N093-181 TITLE: Thrust Measurement Model for Engine Test Cell Environment

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Materials/Processes

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Strike Fighter

OBJECTIVE: Develop an innovative and robust model based method for calculating thrust in a gas turbine engine test cell environment.

DESCRIPTION: Test cell thrust measurement systems for gas turbine engines are excessively noisy due to acoustic energy, test stand dynamics and other ambient conditions. This noise makes the small transient and dynamic signals that are important for engine analysis and flight certification extremely difficult to isolate. Providing a clean thrust or similar dynamic signal to match the engine performance model is key to enhancing engine test cell thrust measurement capability.

An innovative standalone software tool is needed to monitor and accurately replicate, in real-time, the performance of a jet engine under test. It is visualized that this tool would operate in an open loop fashion, receiving real-time parameters of engine inlet conditions, commanded parameters, fuel flow rate, and variable geometry positions, to produce a real-time stream of representative thrust and other modeled engine parameters of choice. When required, this model should be able to "stand in" for real engine thrust measurements during periods of noisy data collection, ensuring good continuous data for small transient and dynamic signals. This will provide more accurate engine analysis and flight certification test results. Ideally, this model will have already been validated against the engine under test. It is desired that the model be in the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) format and have the ability to allow tuning to determine or match engine component deterioration. Coordination with a military engine manufacturer is highly encouraged.

PHASE I: Identify, define, develop, and demonstrate a conceptual design of the proposed technology.

PHASE II: Refine, construct and demonstrate the operation of a prototype. Provide a detailed plan for incorporation of the proposed technology in a test cell environment.

PHASE III: Transition the developed technology for fleet and commercial use. Provide a detailed supportability plan.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Current test cell tools for measuring and predicating performance in the cell are limited and often not robust to test cell disturbances. The commercial industry would easily benefit from application of this tool in commercial test cells.

REFERENCES:
1. Scott M. Jones. March 2007. "An Introduction to Thermodynamic Performance Analysis of Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Cycles Using the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation Code". NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio NASA/TM�2007-214690

2. K.I. Parker, J.L. Felder, T.M. Lavelle, C.A. Withrow, A.Y. Yu, and W. Lehmann, William. February 2004. "Integrated Control Modeling for Propulsion Systems Using NPSS."NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio NASA/TM�2004-212945.

3. Robert J. Jeracki. July 1998. "Model Engine Performance Measurement From Force Balance Instrumentation". Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio NASA/TM�1998-208486

4. Dennis E. Culley and Alireza R. Behbahani. September 2008. "Communication Needs Assessment for Distributed Turbine Engine Control". NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio; NASA/TM�2008-215419.

KEYWORDS: gas turbine; modeling and simulation; engine model; engine performance; tunable test cell; NPSS

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