Abstract: Turbine blades are the components within jet engines that provide the mechanical power for the compressor and auxiliary engine systems. They operate in extreme engineering conditions. Rotating at 10,000 rpm, the blades experience a tensile stress of 300 MPa whilst being surrounded by gas temperatures above 1,700 °C. Due to this demanding in-service operation, there is the potential for defects to initiate within the turbine blades. This could possibly lead to component failure and loss of engine power. This thesis details the development of a non-destructive evaluation (NDE) system for the inspection of turbine blades for potential defects. A successful NDE system could be used to mitigate the risk of in-service component failure by detecting and characterising the defects with high accuracy. The developed system is designed to perform the inspections in situ to eliminate the significant time and cost associated with removing the turbine blades from the engine prior to inspection. In this introductory chapter, the basic operation of jet engine turbine blades, their design and manufacture is briefly described. The motivation behind requiring high-sensitivity systems that can inspect the blades in situ for defects is explained. Next, the field of NDE is introduced and its importance to modern engineering, in particularly to the aerospace industry, is discussed. The main NDE methods are introduced and it is shown why an ultrasonic array inspection is chosen to be developed.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-10-31
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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