Tip Clearance Sensor Research Articles

New model-based method for aero-engine turbine blade tip clearance measurement

Active control of aero-engine turbine tip clearance is one of the best chances for engine performance uplift currently. To do that, the first requirement is real-time measurement of tip clearance in aero-engine working environment. However, turbine complexity makes it unlikely for tip clearance sensors to be loaded. In recognition of that, this paper proposed a model-based method for tip clearance measurement. Firstly, by considering previously wrongly neglected factors such as load deformation, a mathematical model to monitor dynamic tip clearance changes is built to improve calculation accuracy. Then, after clarifying the coupling relationship between engine models and tip clearance models, this paper builds a component-level mathematical model integrating dynamic characteristics of turbine tip clearance, which helps realize accurate measurement of tip clearance in working environment. How tip clearance affects turbine efficiency is studied afterwards and reported to aero-engine model, so as to mitigate performance difference between aero-engine model and real engines caused by turbine tip clearance. Lastly, by hardware-in-the-loop simulation, tip clearance model demonstrates 15.9% better accuracy than previously built models in terms of turbine centrifugal deformation calculation. As tip clearance measurement model takes averagely 0.34 ms in calculation, meeting the operation requirement, it proves to be an effective new way.

Online monitoring of dynamic tip clearance of turbine blades in high temperature environments

Minimized tip clearance reduces the gas leakage over turbine blade tips and improves the thrust and efficiency of turbomachinery. An accurate tip clearance sensor, measuring the dynamic clearances between blade tips and the turbine case, is a critical component for tip clearance control. This paper presents a robust inductive tip clearance sensor capable of monitoring dynamic tip clearances of turbine machines in high-temperature environments and at high rotational speeds. The sensor can also self-sense the temperature at a blade tip in situ such that temperature effect on tip clearance measurement can be estimated and compensated. To evaluate the sensor’s performance, the sensor was tested for measuring the tip clearances of turbine blades under various working temperatures ranging from 700 K to 1300 K and at turbine rotational speeds ranging from 3000 to 10 000 rpm. The blade tip clearance was varied from 50 to 2000 µm. The experiment results proved that the sensor can accurately measure the blade tip clearances with a temporal resolution of 10 µm. The capability of accurately measuring the tip clearances at high temperatures (~1300 K) and high turbine rotation speeds (~30 000 rpm), along with its compact size, makes it promising for online monitoring and active control of blade tip clearances of high-temperature turbomachinery.

Blade Tip Clearance Sensors for Use in Engine Health Monitoring Applications

Blade Tip Clearance Sensors for Use in Engine Health Monitoring Applications

New Sensors and Techniques for the Structural Health Monitoring of Propulsion Systems

The ability to monitor the structural health of the rotating components, especially in the hot sections of turbine engines, is of major interest to aero community in improving engine safety and reliability. The use of instrumentation for these applications remains very challenging. It requires sensors and techniques that are highly accurate, are able to operate in a high temperature environment, and can detect minute changes and hidden flaws before catastrophic events occur. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through the Aviation Safety Program (AVSP), has taken a lead role in the development of new sensor technologies and techniques for the in situ structural health monitoring of gas turbine engines. This paper presents a summary of key results and findings obtained from three different structural health monitoring approaches that have been investigated. This includes evaluating the performance of a novel microwave blade tip clearance sensor; a vibration based crack detection technique using an externally mounted capacitive blade tip clearance sensor; and lastly the results of using data driven anomaly detection algorithms for detecting cracks in a rotating disk.

Key Technique of Tip Clearance Measurement for Rotational Blades

It’s an important problem for power industry; energy industry, aviation and shipping to real-time measure the rotating blades’ tip clearance of engine. The conventional measurement techniques have different limitations. To achieve applied level for tip clearance measurement technique, according to the use request and application environment of tip clearance sensor, a new fiber-optic sensor was put forward to measure the blade tip radial clearance of engine in non-contact mode. The sensor was consist of single-bundle transmitting fiber in the center for laser beam delivery and three groups receiving fibers located in all around for collecting the scattered light. The sensor can not only eliminate the effect to measurement results of light source fluctuation and reflectivity variety of tip surface, but also reduce the effect of angle between the tip surface and sensor end face to measurement results. From the measurement results obtained from sensor on different clearance points, it proves that the sensor measuring system has well feasibility and reliability in blades tip clearance detection.

Measurement of Rotating Blade Tip Clearance with Fibre-Optic Probe

This paper described a tip clearance measuring system with fibre-optic probe. The system is based on a novel tip clearance sensor of optical fibre-bundle mounted on the casing, rotating speed synchronization sensor mounted on the rotating shaft, the tip clearance preamplification processing circuit followed by high speed data-acquisition unit. A novel tip clearance sensor of trifurcated optical fibre bundle was proposed and demonstrated. It is independent of material of measured surface but capacitive probe demands target conductive. Measurements can be taken under severe conditions such as ionization. Sensor circuitry and data acquisition circuit were successfully designed. With the help of Rotation synchronized sensor, all the blades can be detected in real-time. Because of fibre-optic sensor, the measuring system has commendably frequency response, which can work well in high rotating speed from 0-15000rpm.The measurement range of tip clearance is 0-3mm with 25um precision.