Challenges With Heated Spin Testing on High Speed Rotating Parts
Turbine engines are growing progressively hotter and more strenuous for rotating components in the hot section. This is a natural byproduct of the relentless push for more efficient engines, but improved efficiency comes with its own challenges.
As engines optimize their output, high-speed rotating parts are pushed ever closer to their mechanical limits, potentially reducing engine life and increasing costs for turbine maintenance, part replacement, or worse — catastrophic failures and downtime. New and improved materials, test methods, and heat-resistant coatings are in high demand.
Spin Tests Must Align With Modern Challenges
Heated spin testing is critical to the success of the engine development cycle. A conventional spin test is a component validation method that demonstrates the impact of centrifugal forces on high-speed rotating parts such as discs and turbine blades.
When the test is heated, it better simulates engine-like conditions and the types of complex thermal stresses that engine materials and components will experience in the field. High-speed rotating parts in the hot section must operate at nearly the limit of their material strength while under extreme centrifugal loads. At such incredible temperatures, materials are more susceptible to oxidation, corrosion, creep, and microstructural damage that can lead to cracks and failures.
Engine components are not the only things that must endure such stresses, however. Your heating spin testing equipment must also be up to the task. Common spin testing challenges include:
Frequent Sensor Reinstrumentation
Limited measurement survivability can become a substantial cost and time sink. No team hopes to devote funds and installation time to temperature sensors, only to discover they are unable to survive at engine-like temperatures on high-speed rotating parts. Temperature sensor durability is a primary concern.
Adhesive Failures
If your rotating temperature measurement system is unable to remain adhered at the high temperatures of the hot chamber, heated spin testing may need to be called off or the test data wasted. High-temperature bonding materials are necessary.
Limited Temperature Models
Some temperature and health tracking solutions are only capable of recording the highest temperatures experienced within a heat cycle. A nuanced understanding of engine performance requires real-time continuous insights in a visual model that tracks the progress of heat performance throughout the engine cycle. Ideally, test measurements can continue to operate in the field for long-term health monitoring, rather than only in isolated test stands during the development cycle.
Improve Heated Spin Testing With Sensatek
Sensatek’s TurboTrackTM measurement system for high-speed rotating parts is proven to operate in excess of 10,000 RPM in heated spin tests at temperatures exceeding 800 °C (1,472°F). Our sensors have been extensively tested and rated to provide 40,000 hours of operating life at base engine loads — while remaining solidly adhered — for long-term testing that lives beyond the test stand and continues into the field. Most importantly, the diminutive form factor of our wireless, polymer-derived ceramic sensor patches makes it fast and easy to install numerous sensors without the time or expense of routing complex networks of wires or tearing down the engine.
Get in touch with the Sensatek team today to learn more about TurboTrackTM and how our system can eliminate the typical obstacles faced in heated spin testing on high-speed rotating parts.