A Cost-Effective Performance Development of the PT6A-65 Turboprop Compressor
The largest member of the PT6 turboprop engine family, the PT6A-65, was developed in the early 1980’s and went into production in September 1982. The compressor for this engine consisted of four new axial stages combined with an existing centrifugal stage on a single shaft. This paper gives a brief description of the studies leading up to the choice of the compressor configuration and a more detailed examination of the development of the chosen compressor to the required performance level. The development of this compressor presented a two-fold technical challenge. Firstly, the limited space in the small compressor gas path did not permit the effective use of conventional total pressure and temperature probes for performance evaluation. Secondly, the short time available for development excluded some attractive corrective measures such as the redesign of some of the axial blade rows because the time required would have jeopardized the meeting of the tight development deadline. The first problem was overcome by a combination of limited wall static pressure measurements and an extensive use of numberical flow analysis codes. This approach proved to be quite cost-effective. The second was solved by the adaptation of an existing fully analytically-designed research axial stage to the first stage position in the axial compressor.