flight conditions all engines and their components designed in the Russian design bureaus. The necessity of test facilities for powerful GTEs having the air rate increased up to 200 kg/s and more and designed for flight with speeds corresponding to number Mach M>2 at altitudes of 13…20 km appeared in 1950s. This facility (now CIAM TRC - Test Research Center), the largest test center in Europe, came into being in 1955 and became the CIAM’s subsidiary. It offers all necessary possibilities for tests of air breathing engines, in-cluding scramjets and ramjets. Only CIAM possesses test stands for power plants that allow reproducing at engine inlets non-uniform pressure fields and pulsations along aircraft flight trajectories at different angles of attack and yaw.

In 1954, in CIAM a complex parameter of meeting compressor and turbine operation was for the first time offered. The parameter allows setting a tie of compressor tip speed and its productivity with turbine working blade elongation stress. This tie founded became a fundamental principle of engine theory.

In the 1950s, in CIAM a cycle of transactions was carried out on meeting gasturbine engine and air inlet and that became a ground for development of guided air inlets and automatic control systems. In the beginning of 60s the CIAM became an initiator of domestic research directed at decrease of jet engine noise. This research was further amplified in other institutes (TsAGI, GosNIIGA, LII) and establishments of aviation industry (DB AN Tupolev, Rybinsk DB, Perm DB).

In 1967 the research results of rocket ramjet working process of various schemes were generalized and that, in particular, allowed to develop the first integrated mathematic model "engine-flying vehicle", which took into account at optimization real processes flow in the engine. In the beginning of th 1970s, in CIAM a full scale experimental turbo was developed. An integrated test at a facility was run to define ramjet gasdynamic and heat performance under conditions close to real.

Hypersonic flying laboratoryIn the same years active research of hypersonic ramjets started which resulted in creation of hypersonic flying laboratory "Kholod" at which for the first time in the world a hydrogen hypersonic ramjet was flight tested at number Mach M=5…7. The test result analysis showed an adequate engine and its systems operation.

CIAM has significantly widened basic research in the sphere of gas dynamics, combustion, heat transfer and cooling, strength, electronic control systems and their software. On the base of this research the calculation techniques of 3D flows in air-breathing engine components have been developed, as well as the design techniques which significantly improve the engine efficiency.

As a State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation CIAM performs functions of a leading establishment of the Russia aviation engine - building for provision of world-level basic and applied research, formation of advanced engines technical configuration, creation of scientific and technological base for development of new "critical" technologies, engines certification, training of engineers and young scientists.

An important contribution in formation of CIAM scientific potential was made by outstanding scientists, who worked in it in different time: academicians B.S. Stechkin, L.I. Sedov, G.G. Cherny, G.P. Svishchev, S.V. Serensen; professors G.N. Abramovich, R.S. Kinasoshvily, I.A. Birger, V.M. Akimov, I.F. Florov and others. Their transactions in the fields of hypersonic technology, boundary layer theory, turbulence, combustion and heat-transfer, electro-conducting gas flow, gases, turbulence, rotor machines dynamics, dynamics and strength, engine theory, high level mathematic modeling, energy physic and technology problems are widely known throughout the globe.