Experimental Investigation of Inductive Sensor Characteristic for Blade Tip Clearance Measurement at High Temperature

Turbine tip clearance of aero-engine is important to engine performance. Proper tip clearance can reduce the gas leakage over turbine blade tips and improve the engine efficiency of turbo machinery and reduce the fuel consumption. Therefore, accurate tip clearance measurement is essential. The inductive measurement method is one of the non-contact distance measurement methods, which has the characteristics of high sensitivity, fast response speed, and strong anti-interference ability. Based on the principle of inductive sensor measuring tip clearance, the ambient temperature change may cause the material electromagnetic performance change for the conductivity and permeability varies with temperature. In order to verify the temperature effect on the sensor performance, the repeated calibration experiments were carried out to obtain the sensor repeatability error of 5.4%. Then, the sensor was calibrated in the range of 0 mm–4 mm clearance at temperature from 600 °C to 1000 °C and obtained the measurement error of 4.6%. Results indicate when the temperature ranged from 600 °C to 1000 °C, clearance measurement error is smaller than the sensor repeatability error so the temperature effect on the sensor characteristics can be ignored. This conclusion makes the sensor promising for monitoring the blade tip clearances at various temperature environment.

[1]  Bruce M. Steinetz,et al.  Test Rig for Evaluating Active Turbine Blade Tip Clearance Control Concepts , 2003 .

[2]  Zhihua Feng,et al.  Ultrastable and highly sensitive eddy current displacement sensor using self-temperature compensation , 2013 .

[3]  Bruce M. Steinetz,et al.  Turbine Engine Clearance Control Systems: Current Practices and Future Directions , 2002 .

[4]  Gerardo Aranguren,et al.  An Architecture for On-Line Measurement of the Tip Clearance and Time of Arrival of a Bladed Disk of an Aircraft Engine , 2017, Sensors.

[5]  Zhenxia Liu,et al.  Verification and Design of High Precision Eddy Current Sensor for Tip Clearance Measurement , 2018, Volume 6: Ceramics; Controls, Diagnostics, and Instrumentation; Education; Manufacturing Materials and Metallurgy.

[6]  Jiang Zhe,et al.  A high sensitivity inductive sensor for blade tip clearance measurement , 2014 .

[7]  I. A. Mossop,et al.  The measurement of blade-tip clearances in aircraft turbines by a capacitance method , 1953 .

[8]  Mark R. Woike,et al.  Testing of a Microwave Blade Tip Clearance Sensor at the NASA Glenn Research Center , 2013 .

[9]  Yajun Gao,et al.  Experimental Investigation of High Temperature-Resistant Inductive Sensor for Blade Tip Clearance Measurement , 2018, Sensors.

[10]  Josu Amorebieta,et al.  Tip-Clearance Measurement in the First Stage of the Compressor of an Aircraft Engine , 2016, Sensors.

[11]  Joseba Zubia,et al.  Different Configurations of a Reflective Intensity-Modulated Optical Sensor to Avoid Modal Noise in Tip-Clearance Measurements , 2015, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[12]  Jiang Zhe,et al.  Online monitoring of dynamic tip clearance of turbine blades in high temperature environments , 2018 .

[13]  Mark R. Woike.  Evaluation of a Microwave Blade Tip Clearance Sensor for Propulsion Health Monitoring , 2010 .

[14]  K. S. Chana,et al.  The Use of Eddy Current Sensors for the Measurement of Rotor Blade Tip Timing: Development of a New Method Based on Integration , 2016 .

[16]  Gotzon Aldabaldetreku,et al.  An Optical Fiber Bundle Sensor for Tip Clearance and Tip Timing Measurements in a Turbine Rig , 2013, Sensors.

[17]  Rubén Fernández,et al.  Design, Fabrication and Testing of a High-Sensitive Fibre Sensor for Tip Clearance Measurements , 2018, Sensors.

[18]  K. S. Chana,et al.  The Development of a Hot Section Eddy Current Sensor for Turbine Tip Clearance Measurement , 2013 .

[19]  G. L. Poppel,et al.  Optical tip clearance sensor for aircraft engine controls , 1982 .

[20]  D. Müller,et al.  Capacitive Measurement of Compressor and Turbine Blade Tip to Casing Running Clearance , 1997 .

[21]  H. A. Wheeler.  Simple Inductance Formulas for Radio Coils , 1928, Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

[22]  W. C. Haase,et al.  Advances in through-the-case eddy current sensors , 2013, 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[23]  A. von Flotow,et al.  Monitoring blade passage in turbomachinery through the engine case (no holes) , 2002, Proceedings, IEEE Aerospace Conference.