Engine Life Evaluation Based on a Probabilistic Approach

Author(s):  
Najmeh Daroogheh ◽  
Ameneh Vatani ◽  
Maryam Gholamhossein ◽  
K. Khorasani

In this paper Fouling and Erosion damages as two main sources of deterioration in the engine performance are modelled for a single spool engine. The effects of these phenomena on the Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) and Creep status of the engine turbine blades are studied. A Matlab/Simulink model is developed for the LCF and Creep damages evaluation based on the available measured outputs. Several simulations are performed to investigate the effects of different levels of the Fouling and the Erosion degradations on the LCF and Creep damages propagation in the take-off mode of the flight. The probability of failure is calculated in each simulation scenario according to the Weibull distribution. The obtained results can be used as a prognostic tool to predict an appropriate next cycle for the engine maintenance schedule.

Author(s):  
Curtis W. Moeckel ◽  
David L. Darmofal ◽  
T. Robert Kingston ◽  
Robert J. G. Norton

Manufacturing variability is likely the primary cause of a large scatter in the life of gas turbine hot section components. This paper investigates manufacturing variability and its effect on first-stage turbine blades through the use of a parametric CAD model, automated CAD regeneration software, and a parametric finite element thermal model. The probabilistic approach used is substantiated due to differences that arise when input parameters vary at different levels, for example the engine-to-engine and blade-to-blade level. Schemes are proposed to improve robustness through tolerancing out input parameters in ranges of the distributions that make nonconformances more likely. A frame-work is presented for calculating the potential number of prevented non-conformances and the corresponding cost savings associated with various tolerancing schemes. Blade-to-blade cooling flow variability, especially as a result of film-hole diameter variability in critical locations, is identified as the most likely candidate for parameter tolerancing. More effective is a combined two-factor tolerancing scheme which additionally tolerances gas path temperature.


Author(s):  
Klaus Lietzau ◽  
Andreas Kreiner

Many jet engine variables cannot be measured in-flight or can only be measured with a complex, and hence unreliable, instrumentation system. This includes variables that are of imminent importance for the safe operation of the engine or for engine life, such as the temperature of the high pressure turbine blades or the surge margins of the turbo compressors, for instance. Current control systems therefore transform limits on these variables into limits on other variables measured by the engine’s sensors. This leads to increased safety margins and thus to non-optimal engine performance. An onboard engine model incorporated into the engine control system could provide information about all engine variables. This could enable further control and monitoring system optimisations leading to improved engine performance, reduced fuel consumption, increased safety and engine life. This paper explains the principle of model based engine control and gives an overview about possible applications for conventional and also thrust vectored jet engines. Modeling methods for real-time simulation as well as methods for online model adaptation are presented. The potential of model based jet engine control is analyzed and fortified by some prototype realizations.


Author(s):  
T. Coppola ◽  
S. Riscifuli ◽  
O. Tassa ◽  
G. Pasquero

Highly cooled turbine blades undergo very high thermal gradients during rapid engine idle-max-idle cycling. Traditional isothermal fatigue data are often insufficient for predicting service lives. A complete set of high temperature tests, in the range of 750–1050°C, was performed on single crystal alloy CMSX-4. The test program comprised tensile, creep, low cycle fatigue, and thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) tests. In particular the cycle time for TMF was 3 min, aiming to simulate the real high-power transient conditions in aircraft engines. Clockwise and counterclockwise diamond cycle types were applied on bare and coated specimens to investigate their influence on the fatigue limit. The comparison of the results obtained with the available ones from open literature is discussed.


Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 327
Author(s):  
Ioannis Templalexis ◽  
Ioannis Lionis ◽  
Nikolaos Christou

The Hellenic Air Force (HAF) operates both EMB-145 and EMB-135 LR versions of Embraer aircraft, used in surveillance and civil missions respectively. These aircraft are equipped with the same version of Rolls Royce, AE 3007 turbofan engine. This study aims to quantify and compare the life consumption rate of this engine when installed in each of the two aircraft variants. Two typical missions, one for each variant, were constructed based on mission profile data dictated by the aircraft commanders. For each mission profile segment, corresponding engine data were matched out of the engine recordings archives held by the Hellenic Air Force. The life consumption rate was based on the Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) and creep cumulative detrimental effect on the rotor blades of the 1st High-Pressure Turbine stage. For the LCF, the rainflow method was used to determine the respective loading cycles, whereas the Larson - Miller parameter method was used to determine the consumed life fractions due to creep. The main conclusion of the study was that the engine when installed in the EMB-145 military variant, is much more loaded. Despite the fact absolute life consumption values could hide a great level of uncertainty, the comparative outcomes wherein errors are, to a certain extent, cancelled out, could be used as a rule of thumb when monitoring engine life consumption rates.


