Development of Electric Smart Actuator for gas turbine engines

The E-SEMA project designed, manufactured and tested an innovative concept of light, reliable and smart electrical actuator for an inlet guide vane or stator vane application of gas turbine engines that was capable of interfacing and connecting to the engine control unit in a plug-and-play manner. This innovative concept of smart electrical actuator was based on a multi-disciplinary approach that considered mechanisms, the control electronic, the control software and the power supply in an integrated way, as will be shown in the following subchapters. The main topics that were developed in this proposal are related to the temperature levels and environmental conditions (combustion gas, oxidation) that are the normal aero engine working conditions.

In this respect, the consortium were working in a similar application inside JTI Clean Sky (HP-SMART-EMA / Development of high power density electrical actuators / HP-SMART-EMA / Topic addressed: JTI-CS-2009-1-SAGE-05-006) under contract CS-GA-2009-255819. The scope of this project was the development of high power density electrical actuators with Smart electrical interfaces in severe environment:

• The WP 5.2.5 of SAGE5 Demonstration Project dedicated to the development of an innovative control system, aims also at developing and testing Smart electrical actuators for turbine engine control systems
• The target is to have a light, reliable and “easy to interface to a control unit” electrical actuator

All the experience and lessons learnt in the ongoing HP-SMART-EMA project were applied and considered in the present proposal: motor, high temperature, benchmarking performed for sensors, motors, gear, brakes, lubrication, redundancy for increased reliability etc.

3 or 4 actuators were foreseen to be manufactured inside the proposal:

• One unit for MTU
• One/Two for testing validation
• One unit as spare