Aircraft Engine Manufacturing
Aircraft Engine Manufacturing
Aircraft Engine Manufacturing
Content:
5. Forging
6. Casting
7. Fabrication
8. Welding
spray.
13.Cellular Manufacturing.
14.Quality assurance
15.Engine Assembly.
The jet engine of today operates according to this same basic principle. Jet engines
contain three common components: the compressor, the combustor, and the turbine. To
this basic engine, other components may be added, including:
• A nozzle to recover and direct the gas energy and possibly divert the thrust for
vertical takeoff and landing as well as changing direction of aircraft.
• An afterburner or augmentor, a long "tailpipe" behind the turbine into which
additional fuel is sprayed and burned to provide additional thrust.
• A thrust reverser, which blocks the gas rushing toward the rear of the engine,
thus forcing the gases forward to provide additional braking of aircraft.
• A fan in front of the compressor to increase thrust and reduce fuel consumption.
• An additional turbine that can be utilized to drive a propeller or helicopter
rotor.
Constant demand for the greater efficiency, economy and quieter engines has produced a
numbers of variations of basic jet engines. Some variations of the engine are described
below.
The turbofan engine:
A turbofan engine is
basically a turbojet to which a fan has been added. Large fans can be placed at either the
front or rear of the engine to create high bypass ratios for subsonic flight. In the case of a
front fan, the fan is driven by a second turbine, located behind the primary turbine that
drives the main compressor. The fan causes more air to flow around (bypass) the engine.
This produces greater thrust and reduces specific fuel consumption.
For supersonic flight, a low bypass fan is utilized, and reheat is added for additional
thrust.
The turbojet is the basic engine of the jet age. Air is drawn into the engine through the
front intake. The compressor squeezes the air too many times normal atmospheric
pressure and forces it into the combustor. Here, fuel is sprayed into the compressed air, is
ignited and burned continuously like a blowtorch. The burning gases expand rapidly
rearward and pass through the turbine. The turbine extracts energy from the expanding
gases to drive the compressor, which intakes more air. After leaving the turbine, the hot
gases exit at the rear of the engine, giving the aircraft its forward push ... action, reaction!
For additional thrust or power, an afterburner or augmentor can be added. Additional fuel
is introduced into the hot exhaust and burned with a resultant increase of up to 50 percent
in engine thrust by way of even higher velocity and more push.
A turboprop engine uses shaft power to turn a propeller and the thrust is produced by the
propeller. As in a turbojet, hot gases flowing through the engine rotate a turbine wheel
that drives the compressor. The gases then pass through another turbine, called a power
turbine. This power turbine is coupled to the shaft, which drives the propeller through
gear connections.
A turbo shaft is similar to a turboprop engine, differing primarily in the function of the
turbine shaft. Instead of driving a propeller, the turbine shaft is connected to a
transmission system that drives helicopter rotor blades; electrical generators, compressors
and pumps; and marine propulsion drives for naval vessels, cargo ships, high speed
passenger ships, hydrofoils and other vessels.
First few engines used to power the initial aircrafts were piston engines. The principle of
working of these engines is similar to the automobile engines. These engines are latter on
replaced by Jet engines for most of the applications because of its limitations and high
vibrations. A piston engine is depicted in the below picture.
Typical piston engines
The application of gas turbine engine for the aircraft propulsion has overcome the
inherent weakness of the piston engines. Some of the Gas turbine engines and their
applications are depicted below
Exploded view of modern engine shown in the above Fig. Description of the major
engine sub assemblies is given below.
Air Intake
The air intake reduces the velocity and increases the pressure of air entering to a
level suitable for operation of the compressor. The flow of air into the compressor should
be free of turbulence to obtain maximum operating efficiency. The air intake does this
function with minimum energy loses. The air intake is divergent in order to transform the
kinetic energy of the air into the pressure. Typical views of the air intakes are shown.
.
Compressor
The function of a compressor is to increase the pressure of incoming air so that
the combustion process could be done effectively. There are two methods by which the
compression is effected, basically classified with regards to the direction of flow of air.
The centrifugal compressor consists of an impeller and a diffuser. Air enters the
compressor at the centre of the impeller and is then compressed by the rotational motion
of the impeller. Thus the rotational velocity of air is increased. This increase in velocity is
converted to increase in pressure through the diffuser. In this type of compressor, air flow
takes a full 90º before entering the combustion chamber.
The axial flow compressor consists of a series of rotating rotor blades followed by a
stationary row of stator blades, whose combination is called a stage. An axial compressor
usually has many numbers of such stages to achieve the desired pressure increment.
