Impact of front- And rear-stage high pressure compressor deterioration on jet engine performance

Abstract

Current civil aviation is characterized by rising cost and competitive pressure, which is partly passed to the MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) companies. To improve the maintenance, condition-based maintenance is established, which is characterized by tailored maintenance actions for each part of the jet engine, depending on the individual engine history and operating conditions. Thereby, prediction models help engineers to authorize maintenance actions as effectively as possible. This paper will help to improve these prediction models. Therefore, the influence of specific deterioration of a high pressure compressor (HPC) to jet engine performance parameters such as exhaust gas temperature (EGT) and specific fuel consumption (SFC) will be investigated. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) calculations of deteriorated HPC geometries are carried out and serve as a basis to scale the reference HPC performance characteristics to deteriorated ones. To evaluate the changes in performance parameters, a modular performance synthesis model is set up. In this model, the HPC map is exchanged with deteriorated ones. As a result, the influence of geometric deviations to the design intent can be determined, and the MRO companies are able to focus on the most relevant sections of the compressor blading.