Comparing Lensed and Un-Lensed Optical Spot Probes for Blade Tip Timing Measurements

Author(s):  
Bruce D. Hockaday

Detection of airfoil time-of-arrival with optical probes has been evolving since the 1980s. Time of arrival data are used to infer airfoil stresses caused by vibration through a sequence of manipulations. The data conversion begins by converting arrival time to blade position, so blade deflection can be determined from the expected non-vibrating position. Various methods are used in the industry to convert deflection data to frequency, amplitude, and stress, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Regardless of the analytical approach used, producing accurate stress information relies on the precise detection and measurement of time-of-arrival, which equates to blade position. Optical spot probes are commonly employed for blade tip sensing. Two dominant types of fiber optic probes are used in industry today; 1) un-lensed probes having their numerical aperture (NA) defined by the optical fiber and 2) lensed probes, utilizing an imaging lens to control numerical aperture and spot size. The lens adds cost and complexity to the probe but allows the probe to be installed farther away from the blade tip while keeping the sensing area small. The low-cost un-lensed probes must be installed close to the blade tip since the optical beam diverges at the angle defined by the NA of the fiber. These probes are considered interchangeable, with little regard to the inherent geometric optical differences of the beam transmission into the space where the blade travels. This paper presents a laboratory study comparing the performance characteristics between lensed and un-lensed spot probes. The study evaluates signal amplitude and rise time and arrival errors due to optical interaction with varying tip radii geometry. The study reports rise time as return signal strength as a function of circumferential location and sensing gap. Arrival errors are reported as circumferential location errors compared to a sharp reference edge as a function of the blade-to-sensor gap. The work is presented in terms of arrival location, producing information that is independent of rotation speed and vibratory mode.

Author(s):  
Bruce D. Hockaday

Detection of airfoil time of arrival with optical probes has been evolving since the 1980s. Time of arrival data are used to infer airfoil stresses caused by vibration through a sequence of manipulations. The data conversion begins by converting arrival time to blade position, so blade deflection can be determined from the expected non-vibrating position. Various methods are used in the industry to convert deflection data to frequency, amplitude, and stress, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Regardless of the analytical approach used, producing accurate stress information relies on the precise detection and measurement of time of arrival, which equates to blade position. Recent improvements have been made in time of arrival system accuracy by running faster clocks to increase temporal resolution of the measurement. Greater timing resolution, afforded by clock speed, will have diminishing returns when probe and blade-tip interactions begin producing dominant errors. In the case of optical probes, the blade-tip needs to be treated as a curved reflector in the optical system that is capable of introducing dynamic errors. In engine operation the blade-tip moves axially under the probe from untwist, static deflection, and vibration, causing the light to reflect from different parts of the blade-tip. This relative movement between the probe and blade-tip cause the arrival time to change dynamically. Neglecting the dynamic arrival errors caused by the blade-tip’s optical properties will result in blade deflection-errors that propagate into the stress information. This paper presents a laboratory study that quantifies time of arrival errors due to optical interaction with tip radii. The study reports measured arrival position error as a function of location and optical signal power levels. The work is presented in terms of arrival position, producing information that is independent of rotational speed, and vibratory mode.


2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (S2) ◽  
pp. 148-149
Author(s):  
C.D. Poweleit ◽  
J Menéndez

Oil immersion lenses have been used in optical microscopy for a long time. The light’s wavelength is decreased by the oil’s index of refraction n and this reduces the minimum spot size. Additionally, the oil medium allows a larger collection angle, thereby increasing the numerical aperture. The SIL is based on the same principle, but offers more flexibility because the higher index material is solid. in particular, SILs can be deployed in cryogenic environments. Using a hemispherical glass the spatial resolution is improved by a factor n with respect to the resolution obtained with the microscope’s objective lens alone. The improvement factor is equal to n2 for truncated spheres.As shown in Fig. 1, the hemisphere SIL is in contact with the sample and does not affect the position of the focal plane. The focused rays from the objective strike the lens at normal incidence, so that no refraction takes place.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (06) ◽  
pp. 1650063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingwen Sun ◽  
Jian Sun ◽  
Yunji Yi ◽  
Lucheng Qv ◽  
Shiqi Sun ◽  
...  

