Thermo-Mechanical Rotor Analysis Tuned by Engine Operational Data

Gas turbine engines must withstand severe thermo-mechanical conditions during present-day load operation, characterized by cyclic transients and long dwell times. Indeed engine components are subject to thermal transient conditions, thermo-mechanical strain and stress fields; those are not easily measurable during operation, making calculations hardly confirmable. All these operational factors can lead a turbine component life reduction, finally increasing lifetime costs.The developed approach has been based on several calculations, such as thermal and FEM stress evaluation on the rotor components, tuned or validated by different field measurements carried out by thermocouples in the rotor core and the pre-tightening load variation of tie-rod. Transient disks and tie-rod temperatures (calculated by an in-house Secondary Air System code) have been tuned on experimental data. Thus, for rotor thermo-mechanical analysis more reliable boundary conditions have been provided. Rotor FEM analysis has been finally checked comparing the variation of the tie-bolt tension (calculated by FEM analysis) with the experimental behaviour observed during different operating conditions.Copyright © 2015 by ASME