Basically, the velocity of air is increased through rotor blades and pressure is increased
when the high velocity air pass through the stator blades. This happens subsequently so
that a high outlet pressure from the compressor is achieved. In this type of compressor,
air flows parallel to the axis of the engine. To obtain a higher operational flexibility, the
compressor may consist of two or more rotating assemblies each rotating at its optimum
speeds.
Centrifugal Impeller
Modern high performance engines invariably utilize the axial flow compressor,
and many small engines use the centrifugal flow compressor.
Combustion Chamber
The function of a combustion chamber or combustor is to burn the fuel – air
mixture and to direct the products of combustion onto the turbine. Air enters the
combustion chamber at a very high pressure and high velocity. The velocity of air is
slightly slowed down before entering the combustion chamber so that a stable
combustion may take place. Otherwise the flame will be blown away by air. Usually, a
very small proportion air is actually burnt inside the combustion chamber; the remaining
air is used only for cooling purposes. Different types of combustion chamber are
designed. A typical combustion chamber is shown below.
Turbine
The hot gases from the combustion chamber flow through the turbine assembly.
The turbine extracts kinetic energy from these gases and converts into mechanical energy
to drive the compressor. Similar to the construction of an axial flow compressor, the
turbine consists of a series of stationary stator blades and rotating rotor blades. The
number of such stages to be employed depends on the amount of power to be extracted.
The turbines operate in a torturous environment and the materials from which they are
fabricated should be able to withstand high temperatures and severe stresses.
Section view of a typical gas turbine is shown below.
Pictures of some of the turbine parts shown below.
Typical Stator
Typical turbine rotors
Gas generator rotor
Nozzle guide vane of a gas turbine engine
Fuel system
The function of the fuel system are to provide the engine with fuel in a form suitable
for combustion and control the flow to the required quantity necessary for easy
starting, acceleration and stable running at all engine operating conditions. To do this
one or more fuel pumps are used to deliver the fuel to the fuel spray nozzle, which
injects into the combustion chamber in form of an atomized spray. A view of typical
fuel system is shown below.
Fuel pump assy.
Oil System
The lubrication system is required to provide lubrication and cooling for all gears,
bearings and splines. A view of the lube system is shown below.
Exhaust System:
The purpose of a nozzle is to expand the gases to the atmosphere and in
doing so give a final velocity impetus to the gases. The hot gases flowing from the
turbine are straightened in an exhaust pipe. It then expands to the atmosphere through the
nozzle. The nozzle may be shaped like a simple converging cone for low speed aircraft.
Its shape differs to a converging then diverging cone for high speed aircraft. This is done
for the proper expansion of gases. A typical view of exhaust system is shown below.
These are the major components of a gas turbine engine. Gas turbine engines are
comprised of several other important components. Any number of variations in or
arrangements of these components are possible. But the intention is always the same
– to achieve the required thrust.
3. Aero engine manufacture, Assembly, overhaul &testing.
During the design stage of the aircraft gas turbine engine, close liaison is required to
be maintained between design, manufacturing, development and product support to
ensure that the final design is a mach between the engineering specification and the
manufacturing process capability.
The functioning of jet engines with its high power to weight ratio, demand the
highest possible performance from the each components. Consistence with these
requirements, each components must be manufactured at lowest possible weight and
cost and also provide mechanical integrity through a long service life.
Consequently, the methods used during the manufacture are diverse and are usually
determined by the duties each component has to full fill.
No manufacturing technique or process that in any way offers an advantage is
ignored and most available engineering methods and processes are employed in the
manufacture of these engines. In some instances, the technique or process may appear
by some standards to be elaborate, time consuming and expensive, but is only
adopted after confirmation that it does produce maximized component lives
comparable with test rig achievements.
Engine components are produced from a variety of materials like Aluminium
alloy, Magnesium alloy, high tensile steel and high temperature nickel and cobalt
alloy. Forgings and castings are used to manufacture various engine components. A
proportion of components are cast using the investment casting process. Whilst
fabrications, which form an increasing content, are produced from materials such as
stainless steel, titanium and nickel alloys using modern joining techniques i.e.,
tungsten inert gas welding, resistance welding, electron beam welding and high
temperature brazing in vacuum furnaces.
The methods of machining engine components include grinding, turning,
drilling, boring and broaching whenever possible, with the more difficult materials
and configurations being machined by electro-discharge, electro-chemical, laser hole
drilling and chemical size reduction.
