Control of jet engines

Abstract Feedback control has always been an essential part of jet engines because they operate at or near their mechanical or aerothermal limitations. In this paper, the basics of controlling an engine while satisfying numerous constraints will be reviewed. The emphasis will be on commercial engines though most of the material is also applicable to military engines. In the first part, a simplified theory of engine operation is discussed in terms of the basic principles and limitations for each component. The second part of the paper discusses overall control requirements and typical sensors and actuators. Finally various control strategies are presented. It is shown that much of the complexity of the control comes from the need to operate the engine as close as possible to its limits. In a commercial engine, this results in a series of single input single output controllers. The case for multivariable control can be more strongly made for military engines especially those with additional flowpath geometry actuators such as a variable cycle or advanced short takeoff and landing engines.

[1]  Shrider Adibhatla Propulsion control law design for the NASA STOVL Controls Technology program , 1993 .

[2]  A. R. Teel,et al.  A dynamic windup compensation scheme applied to a turbofan engine , 1997, Proceedings of the 36th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[3]  James L. Melsa,et al.  Alternatives for linear multivariable control with turbofan engine theme problem , 1978 .

[4]  George Geoffrey Smith,et al.  Gas turbines and jet propulsion , 1951 .

[5]  Ephraim Gutmark,et al.  Active control in combustion systems with vortices , 1995, Proceedings of International Conference on Control Applications.

[6]  William J. Dwyer Adaptive model-based control applied to a turbofan aircraft engine , 1990 .

[7]  I. Day Active Suppression of Rotating Stall and Surge in Axial Compressors , 1991 .

[8]  W. E. Hall,et al.  Multivariable quadratic synthesis of an advanced turbofan engine controller , 1978 .

[9]  Edward M. Greitzer,et al.  Active suppression of aerodynamic instabilities in turbomachines , 1989 .

[10]  R. Dehoff,et al.  Optimal Control of Turbine Engines , 1979 .

[11]  W. Merrill,et al.  The role of modern control theory in the design of controls for aircraft turbine engines , 1982 .

[12]  S. Samuelsen,et al.  Optimal, active control of oxides of nitrogen (NO/sub x/) emissions from a natural gas-fired burner using a simple genetic algorithm , 1995, Proceedings of International Conference on Control Applications.

[13]  Ralph D. Bent,et al.  Jet Aircraft Power Systems , 1965 .

[14]  Joseph L. Peczkowski,et al.  Linear multivariable synthesis with transfer functions , 1980 .

[15]  Ephraim Gutmark,et al.  Compact Waste Incinerator Based on Vortex Combustion , 1996 .

[16]  P. D. McMorran Design of gas-turbine controller using inverse Nyquist method , 1970 .

[17]  Irwin E. Treager Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology , 1978 .

[18]  Michel Kinnaert,et al.  Conditioning technique, a general anti-windup and bumpless transfer method , 1987, Autom..

[19]  Daniel L. Gysling,et al.  Integrated control of rotating stall and surge in aeroengines , 1995, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[20]  Edward W. Constant,et al.  The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution , 1982 .

[21]  Henry Cohen,et al.  Gas turbine theory , 1973 .