Aerothermal measurement of HP turbine blades in the Oxford Turbine Research Facility using infrared thermography

Unshrouded turbine blade tips are susceptible to heat damage from aerothermal effects in the tip gap. Precise measurement of temperatures and heat transfer helps validate future turbine cooling designs, increasing the lifespan of the blades.
The objectives are to improve upon the infrared thermography techniques currently applied to the Oxford Turbine Research Facility (OTRF). The OTRF is a short-duration 1.5-stage university turbine facility at TRL 4-5. Prior work involved the setup of the IR system and measurement of the temperature profile of the rotor tips in transient runs. The OTRF will undergo a novel heated air supply upgrade that will increase its runtime to around 60 seconds which will allow engine-representative metal effectiveness measurements.
The DPhil work will support the upgrade by enhancing the current IR setup to capture new precise, high-resolution heat transfer data on the HPT blades tips, and address challenges such as motion blur from rotating machinery and reduce uncertainties through additional development of advanced post-processing algorithms, such as deblurring. The results will be used in the lates Rolls-Royce engine programme, to validate new cooling design simulations from CFD to inform new blade cooling design choices.