Simulation of Start-Up Process of Turbofan Engine Based on Full-State Characteristics of Fan

Difficulties in obtaining component characteristics in the sub-idle state of rotor constrain the simulation capabilities of ground and windmill start-up processes for turbofan engines.This paper proposes a backbone feature method based on conventional characteristics parameters to derive the full-state characteristics of fan.The application of the fan’s full-state characteristics in component-level model of turbofan engine enables zero-speed iterative simulation for ground start-up process and windmill simulation for windmill start-up process,thereby improving the simulation capability of sub-idle state during turbofan engine start-up.

Load Sharing Behavior of Star Gearing Reducer for Geared Turbofan Engine

Load sharing behavior is very important for power-split gearing system, star gearing reducer as a new type and special transmission system can be used in many industry fields. However, there is few literature regarding the key multiple-split load sharing issue in main gearbox used in new type geared turbofan engine. Further mechanism anal- ysis are made on load sharing behavior among star gears of star gearing reducer for geared turbofan engine. Compre- hensive meshing error analysis are conducted on eccentricity error, gear thickness error, base pitch error, assembly error, and bearing error of star gearing reducer respectively. Floating meshing error resulting from meshing clearance variation caused by the simultaneous floating of sun gear and annular gear are taken into account. A refined mathematical model for load sharing coefficient calculation is established in consideration of different meshing stiffness and support- ing stiffness for components. The regular curves of load sharing coefficient under the influence of interactions, single action and single variation of various component errors are obtained. The accurate sensitivity of load sharing coefficienttoward different errors is mastered. The load sharing coef- ficient of star gearing reducer is 1.033 and the maximum meshing force in gear tooth is about 3010 N. This paper provides scientific theory evidences for optimal parameter design and proper tolerance distribution in advanced devel- opment and manufacturing process, so as to achieve optimal effects in economy and technology.

Modeling and simulation of turbofan engine based on equilibrium manifold

Because the normal operation of the engine is located near the equilibrium manifold, the method of equilibrium mani fold nonlinear dynamic modeling is adopted for turbofan engine more than the local train modeling. The method studies the sys tem characteristics near the equilibrium manifold. The modeling method can be realized through dynamic and static twostep, and for the specific parameter modeling steps and algorithm are given. The output of the test data is compared with the model output through numerical simulation, to check the model with an additional set of test data. The simulation results show that the model has reached the requirements of engineering accuracy.

MODEL REFERENCE ADAPTIVE CONTROL BASED ON NONLINEAR COMPENSATION FOR TURBOFAN ENGINE

The design of a turbofan rotor speed control system, using model reference adaptive control（MRAC） method with input and output measurements, is discussed for the purpose of practical application. The nonlinear compensator based on functional link neural network is used to deal with the engine nonlinearity and the hardware-in-loop simulation is also developed. The results show that the nonlinear MRAC controller has the adequate performance of compensating and adapting nonlinearity arising from the change of engine state or working environment. Such feature demonstrates potential practical applications of MRAC for aeroengine control system.

MULTIVARIABLE MODEL REFERENCE ADAPTIVE CONTROL FOR A TURBOFAN ENGINE

A decentralized model reference adaptive control (MRAC) scheme is proposed and applied to design a multivariable control system of a dual-spool turbofan engine.Simulation studies show good static and dynamic performance of the system over the fullflight envelope. Simulation results also show the good effectiveness of reducing interactionin the multivariable system with significant coupling. The control system developed has awide frequency band to satisfy the strict engineering requirement and is practical for engineering applications.

Simplified Removable Ground Test-Bed for Testing Turbofan Engine

A new simplified removable ground test-bed was designed for testing a certainturbofan engine. The facilities are 5.5 m long, 1.5 m wide, 2.2 m high and not more than 4. 5 t ofits empty weight. There are four rubber wheels that could be towed. There is an independentelectrical measurement and control system to test the rotational speed of rotors, the gas pressureof the compressor, the exhaust gas temperature, etc. Cooperated with the oil truck and the electricpower supply truck, the turbofan engine could be preserved on the ground and started to the idlingregime. While running, the parameter of the engine could be recorded, disposed and displayed. Inaddition, the facilities were successfully applied to the plateau experiment in order to researchhow the atmosphere pressure affects the start of engines. Some data are given in the paper.

