| Abstract | With financial contributions from the Canadian Department of National Defence, the Structures, Materials and Propulsion Laboratory of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) established a program for evaluating the effects of component deterioration on gas turbine engine performance. The effort was aimed at investigating the performance changes resulting from typical in-service faults. An important aspect of the engine test program was the use of nonintrusive sensors to supplement conventional instrumentation.
Combined gas and metal thermal patterns in the infrared radiation spectra, recorded using infrared thermography, were used to evaluate gas path patterns to identify possible fault conditions. Exhaust plane thermal patterns can be classified as "healthy" for no-fault conditions, and "distressed" where known faults are in existence. Several defective engine components, including fuel nozzles, combustor cans, turbine nozzles, and thermocouple probes were used to evaluate the effectiveness of this technique on an engine test bed.
This report covers the project objectives, the experimental installation, and the results of the tests. A description of the infrared thermography system, the data reduction and analysis methodology are also included. |
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