Structural components i.e., cold spoiler, location rings and by-pass ducts,
benefit by considerable weight saving when using composite materials.
In addition to the many manufacturing methods, chemical and thermal professes are used
on part finished and finished components. These include heat treatment, electro-plating,
chromate sealing, chemical treatments, anodizing to prevent corrosion, chemical
treatments, chemical cleaning and mechanical cleaning, wet and dry abrasive blasting,
polishing, plasma spraying, electrolytic etching and polishing to reveal metallurgical
defects. Also a variety of barreling techniques for removal of burrs and surface
improvement are used for the finishing of the components. Most processes are concerned
with surface changes, some give resistance to corrosion whilst others can be used to
release unwanted stress.
The main structure of an aero gas turbine engine is formed by a number of circular
casings, which are assembled and secured together by flanged joints and couplings
located with dowels and tenons. These engines use curvic and hurth couplings to enable
accurate concentricity of mating assemblies which in turn assist an airline operator when
maintenance is required.
5. Forging:
The engine drive shafts, compressor discs, turbine discs and gear trains are forged
to as near optimum shape as is practicable. Compressor blades with thin airfoil
sections with varying degrees of camber and twist are forged in a variety of alloys.
Nevertheless precision forging of these blades is a recognized practice and enables
one to be produced from a shaped die with the minimum of further work.
The high operating temperatures at which the turbine discs must operate
necessitates the use of nickel base alloys. The compressor discs at the front end are
produced from titanium. The higher strength of Titanium at the moderate operating
temperatures together with its lower weight provides considerable advantage over
steel.
Forging calls for a very close control of the temperature during the various
operations, an exceptionally high standard of furnace control equipment, careful
maintenance and cleanliness of the forging hammers, presses and dies.
Annular combustion rings can be cold forged to exacting tolerances and surfaces
which alleviates the need for further machining before welding together to produce
the combusting casing.
H.P. Compressor casings of the gas turbine engine are forged as rings or half rings
which, when assembled together, form the rigid structure of the engine. They are
produced in various materials, i.e., stainless steel, titanium and nickel alloys.
6. CASTING:
An increased percentage of the gas turbine engine is produced from cast components
using sand casting. Typical example of die and investment casting technique is shown
below.
Investment casting is becoming the most acceptable technique in use because of its
capability to produce components with surface that require no further machining. It is
essential that all the castings are defect free by discipline of cleanliness during
process of casting otherwise they could cause component failure.
All castings are inspected/tested for correct chemical composition and mechanical
properties and are subjected to radiological and microscopic examinations to make
sure that the castings are defects free.
The complexity of configurations together with tight tolerances in size and
surface finish is totally dependent upon close liaison with design, manufacturing,
metallurgist, chemist, die maker, furnace operator and final caster.
In the pursuit of ever increasing performance, turbine blades are produced from
high temperature nickel alloys that are cast by the investment casting or ‘lost wax’
technique. Directionally solidified and single crystal turbine blades are cast using this
technique in order to extend their cyclic lives.
Automatic casting is used in the production of equi-axed, directionally solidified
and single crystal turbine blades. The lost wax process is unparallel in its ability to
provide the highest standards of surface finish, repeatable accuracy and surface detail
in a cast component. The increasing demands of the engine have manifested itself in
the need to limit grain boundaries and provide complex internal passages. The moulds
used for directionally solidified and single crystal castings differ from conventional
moulds in that they are open at both ends; the base of a mould forms a socketed
bayonet fitting into which a chill plate is located during casting. Metal is introduced
from the central sprue into the mould cavities via a ceramic filter. These and
orientated seed crystals, if required, are assembled with the patterns prior to
investment. Extensive automation is possible to ensure the wax patterns are coated
with shell material consistently by using robots. The final casting can also have their
rises removed using elastic cut-off wheels driven from robot arms.
Investment casting
7. Fabrication
Major components of the gas turbine engine i.e, bearing housings, combustion
and turbine casings, exhaust units, jet pipes, by-pass mixer units and low pressure
compressor casings can be produced as fabricated assemblies using sheet materials
such as stainless steel, titanium and varying types of nickel alloys.
Other fabrication techniques for the manufacture of the low pressure compressor
wide chord fan blade dies, hot twisted in a furnace and finally hot creep formed to
achieve the necessary configuration. Chemical milling is used to recess the centre of
each panel which sandwiches a honeycomb are finally joined together using
automated furnaces where an activated diffusion bonding process takes place.