Reliability Based Multi-Objective Thermodynamic Cycle Optimisation of Turbofan Engines Using Luus-Jaakola Algorithm

Aircraft engine design is a complicated process,as it involves huge number of components.The design process begins with parametric cycle analysis.It is crucial to determine the optimum values of the cycle parameters that would give a robust design in the early phase of engine development,to shorten the design cycle for cost saving and man-hour reduction.To obtain a robust solution,optimisation program is often being executed more than once,especially in Reliability Based Design Optimisations(RBDO)with Monte-Carlo Simulation(MCS)scheme for complex systems which require thousands to millions of optimisation loops to be executed.This paper presents a fast heuristic technique to optimise the thermodynamic cycle of two-spool separated flow turbofan engines based on energy and probability of failure criteria based on Luus-Jaakola algorithm(LJ).A computer program called Turbo Jet Engine Optimiser v2.0(TJEO-2.0)has been developed to perform the optimisation calculation.The program is made up of inner and outer loops,where LJ is used in the outer loop to determine the design variables while parametric cycle analysis of the engine is done in the inner loop to determine the engine performance.Latin-Hypercube-Sampling(LHS)technique is used to sample the design and model variations for uncertainty analysis.The results show that optimisation without reliability criteria may lead to high probability of failure of more than 11%on average.The thrust obtained with uncertainty quantification was about 25%higher than the one without uncertainty quantification,at the expense of less than 3%of fuel consumption.The proposed algorithm can solve the turbofan RBDO problem within 3 min.

Cost Prediction of a Turbofan Engine Using the Robust Partial Least Squares Method

In recent years, the cost of engines has become increasingly important to engine manufacturers, who are consistently faced with major problems on how to reduce cost to a minimum. Cost has become a decisive factor for aircraft design. To control the continual rapid increased cost, engine cost prediction is indispensable early in the design phase. But the cost data of an aircraft engine is small; we introduce the Robust Partial Least Squares Method in solving this problem, and reducing or removing the effect of outlying data points, which is different from the Classical PLS. We use the MATLAB software doing several simulations; results and analysis of a real turbofan engine data set show the effectiveness and robustness of the Robust PLS method. The Robust PLS method can effectively be used to estimate Turbofan Engine cost with reasonable accuracy.

Simulation of the secondary air system of turbofan engines:Insights from 1D-3D modeling

Focusing on the internal flow and heat transfer analysis,a platform for the performance evaluation of the Secondary Air System(SAS)is developed.A multi-fidelity modeling technique has been developed in a turbofan engine model under different flight conditions.A turbine blade cool-ing model which integrates external heat transfer calculations and coolant side modeling with com-mon components is proposed.In addition,the Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD)method is selected to capture the complex flow field structure in the preswirl system.The validity of the SAS models is compared with publicly available data.An elaborately designed cooling system for the AGTF30 engine is analyzed through three main branches.It is found that the 1D-3D mod-eling technique can provide more accurate predictions of the SAS for the AGTF30 engine.The results demonstrate the versatility and flexibility of the SAS models,thereby indicating the capacity of meeting most of the demands of flow and thermal analysis of the SAS.

Multivariable Decoupling Control of Civil Turbofan Engines Based on Fully Actuated System Approach

Gas turbine engines must be operated by means of control,and how to achieve multivariable control decoupling with aero-engine control constraints is an open thorny issue attracting increasingly more attention.The paper considers the multivariable decoupling problems of aero-engines by using a compound controller,which originates from the fact that it is impossible to eliminate all the nonlinear dynamics of system to obtain desired constant linear closed-loop system by using full actuated control because of modeling errors and some physical constraints.Two controllers are involved in the compound controller.One is a fully actuated controller and the other is classical feedback controller.In order to use fully actuated control and maintain the accuracy of engine model,a full state scheduling linear parameter-varying(LPV)modeling method is proposed based on fuzzy neural network weights.For a general input matrix of the system,its generalized inverse is applied to design fully actuated controller to result in a pseudolinear system.Combined with a feedback controller and control limiter,the control synthesis is achieved.The simulation shows that the proposed method is possessed of a better decoupling and tracking effect compared with traditional control approach.

