An Architecture for On-Line Measurement of the Tip Clearance and Time of Arrival of a Bladed Disk of an Aircraft Engine
1
Department of Electronic Technology, University of the Basque Country, Nieves Cano 12, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
2
Department of Electronic Technology, University of the Basque Country, Alda. Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain
3
Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country, Alda. Urquijo s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2017, 17(10), 2162; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17102162
Received: 21 July 2017 / Revised: 12 September 2017 / Accepted: 19 September 2017 / Published: 21 September 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Methodologies to Interpret Non-Destructive Testing and Structural Health Monitoring Data)
Safety and performance of the turbo-engine in an aircraft is directly affected by the health of its blades. In recent years, several improvements to the sensors have taken place to monitor the blades in a non-intrusive way. The parameters that are usually measured are the distance between the blade tip and the casing, and the passing time at a given point. Simultaneously, several techniques have been developed that allow for the inference—from those parameters and under certain conditions—of the amplitude and frequency of the blade vibration. These measurements are carried out on engines set on a rig, before being installed in an airplane. In order to incorporate these methods during the regular operation of the engine, signal processing that allows for the monitoring of those parameters at all times should be developed. This article introduces an architecture, based on a trifurcated optic sensor and a hardware processor, that fulfills this need. The proposed architecture is scalable and allows several sensors to be simultaneously monitored at different points around a bladed disk. Furthermore, the results obtained by the electronic system will be compared with the results obtained by the validation of the optic sensor.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Gil-García, J.M.; Solís, A.; Aranguren, G.; Zubia, J. An Architecture for On-Line Measurement of the Tip Clearance and Time of Arrival of a Bladed Disk of an Aircraft Engine. Sensors 2017, 17, 2162.
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