Typical CNC Machine
8. Welding
Welding processes are used extensively in the fabrication of gas turbine engine
components i.e., resistance welding by spot and seam, tungsten inert gas and electron
beam are amongst the most widely used ones today. Care has to be taken to limit the
distortion and shrinkage associated with these techniques.
Tungsten inert gas (T.I.G) welding
The most common form of tungsten inert gas welding in use is the direct current
straight polarity i.e. electrode negative pole. This is widely used and the most
economical method of producing high quality welds for the range of high
strength/high temperature materials used in gas turbine engines. For this class of
work, high purity argon shielding gas is fed to both sides of the weld and the welding
torch nozzle is fitted with a gas lens to ensure maximum efficiency for shielding gas
coverage. A consumable four percent throated tungsten electrode, together with a
suitable non-contact method of arc starting is used and the weld current is reduced in
a controlled manner at the end of each weld to prevent the formation of finishing
cracks. All welds are visually and penetrates inspected and in addition, welds
associate with rotating parts i.e. compressor and/or turbine are radio logically
examined to quality acceptance standards. During welding operations and to aid in
the control of distortion and shrinkage the use of an expanding fixture is
recommended and whenever possible, mechanized welding is employed together with
the pulsed arc technique
A typical T.I.G welding operation is illustrated below.
This system, which can use either low or high voltage, uses a high power density
beam of electrons to join a wide range of different materials and of varying thickness.
The welding machine comprises an electron gun, optical viewing system, work
chamber and handling equipment, vacuum pumping system, high or low voltage
power supply and operating controls. Many major rotating assemblies for gas turbine
engines are manufactured as single items in steel, titanium and nickel alloys and
joined together i.e., intermediate and high pressure compressor drums. This technique
allows design flexibility in that distortion and shrinkage are reduced and dissimilar
materials, to serve quite different functions, can be homogenously joined together.
For example, the H.P turbine stub shafts requiring a stable bearing steel welded to a
material which can expand with the mating turbine disc. Automation has been
enhanced by the application of computer numerical control to the work handling and
manipulation. Seam tracking ensures that the joint is accurately followed and close
loop under bead control guarantees that the full depth of material thickness is welded.
Aero engines, especially military engines are put through their extreme limits of
performance and spend a higher proportion of their time off the wings than their civil
counterparts. It is therefore absolutely critical to achieve fast throughput in a test facility
and the engine should be returned to service as quickly as possible. Historically, test beds
were designed and built by engine developer for their testing needs.
Aero engine testing starts with the evaluation of design, development testing, type
testing for certification to testing newly manufactured and overhauled engine prior to
introduction to service. Aero engines undergo extensive development testing prior to
production. Test requirements for a developed engine are well defined and are far simpler
compared to development test requirements.
Early test beds were designed for specific testing requirements of specific
engines. Developmental test beds are flexible in nature with lots instrumentation to cater
to changing nature of test requirements and large data collection. Production test beds are
designed and built to satisfy specific test requirements. With the cost of an engine test
facility brought down to the cost of a single engine, these facilities can be acquired by
every operator thereby reducing testing cost and low off-wing times.
A modern test facility comprises of an acoustic enclosure with intake and exhaust,
a test stand and adapter frame, a preparation area for pre-rigging the engines, a fuel
measurement and delivery system and a control room and console with fully
computerized advanced data processing system giving online color video monitoring
displays with graphical plotting and tabular data recording. Engine mounting time is
reduced by using quick pre-rigged adapter frames located by self-aligning arrangement.
With advancements in test bed design with neutral test cell configurations,
maintenance and overhaul units of aero engines can utilize the facility to the maximum
extent. The engines can be accurately and quickly tested in an advanced facility after
maintenance or overhaul and inducted into service with more confidence.
Development engines are required to be type tested for certification. These tests need not
be done for the certified production engine. Test results of these tests may be used for
improvement in design. Typical vibration test for the certification is shown below.
Arrangement is made for the engine mounting and dismounting in the test cell by
providing the crane in the test cell. Engine is normally prepared in the preparation stand
for the test prior to mounting in the test cell.
The picture below shows a test cell view of high by pass engine test facility.
Testing of High bypass engine
The test facility may be of different type. An overhang facility in which engine is over
hanged in thrust stand has better suited for testing of different verities of engines in same
test facility
Jet engine test bed
Engine performance parameters are indicated on the control console. Reading of different
performance parameter are noted/ acquired and analyzed to evaluate the engine
performance and pass it for use in the service
Typical engine test bed console
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