No abstract

No abstract

The intended aim of the paper was to present a short review of more than 15 years of experience of ITWL in the field of applying the signal of actual rotational speed (aperiodic and oscillation components thereof) to the expert diagnosing of aero-engines, including identification of low- and high-cycle fatigue (LCF, HCF) of critical structural members. What has been presented is some essential metrological bearings of the non-contact technique of measuring the engine’s rpm with some flexible key phasors (i.e. vibrating compressor/turbine blades). Also, methods of numerical analysis of measuring signals, in use nowadays, have been discussed. With the jet engine of the SO-3 type (in use on the TS-11 “Iskra” combat trainer) as an example, are discussed algorithms of both the identification of disadvantageous aeromechanical effects (energy state of the engine - i.e. the source of accelerated HCF wear of structural components) and the early detection of symptoms of fatigue failures to compressor blades and the bearing system. The discussed problems have been illustrated with examples selected as to emphasise practicalities of applying a new source of diagnostic information to ‘actively’ control the process of fatigue wear (HCF + LCF) of engine components and to forecast the engine health/maintenance status.

Considered here are nonlinear autoregressive neural networks (NETs) with exogenous inputs (NARX) as a mathematical model of a steam turbine rotor used for the online prediction of turbine temperature and stress. In this paper, the online prediction is presented on the basis of one critical location in a high-pressure (HP) steam turbine rotor. In order to obtain NETs that will correspond to the temperature and stress the critical rotor location, a finite element (FE) rotor model was built. NETs trained using the FE rotor model not only have FEM accuracy but also include all nonlinearities considered in an FE model. Simultaneous NETs are algorithms which can be implemented in turbine controllers. This allows for the application of the NETs to control steam turbine stress in industrial power plants.

Background This paper presents the experimental and numerical studies of last-stage low-pressure (LP) mistuned steam turbine bladed discs during run-down. Methods The natural frequencies and mode shapes of the turbine bladed disc were calculated using an FE model. The influence of the shaft on the modal properties, such as natural frequencies and mode shapes, was considered. The tip-timing method was used to find the mistuned bladed disc modes and frequencies. Conclusions The experimental results from the tip-timing analysis show that the mistuning in combination with shaft coupling suppresses pure nodal diameter type blade vibrations associated with the fundamental mode shape of a cantilevered blade. Vibration modes emerge when even a single blade is vibrating due to the well-known mode localization caused by mistuning. The numerical results confirm this.