Health management development for advanced propulsion systems and ultrasafe engine technologies continues to be one of NASA’s aviation safety program’s goals. Such health management systems will assist in predicting, detecting, preventing, and overseeing safety-significant propulsion malfunctions. The primary goal is to minimize the number of propulsion system faults that lead to or contribute to civil aircraft accidents. Moreover, the health monitoring of essential and key components in aircraft engines, such as rotors, is gaining increased interest among engine makers and government institutions involved in aviation safety because it is becoming necessary to impose safety conditions during operation and to lower maintenance costs. In summary, having reliable diagnostic tools for the damage detection and health monitoring of rotating components is important in maintaining engine safety and reliability.
The NASA Glenn Research Center’s role in supporting the NASA Aviation Safety Program involves providing finite-element analytical studies to study the durability issues of a rotor disk for a propulsion system. This led to carrying out analyses under representative engine loading conditions to investigate the application, performance, and functionality of an in-house crack-detection system. Rotational speeds in the range of 2000 to 10,000 rpm were used. Several key design parameters, such as center-of-mass shift, induced cracks that ranged in length from 0.2 to 2.0 in. (1 to 5 cm), attachment blades, and typical holes within the disk, were explored to study their influence on the crack-detection system performance. Additional activities included comparing analytically derived results with those obtained from the experiment to verify the effectiveness and applicability of the system. The figures display typical results showing the relevant influence of these parameters on the performance of the disk and the crack-detection system. Furthermore, the results indicate that adding notches to the disk will allow systematic evaluation of crack-detection techniques by implementing highly controlled crack-initiation and crack-growth tests on a subscale, cost-effective spinning rotor.
Left: Rotor disk with attachment blades. Right: Von Mises stress distribution at 10,000 rpm for a 1.3-in. notch located in the rim region. Results for nickel CM–400 with the blade-hole aligned.
Abdul-Aziz, Ali; Trudel, Jeffrey J.; and Baaklini, George Y.: Finite Element Design Study of a Bladed, Flat Rotating Disk to Simulate Cracking in a Typical Turbine Disk. Proceedings of the SPIE Symposium on Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring of Aerospace Materials, Composites, and Civil Infrastructure IV, vol. 5767, 2005, pp. 298-307.
ANSYS Finite Element Program. ANSYS Release 7.1, ANSYS, Inc., Canonsburg, PA, 2003.
Cleveland State University contact: Dr. Ali Abdul-Aziz, 216-433-6729, Ali.Abdul-aziz@nasa.govLast updated: October 6, 2006
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