Form Factor for the Top-Level Comparison of the Condition of Supply of High-Pressure Compressor Blades

High-pressure compressor (HPC) performance and maintenance of gas turbines is influenced by blade production scatter and in-service deterioration. Complex geometries in HPC, especially at blades, yield to a large amount of component features, which individually influence performance and maintenance characteristics. This results in a highly complex and poorly observable system. Hence, the correlation of a single component feature to performance or maintenance characteristics is not purposeful and a reduction of the parameter space is advantageous.A form factor is introduced that reduces geometric deviations of component features to a scalar. Principal component analysis (PCA) of measured HPC blades is used to support the form factor concept. The meaningfulness of this approach is shown in identifying process capabilities of different forges based on the form factor.Copyright © 2012 by Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co KG