58578 - Considerations for the Extension of Gas Path Health Management Techniques to Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Systems 

Gas path health management is a cornerstone technology for monitoring the health of aircraft gas turbine engines. Its founding principles are based upon the parameter interrelationships inherent within a gas turbine engine cycle. Through the analysis of engine sensor measurements collected over time, gas path health management enables the estimation and trending of performance deterioration occurring within the major modules of the engine as well as the diagnosis of system faults. Electrified aircraft propulsion (EAP) is a revolutionary propulsion concept emerging within the aviation industry. It relies on the generation, storage, and transmission of electrical power to generate thrust. EAP architectures can take many forms including hybrid architectures that contain gas turbine engine technology. The same principles that are leveraged in applying gas path health management techniques to gas turbines are also expected to be prominent in EAP systems—namely, designs that are highly coupled in nature where changes in the performance of one module can result in sensed operational performance changes throughout the system. This paper will review the founding mathematical principles of gas path health management, including conventional approaches applied for estimating engine performance deterioration and the accuracy they offer. Considerations for extending the application of gas path health management techniques to EAP systems will be discussed, and simulated results from their application to an EAP concept comprised of turbomachinery and electrical system hardware will be provided. Results shown will compare the parameter estimation accuracy offered by taking a holistic system-level approach towards the problem setup versus that offered by considering each subsystem individually. For the latter, the importance of having accurate measurements of external torque loads or power extraction levels placed upon turbomachinery will be emphasized.