Improved Lifing and Deterioration Assessment and Modelling

Background

The impact of deterioration on turbine aerothermal performance, mostly represented by vane trailing edge oxidation, blade tip oxidation, leakages increase and surface roughness increase, is largely unknown. Deterioration assessment must be improved as being wrong is critical in terms of engine temperature margins and hence life cycle cost.
Detailed and accurate measurements of capacity, aerodynamic losses and metal effectiveness under engine-realistic and extremely well characterized inlet boundary conditions are possible on the ECAT facility at the Oxford Thermofluids Institute. The investigators have a unique opportunity to quantify the effect of deterioration on performance of turbine components.

Research question
The project aims to understand the fundamental aerodynamic changes, metal effectiveness changes, and capacity shift associated with deteriorated turbine components (specifically the high-pressure nozzle guide vanes).

Approach
Detailed aerothermal measurements in the Oxford ECAT facility. These include, among others, inlet and exit plane traverses, capacity measurements, surface temperature measurements.

Take engine parts from a series of operators, at different points during their life-cycle (from new parts, to end-of-life parts) and build up understanding and correlations for the capacity shift, overall thermal performance shift, and aerodynamic performance shift as the parts degrade with life.

The data will then be analysed and used to develop and validate models for predicting deteriorated performance from an aerodynamic point of view as well as from a thermal point of view.

Novelty/Physical sciences
The outcome will be exchange rates to allow accurate performance bidding of deteriorated turbines and to help architecture decision (e.g. APS vs PVD vs PtAl coating on HPNGV)
Standardise global process and tool to bid deterioration across the engine life.
Provide key information on the thermal behaviour of deteriorated parts which can in turn be used to modify existing designs to improve life.

1. Impact on the UK Aero-Propulsion and Power Generation Industry
The UK Propulsion and Power sector is undergoing disruptive change. Electrification is allowing a new generation of Urban Air Vehicles to be developed, with over 70 active programmes planning a first flight by 2024. In the middle of the aircraft market, companies like Airbus and Rolls-Royce, are developing boundary layer ingestion propulsion systems. At high speed, Reaction Engines Ltd are developing complex new air breathing engines. In the aero gas turbine sector Rolls-Royce is developing UltraFan, its first new architecture since the 1970s. In the turbocharger markets UK companies such as Cummins and Napier are developing advanced turbochargers for use in compounded engines with electrical drive trains. In the power generation sector, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Siemens are developing new gas turbines which have the capability for rapid start up to enable increased supply from renewables. In the domestic turbomachinery market, Dyson are developing a whole new range of miniature high speed compressors. All of these challenges require a new generation of engineers to be trained. These engineers will need a combination of the traditional Aero-thermal skills, and new Data Science and Systems Integration skills. The Centre has been specifically designed to meet this challenge.

Over the next 20 years, Rolls-Royce estimates that the global market opportunities in the gas turbine-related aftercare services will be worth over US$700 billion. Gas turbines will have 'Digital Twins' which are continually updated using engine health data. To ensure that the UK leads this field it is important that a new generation of engineer is trained in both the underpinning Aero-thermal knowledge and in new Data Science techniques. The Centre will provide this training by linking the University and Industry Partners with the Alan Turing Institute, and with industrial data labs such as R2 Data Labs at Rolls-Royce and the 'MindSphere' centres at Siemens.

2. Impact on UK Propulsion and Power Research Landscape
The three partner institutions (Cambridge, Oxford and Loughborough) are closely linked to the broader UK Propulsion and Power community. This is through collaborations with universities such as Imperial, Cranfield, Southampton, Bath, Surrey and Sussex. This will allow the research knowledge developed in the Centre to benefit the whole of the UK Propulsion and Power research community.

The Centre will also have impact on the Data Science research community through links with the CDT in Data Centric Engineering (DCE) at Imperial College and with the Alan Turning Institute. This will allow cross-fertilization of ideas related to data science and the use of advanced data analytics in the Propulsion and Power sectors.

3. Impact of training a new generation of engineering students
The cohort-based training programme of the current CDT in Gas Turbine Aerodynamics has proved highly successful. The Centre's independent Advisory Group has noted that the multi-institution, multi-disciplinary nature of the Centre is unique within the global gas turbine training community, and the feedback from cohorts of current students has been extremely positive (92% satisfaction rating in the 2015 PRES survey). The new CDT in Future Propulsion and Power will combine the core underlying Aero-thermal knowledge of the previous CDT with the Data Science and Systems Integration skills required to meet the challenges of the next generation. This will provide the UK with a unique cohort of at least 90 students trained both to understand the real aero-thermal problems and to have the Data Science and Systems Integration skills necessary to solve the challenges of the future.