Overview
To strengthen the competitiveness of the European aero-engine industry, with due concern for environment and safety, gas turbine engines must
provide better performance at reduced weight. For the compressor, the objectives are a higher-pressure ratio realised with fewer blade rows,
implying higher aerodynamics loading. In parallel, development and time-to-market costs must be reduced through improved engineering
methods. This project exploited advanced 3D steady and unsteady viscous methods for multi-stage compressor design. Building on the partners'
collective experience, these tools will be used to maximise performance improvement by control of internal flow structures; particularly tip
and end wall regions and blade row interactions. The design-by-computation approach shall be supported by an experimental programme, giving systematic verification of design rules and analytical accuracy for each element of the design process.
The development of high temperature advanced turbine abradables and seals was supposed to have a major impact on the feasibility of future aero engines with improved efficiency and reduced fuel consumption, exhaust gas emissions and life cycle costs. Abradables and seals for turbine applications with a higher temperature capability, extended life time and reliability than the state of the art technology shall reduce cooling air consumption, extend the inspection cycles interval and reduce the repair costs of the aero engine. The production of advanced technical products and the ability to compete in the global market shall be improved for the European aero engine and the basic materials supply industry. Air transport shall become less expensive, environmentally friendly, more reliable as well as safe.
Abradables and seals for turbine applications with a temperature capability up to 1200°C and extended life time and reliability up to 36.000 hours were designed, manufactured on a laboratory scale and tested according to the requirements of technology platform vehicles. Different high temperature materials and structures combinations like filled honeycombs, foams, hollow sphere structures with available potential candidate materials, like PM 2000, MCrAlY’s, nickel aluminides and ceramics are evaluated. Trial components and prototypes of the most capable material/structure combinations were tested in a real aero engine environment Available test vehicles were the technology platform engines or other relevant engines of the gas turbine manufacturers involved in the program.
The successful project completion was supposes to be achieved by an international highly interdisciplinary consortium of aero engine manufacturers, basic material suppliers, research institutions and small and medium enterprises. The most experienced project partner shall co-ordinate the following work packages necessary for the success of the project:
- design of optimised and improved abradables and seals for advanced turbine applications;
- manufacturing of specimens, trial components and prototypes representing incremental and radical innovative material / structure combinations for turbine seals;
- investigation of relevant material/structure properties, e.g. resistance to wear, oxidation and fatigue;
- testing of trial components and prototypes in components test rigs and gas turbine rigs;
- project management and exploitation of project results.
Funding
Results
- Design concepts developed
- Test components with incremental improvements available
- Test components with radical improvements available
- Lifetime prediction concept developed for turbine seals
The results were: concepts for design, material properties, rig test and engine test results, lifing concept for advanced turbine seals were developed and validated in order to apply the most innovative material.