Author(s):  
W. Frackowiak ◽  
S. Barton ◽  
W. Reimche ◽  
O. Bruchwald ◽  
D. Zaremba ◽  
...  

Engine maintenance and repair is a large part of the total airplane operating cost. Routine maintenance is essential for providing a positive impact on lifetime, engine performance and reliability. The sector of on-wing and near-wing maintenance is growing because of its potential to reduce the expenses and inspection time, with diagnostics taking place close to the airplane or inside a hangar on the airport. Due to the high complexity of modern jet engines, this task creates special needs towards the measurement systems regarding flexibility and robustness. This paper describes four design approaches of such measurement systems to determine the engine parts’ health status with complex geometries in narrow or occluded spaces between blades and individual discs. The utilized nondestructive technologies are endoscopic fringe projection for geometry measurement, adapted low coherence interferometry to determine surface microstructures, high frequency inductive thermography with an optical mirror and miniaturized high frequency eddy current testing for inspection of the protection coating system and for the detection of subsurface cracks and defects. The inspection information obtained by all these techniques can be further used for regeneration process simulations and functional simulations to predict the optimal overhaul strategy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Navindra Wijeyeratne ◽  
Firat Irmak ◽  
Ali P. Gordon

Abstract Nickel-base superalloys (NBSAs) are extensively utilized as the design materials to develop turbine blades in gas turbines due to their excellent high-temperature properties. Gas turbine blades are exposed to extreme loading histories that combine high mechanical and thermal stresses. Both directionally solidified (DS) and single crystal NBSAs are used throughout the industry because of their superior tensile and creep strength, excellent low cycle fatigue (LCF), high cycle fatigue (HCF), and thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) capabilities. Directional solidification techniques facilitated the solidification structure of the materials to be composed of columnar grains in parallel to the <001> direction. Due to grains being the sites of failure initiation the elimination of grain boundaries compared to polycrystals and the alignment of grain boundaries in the normal to stress axis increases the strength of the material at high temperatures. To develop components with superior service capabilities while reducing the development cost, simulating the material’s performance at various loading conditions is extremely advantageous. To support the mechanical design process, a framework consisting of theoretical mechanics, numerical simulations, and experimental analysis is required. The absence of grain boundaries transverse to the loading direction and crystallographic special orientation cause the material to exhibit anisotropic behavior. A framework that can simulate the physical attributes of the material microstructure is crucial in developing an accurate constitutive model. The plastic flow acting on the crystallographic slip planes essentially controls the plastic deformation of the material. Crystal Visco-Plasticity (CVP) theory integrates this phenomenon to describe the effects of plasticity more accurately. CVP constitutive models can capture the orientation, temperature, and rate dependence of these materials under a variety of conditions. The CVP model is initially developed for SX material and then extended to DS material to account for the columnar grain structure. The formulation consists of a flow rule combined with an internal state variable to describe the shearing rate for each slip system. The model presented includes the inelastic mechanisms of kinematic and isotropic hardening, orientation, and temperature dependence. The crystallographic slip is accounted for by including the required octahedral, cubic, and cross slip systems. The CVP model is implemented through a general-purpose finite element analysis software (i.e., ANSYS) as a User-Defined Material (USERMAT). Uniaxial experiments were conducted in key orientations to evaluate the degree of elastic and inelastic anisotropy. The temperature-dependent modeling parameter is developed to perform non-isothermal simulations. A numerical optimization scheme is utilized to develop the modeling constant to improve the calibration of the model. The CVP model can simulate material behavior for DS and SX NBSAs for monotonic and cyclic loading for a range of material orientations and temperatures.


