How to get component maps for aircraft gas turbine performance calculations

Abstract

Precise simulations of gas turbine performance cannot be done without component maps. In the early days of a new project one often has to use scaled maps of similar machines. Alternatively one can calculate the component partload characteristics provided that the many details needed for such an exercise am available. In a later stage often rig tests will be done to get detailed information about the behavior of the compressors respectively turbines. Performance calculation programs usually require the map data in a specific format. To produce this format needs some preprocessing. Measured data cannot be used directly because they show a scatter and they are not evenly disnibuted over the range of interest. Due to limitations in the test equipment often there is lack of data for very low and very high speed. With the help of a specialized drawing program available on a PC one can easily eliminate the scatter in the data and also inter-and extrapolate additional lines of constant corrected speed. Many graphs showing both the measured data and the lines passing through the data as a function of physically meaningful parameters allow to check whether the result makes sense or not. The extrapolation of compressor maps toward very low speed, as required for the calculation of starting, idle and windmilling performance calculations, is discussed in some detail. Instead of true measured data one can use data read from maps published in open literature. The program is also an excellent tool for checking and extending component maps one has derived from sparse information about a gas turbine to be simulated.