Flow Through Aerodynamic Torque Converter Installed in New Type Turbofan Engine

It is desired to increase the core engine speed of the turbofan, to get the best efficiency for the next leap of the engine technology. The conventional mechanism in which the front fan is directly connected to the output shaft of the core engine has a limit of increasing the spool speed because the fan diameter is very large. The authors have proposed a new driving system in which the front fan is driven through the aerodynamic torque converter. The front fan can work at the conventional speed while the core engine runs more efficiently at higher speed. Continuously, in this paper, the flow through the converter is simulated numerically by CFX-5 with the k-εturbulence model of the commercial CFD code. The secondary flow occurred on the hub wall affects markedly the flow condition on the blade surfaces, and the flow along the suction surface of the driver blade separates near the trailing edge, which is deviated to the blade tip by the centrifugal force due to the wheel rotation.

Neural network-based model predictive control with fuzzy-SQP optimization for direct thrust control of turbofan engine

A nonlinear model predictive control method based on fuzzy-Sequential Quadratic Programming(SQP)for direct thrust control is proposed in this paper for the sake of improving the accuracy of thrust control.The designed control system includes four parts,namely a predictive model,rolling optimization,online correction,and feedback correction.Considering the strong nonlinearity of engine,a predictive model is established by Back Propagation(BP)neural network for the entire flight envelope,whose input and output are determined with random forest algorithm and actual situation analysis.Rolling optimization typically uses SQP as the optimization algorithm,but SQP algorithm is easy to trap into local optimization.Therefore,the fuzzy-SQP algorithm is proposed to prevent this disadvantage using fuzzy algorithm to determine the initial value of SQP.In addition to the traditional three parts of model predictive control,an online correction module is added to improve the predictive accuracy of the predictive model in the predictive time domain.Simulation results show that the BP predictive model can reach a certain degree of predictive accuracy,and the proposed control system can achieve good tracking performance with the limited parameters within the safe range。

Adaptive modification of turbofan engine nonlinear model based on LSTM neural networks and hybrid optimization method

An accurate and reliable turbofan engine model which can describe its dynamic behavior within the full flight envelop and lifecycle plays a critical role in performance optimization, controller design and fault diagnosis. However, due to the performance differences caused by the tolerance of engine manufacturing and assembly, and performance degradation during continuously stringent environmental regulations, the model accuracy is severely reduced. In this paper, an adaptive modification method of turbofan engine nonlinear Component-Llevel Model(CLM) based on Long Short-Term Memory(LSTM) Neural Network(NN) and hybrid optimization algorithm is pro-posed. First, a dynamic compensator with a combined LSTM NN architecture is constructed to compensate for the initial error between the experimental data and CLM of a turbofan engine under health condition. Then, a sensitivity analysis approach based on the entropy coefficient and technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution integrated evaluation is developed to choose the unmeasurable health parameters to be adjusted. Finally, a parallel hybrid optimization algorithm is developed to complete the adaptive model modification when the performance degrades. The proposed method is verified on a military low-bypass twin-spool turbofan engine, and the experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Unsteady Operation of New Type Turbofan Engine with Aerodynamic Torque Converter Reducing Front Fan Speed

It is desired to increase the rotational speed of the core engine of the turbofan so as to get the best efficiency for the next leap of engine technology. The conventional mechanism in which the front fan is directly connected to the output shaft of a core engine, have a limit of increasing the spool speed, because the fan diameter is very large. The authors have proposed a new driving system in which the front fan is driven through the aerodynamic torque converter. The front fan can work at the best performance at slower speed while the core engine runs more efficiently at higher speed. Continuously, this paper discusses the response of the front fan in the unsteady operation of the core engine, accompanying with the internal flow. The system has the acceptable responsibility in the unsteady operation which is very important for the aircrafts.

Limit protection design in turbofan engine acceleration control based on scheduling command governor

A new limit protection method based on Scheduling Command Governor(SCG) is proposed for imposing multiple constraints on a turbofan engine during acceleration process. A Gain Scheduling Controller(GSC) is designed for the transient state control and its stability proof is developed using Linear Matrix Inequalities(LMIs). The SCG is an add-on control scheme which manages engine limits effectively based on reference trajectory optimization. Unlike the traditional min–max architecture with switching logic, the SCG method utilizes the Linear Parameter Varying(LPV) closed-loop model to form a prediction of future constraint violation and per instant solves a constraint-admissible reference within an approximate Maximal Output Admissible Set(MOAS).The influence of the variation of engine dynamic characteristics and equilibrium points during transient state control is handled by the design of contractive sets. Simulation results on a turbofan engine component-level model show the applicability and effectiveness of the SCG method. Compared to the traditional min–max method, the SCG method has less conservativeness. In addition,the design of contractive sets makes conservativeness tunable.