Author(s):  
Firat Irmak ◽  
Navindra Wijeyeratne ◽  
Taejun Yun ◽  
Ali Gordon

Abstract In the development and assessment of critical gas turbine components, simulations have a crucial role. An accurate life prediction approach is needed to estimate lifespan of these components. Nickel base superalloys remain the material of choice for gas turbine blades in the energy industry. These blades are required to withstand both fatigue and creep at extreme temperatures during their usage time. Nickel-base superalloys present an excellent heat resistance at high temperatures. Presence of chromium in the chemical composition makes these alloys highly resistant to corrosion, which is critical for turbine blades. This study presents a flexible approach to combine creep and fatigue damages for a single crystal Nickel-base superalloy. Stress and strain states are used to compute life calculations, which makes this approach applicable for component level. The cumulative damage approach is utilized in this study, where dominant damage modes are capturing primary microstructural mechanism associated with failure. The total damage is divided into two distinctive modules: fatigue and creep. Flexibility is imparted to the model through its ability to emphasize the dominant damage mechanism which may vary among alloys. Fatigue module is governed by a modified version of Coffin-Manson and Basquin model, which captures the orientation dependence of the candidate material. Additionally, Robinson’s creep rupture model is applied to predict creep damage in this study. A novel crystal visco-plasticity (CVP) model is used to simulate deformation of the alloy under several different types of loading. This model has capability to illustrate the temperature-, rate-, orientation-, and history-dependence of the material. A user defined material (usermat) is created to be used in ANSYS APDL 19.0, where the CVP model is applied by User Programmable Feature (UPF). This deformation model is constructed of a flow rule and internal state variables, where the kinematic hardening phenomena is captured by back stress. Octahedral, cubic and cross slip systems are included to perform simulations in different orientations. An implicit integration process that uses Newton-Raphson iteration scheme is utilized to calculate the desired solutions. Several tensile, low-cycle fatigue (LCF) and creep experiments were conducted to inform modeling parameters for the life prediction and the CVP models.


Author(s):  
Harish Ramesh Babu ◽  
Marco Böcker ◽  
Mario Raddatz ◽  
Sebastian Henkel ◽  
Horst Biermann ◽  
...  

Abstract Gas turbines and aircraft engines are dominated by cyclic operating modes with fatigue-related loads. This may result in the acceleration of damage development on the components. Critical components of turbine blades and discs are exposed to cyclic thermal and mechanical multi-axial fatigue. In the current work, planar-biaxial Low-Cycle-Fatigue tests are conducted using cruciform specimens at different test temperatures. The influence on the deformation and lifetime behaviour of the nickel-base disk alloy IN718 is investigated at selected cyclic proportional loading cases. The calculation of the stress and strain distribution of the cruciform specimens from the experimental data is difficult to obtain due to complex geometry and temperature gradients. Therefore, there is a need for Finite Element Simulations. A viscoplastic material model is considered to simulate the material behaviour subjected to uniaxial and the selected planar-biaxial loading conditions. At first, uniaxial simulation results are compared with the uniaxial experiment results for both batches of IN718. Then, the same material parameters are used for simulating the biaxial loading cases. The prediction of FE simulation results is in good agreement with the experimental LCF test for proportional loadings. The equivalent stress amplitude results of the biaxial simulation are compared with the uniaxial results. Furthermore, the lifetime is calculated from the simulation and by using Crossland and Sines multi-axial stress-based approaches. The Crossland model predicts fatigue life significantly better than the Sines model. Finally, the simulated lifetime results are compared with the experimental lifetime


Author(s):  
Alexander Liefke ◽  
Peter Jaksch ◽  
Sebastian Schmitz ◽  
Vincent Marciniak ◽  
Uwe Janoske ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper shows how to use discrete CFD and FEM adjoint surface sensitivities to derive objective-based tolerances for turbine blades, instead of relying on geometric tolerances. For this purpose a multidisciplinary adjoint evaluation tool chain is introduced to quantify the effect of real manufacturing imperfections on aerodynamic efficiency and probabilistic low cycle fatigue life time. Before the adjoint method is applied, a numerical validation of the CFD and FEM adjoint gradients is performed using 102 heavy duty turbine vane scans. The results show that the relative error for adjoint CFD gradients is below 0.5%, while the FEM life time gradient relative errors are below 5%. The adjoint assessment tool chain further reduces the computational cost by around 85% for the investigated test case compared to non-linear methods. Through the application of the presented tool chain, the definition of specified objective-based tolerances becomes available as a design assessment tool and allows to improve overall turbine efficiency and the accuracy of life time prediction.


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