Session: 01-08 Whole Engine Performance and Novel Concepts II

Paper Number: 102238

102238 - Thrust Rebalance to Extend Engine Time On-Wing With Consideration of Engine Degradation and Creep Life Consumption 

Over the years, airlines have consistently attempted to lower their operational costs and improving their availability by applying various technologies. Engine maintenance expenses are one of the most substantial costs for aircraft operations, accounting for around 30% of overall aircraft operational costs. So, maximizing the engine's Time On-Wing (TOW) is crucial to lowering the costs. The engine time on-wing is often limited due to the expiration of Life Limiting Parts (LLP), performance deterioration, etc.

This paper presents a novel method of rebalancing the thrust of engines of an aircraft to achieve the maximum engines’ time on-wing considering performance degradation and creep life consumption of the engines. The method is applied to a model aircraft fitted with two model engines similar to GT90 115B to test the feasibility of the method with one engine degraded and the other engine undegraded. The obtained results demonstrate that for the aircraft flying between London and Montreal with 2,000 nominal flight cycles between overhauls, the engines’ time on-wing could drop from 2,000 to 985 flight days due to one of the engines having HP turbine degradation (1% efficiency degradation 3% flow capacity degradation) assuming one flight per flight day. The engines’ time on-wing could increase from 985 flight days without thrust rebalance to 1,365 flight days with thrust rebalance, i. e. around 38.6% increase in time on-wing.  The proposed method could be applied to other aircraft and engines.

Presenting Author: Rafael Da Mota Chiavegatto Cranfield University

Presenting Author Biography: Dr Yiguang Li is a Reader and the Director of Gas Turbine Performance and Diagnostics Applications in the Centre for Propulsion and Thermal Power Engineering, School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University in the UK.
He received his PhD at Cranfield. He used to work as a gas turbine performance engineer for many years before joining Cranfield University in 1999. He specializes in gas turbine performance, gas path diagnostics, performance optimization and application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to gas turbines. He has published more than 100 papers in international journals and conferences. He is a Fellow of ASME and a Fellow of Higher Education Academy of United Kingdom. He is the past Chair of the Cycle Innovations Committee and the Industrial and Cogeneration Committee of ASME Turbo Expo conference.

Authors:

Rafael Da Mota Chiavegatto Cranfield University
Yiguang Li Cranfield University, UK