Reduced Order H_∞/LTR Method for Aeroengine Control System

This paper proposes a new loop recovery method to solve the reduced order problem of H∞/ LTR method. The resulted lower order controller shares almost the same performance and robustness as the original H ∞/LTR controller. Further more, this paper develops a new order reduction method: slow-fast mode order reduction (SFMOR) method. This order reduction method is particularly effective for those controllers whose modes can be divided into a slow part and a fast part according to their velocities. Application of these methods to a benchmark example and a certain turbofan engine is described.

Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model identification for turbofan aero-engines with guaranteed stability

This paper is concerned with identifying a Takagi-Sugeno（TS） fuzzy model for turbofan aero-engines working under the maximum power status（non-afterburning）. To establish the fuzzy system, theoretical contributions are made as follows. First, by fixing antecedent parameters, the estimation of consequent parameters in state-space representations is formulated as minimizing a quadratic cost function. Second, to avoid obtaining unstable identified models, a new theorem is proposed to transform the prior-knowledge of stability into constraints. Then based on the aforementioned work, the identification problem is synthesized as a constrained quadratic optimization.By solving the constrained optimization, a TS fuzzy system is identified with guaranteed stability.Finally, the proposed method is applied to the turbofan aero-engine using simulation data generated from an aerothermodynamics component-level model. Results show the identified fuzzy model achieves a high fitting accuracy while stabilities of the overall fuzzy system and all its local models are also guaranteed.

Goal Programming for Stable Mode Transition in Tandem Turbo-ramjet Engines

This article, in order to guarantee the stable mode transition in tandem turbo-ramjet engines, investigates the multi-objective and multi-variable goal programming algorithm. First, it introduces the structural features of the variable cycle turbo-ramjet engines, the principles of selecting the mode transition operation point and the design parameters, and the characteristics of the turbofan mode and the ramjet mode. Second, a component-based variable cycle turbo-ramjet engine model is developed to simulate the mode transition process. Third, the Newton-Raphson algorithm is used to solve the multi-variable and multi-objective optimization problem. The results show that with the maximum residua of only 0.06%, this algorithm has an acceptable convergence that meets the predetermined goals. Finally, the simulation shows that the stable turbo-ramjet mode transition could be realized with the mode transition control law developed by the algorithm.

An extrapolation approach for aeroengine's transient control law design

Transient control law ensures that the aeroengine transits to the command operating state rapidly and reliably. Most of the existing approaches for transient control law design have complicated principle and arithmetic. As a result, those approaches are not convenient for application. This paper proposes an extrapolation approach based on the set-point parameters to construct the transient control law, which has a good practicability. In this approach, the transient main fuel control law for acceleration and deceleration process is designed based on the main fuel flow on steady operating state. In order to analyze the designing feature of the extrapolation approach, the simulation results of several different transient control laws designed by the same approach are compared together. The analysis indicates that the aeroengine has a good performance in the transient process and the designing feature of the extrapolation approach conforms to the elements of the turbofan aeroengine.

Experimental study of a controlled variable double-baffle distortion generator engine test rig

In order to explore the total-pressure distortion test assessment method for a turbofan engine, a Controlled Variable Double-Baffle Distortion Generator(CVDBDG) with a horizontal symmetry moving form was developed, which can adjust the steady-state and time–variant distortion separately in real time. The inlet total-pressure distortion test was conducted on an afterburner turbofan engine. The distortion parameters of CVDBDG and the instability characteristics of the engine were measured. The experimental data were modeled and analyzed by using back propagation artificial neural networks, and the work envelope of CVDBDG was obtained. Based on the analysis of the data on the engine’s instability, the properties of CVDBDG used for the stability assessment were preliminarily evaluated. The results show that CVDBDG can simulate both steady-state and time–variant distortions simultaneously in a range determined by three envelopes.Under the condition of symmetric double baffles, a critical depth of insertion exists, beyond which the symmetric baffles will generate an asymmetric flow field. In the case of double baffles, compared to a single baffle, the engine exhibited different instability characteristics. Based on CVDBDG, it is expected that more efficient engine stability and durability assessment methods can be developed.