Blade Tip Clearance Measurement Systems for High Speed Turbo-Machinery Applications and the Potential for Blade Tip Timing Applications

As turbomachinery OEMs focus efforts to further increase reliability, power and efficiencies, the running clearance between blade tips and stator continue to be of the utmost importance.

This paper investigates the capability of capacitive tip clearance systems to perform individual blade tip clearance measurements on high speed rotors of up to 90,000rpm. A rotor was designed to be of relative geometry to modern automotive/motor sport turbomachinery components. Using finite element analysis in its design, unique blade responses have been predicted.

The objective of this investigation was to consider two different approaches to the application of blade tip clearance measurements and the system requirements to accurately measure low levels of radial displacement of a target rotating between 1,000rpm and 90,000rpm. The first uses the standard approach with passive probes of 3mm diameter and the second, a new technique using active probes that have demonstrated bandwidths of 1.2MHz and increased measuring range with a lower level of measurement uncertainty. Both systems’ approaches are compared, and their capabilities are evaluated for high-speed applications.

The higher bandwidth capabilities of the system combined with smaller sensor diameters produces comparable signal rise times to the optical systems used in blade tip timing measurements. The difference in approach offers the potential of contamination resistant sensors for long term blade tip timing applications and measurement probes that do not require cooling systems to withstand higher temperature applications.

Measurement data presented concludes meaningful outputs in addition to individual radial displacement of each blade such as, angle and amplitude of axial displacement and rotor eccentricity. The capacitive measurement systems’ performance for blade tip clearance is analysed and reported.

The capability to perform other measurement techniques such as blade tip timing with a dual use measurement probe is also analysed and reported. This is done by correlating measurement results between the capacitive systems with that of a repeat measurement of the same target using an optical BTT system.