NONINTRUSIVE PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF A GAS TURBINE ENGINE IN REAL TIME

摘要

Performance of a gas turbine engine is monitored by computing a mass flow rate through the engine. Acoustic time-of-flight measurements are taken between acoustic transmitters and receivers in the flow path of the engine. The measurements are processed to determine average speeds of sound and gas flow velocities along those lines-of-sound. A volumetric flow rate in the flow path is computed using the gas flow velocities together with a representation of the flow path geometry. A gas density in the flow path is computed using the speeds of sound and a measured static pressure. The mass flow rate is calculated from the gas density and the volumetric flow rate.

主权项

1. A method for actively monitoring a mass flow rate of gas through a gas turbine engine, comprising:
receiving output signals generated by a plurality of acoustic sensors, the output signals being indicative of thermoacoustic oscillations having contributions from acoustic signals from at least one acoustic transmitter in a gas flow path of the gas turbine engine, the plurality of acoustic sensors and the at least one acoustic transmitter defining line-of-sound paths relative to each other in the gas flow path; determining a time-of-flight for the acoustic signals traveling along each of the line-of-sound paths; processing the times-of-flight for the acoustic signals traveling along each of the line-of-sound paths to determine speeds of sound and gas flow velocity vectors along each of the line-of-sound paths; computing a volumetric flow rate based on the of gas flow velocity vectors in the gas flow path and further based on a flow path geometry; computing a gas density based on the speeds of sound along each of the line-of-sound paths and further based on a measured static pressure in the gas flow path; and computing the gas mass flow rate based on the of gas density and the volumetric flow rate.