Abstract
Gas turbine engines (GTEs) frequently operate in desert environments where the main components are exposed to erosive media such as sand and dust. In these circumstances, a crucial problem, particularly with compressor blades, is solid particle erosion (SPE). Positioned in the front of the GTE, the compressors suffer most from SPE in terms of inflicting damage on compressor hardware such as blades, decreasing the GTE’s working life and increasing fuel consumption, energy losses, and efficiency losses. Results obtained from Turbomatch, an in-house performance tool, showed that degraded compressors can experience increased turbine entry temperature (TET) and specific fuel consumption (SFC), which leads to a significant increase in the operating, maintenance and component replacement costs, in addition to fuel costs. Fitting erosion protective coatings (EPCs) is a conventional approach to reduce SPE of the compressor blades of aeroengines. Titanium nitride (TiN), applied via physical vapour deposition (PVD) techniques, is often used to extend the life of compressor blades in erosive conditions. This paper reports the outcomes of a cost benefit analysis (CBA) of whether applying an EPC to the booster blades of an aeroengine is economically beneficial. The case study takes into account the available coatings potential of the market, in addition to all of the available technical data in the public domain regarding the compressor of the research engine. To identify the economic consequences of employing an EPC over the blades of a compressor, a CBA study was carried out by investigating consequent benefits and costs. The results indicate that under certain conditions the application of an EPC can be profitable.
Highlights
In order to reduce the life cycle costs of gas turbine engines (GTEs), significant research is taking place into the trade-offs between measures seeking to enhance performance and strategies leading to a reduction in maintenance costs
solid particle erosion (SPE) has an impact on important variables of the cycle such as pressure ratio (PR), specific fuel consumption (SFC), non-dimensional mass flow (NDMF), turbine entry temperature (TET) and efficiency [5,6]
GTE performance is heavily dependent on low-pressure compressor (LPC) efficiency; it is important to maintain the compressor at its best condition [5]
Summary
Solid particle erosion (SPE) entails the removal of surface material due to the different sizes of solid particles entrained into the GTE that impact on and damage, for example, the compressor blades. This is a characteristic and common problem since GTEs operate across the globe in sandy environments, with an inevitable interaction between sand particles and compressor blades [2]. The sand particles usually hit the blades at high velocity and, in sufficient quantities, even relatively minute particles can induce considerable SPE damage, reducing the fatigue resistance of the blade by generating a concentration of stress at the impact site [3,4]. SPE affects the first component of the GTE, the low-pressure compressor (LPC), most severely. One effective technique to protect the components of the LPC from erosion is to use erosion protective coatings (EPCs) [15–17]
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