A low-cost and high-speed electro-optic (EO) switch using the guest–host EO material Disperse Red 1/Polymethyl Methacrylate (DR1/PMMA) was designed and fabricated. The DR1/PMMA material presented a low processing cost, an excellent photostability and a large EO coefficient of 13.1 pm/V. To improve the performance of the switch, the in-plane buried electrode structure was introduced in the polymer Mach–Zehnder waveguide to improve the poling and modulating efficiency. The characteristic parameters of the waveguide and the electrodes were carefully designed and the fabrication process was strictly controlled. Under 1550 nm, the insertion loss of the device was 12.7 dB. The measured switching rise time and fall time of the switch were 50.00 ns and 54.29 ns, respectively.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Julian Deuerling ◽  
Shaun Keck ◽  
Inasya Moelyadi ◽  
Jens-Uwe Repke ◽  
Matthias Rädle

This work presents a novel method for the non-invasive, in-line monitoring of mixing processes in microchannels using the Raman photometric technique. The measuring set-up distinguishes itself from other works in this field by utilizing recent state-of-the-art customized photon multiplier (CPM) detectors, bypassing the use of a spectrometer. This addresses the limiting factor of integration times by achieving measuring rates of 10 ms. The method was validated using the ternary system of toluene–water–acetone. The optical measuring system consists of two functional units: the coaxial Raman probe optimized for excitation at a laser wavelength of 532 nm and the photometric detector centered around the CPMs. The spot size of the focused laser is a defining factor of the spatial resolution of the set-up. The depth of focus is measured at approx. 85 µm with a spot size of approx. 45 µm, while still maintaining a relatively high numerical aperture of 0.42, the latter of which is also critical for coaxial detection of inelastically scattered photons. The working distance in this set-up is 20 mm. The microchannel is a T-junction mixer with a square cross section of 500 by 500 µm, a hydraulic diameter of 500 µm and 70 mm channel length. The extraction of acetone from toluene into water is tracked at an initial concentration of 25% as a function of flow rate and accordingly residence time. The investigated flow rates ranged from 0.1 mL/min to 0.006 mL/min. The residence times from the T-junction to the measuring point varies from 1.5 to 25 s. At 0.006 mL/min a constant acetone concentration of approx. 12.6% was measured, indicating that the mixing process reached the equilibrium of the system at approx. 12.5%. For prototype benchmarking, comparative measurements were carried out with a commercially available Raman spectrometer (RXN1, Kaiser Optical Systems, Ann Arbor, MI, USA). Count rates of the spectrophotometer surpassed those of the spectrometer by at least one order of magnitude at identical target concentrations and optical power output. The experimental data demonstrate the suitability and potential of the new measuring system to detect locally and time-resolved concentration profiles in moving fluids while avoiding external influence.


Author(s):  
Laura Pacyna ◽  
Alexandre Bertret ◽  
Alain Derclaye ◽  
Luc Papeleux ◽  
Jean-Philippe Ponthot

Abstract To investigate the contact phenomenon between the blade tip and the abradable coated casing, a rig test was designed and built. This rig test fills the following constraints: simplification of the low-pressure compressor environment but realistic mechanical conditions, ability to test several designs in short time, at low cost and repeatability. The rig test gives the opportunity to investigate the behavior of different blade designs regarding the sought phenomenon, to refine and mature the phenomenon comprehension and to get data for the numerical tool validation. The numerical tool considers a 3D finite elements model of low-pressure compressor blades with a surrounding rigid casing combined with a specialized model to take into account the effects of the wear of the abradable coating on the blade dynamics. Numerical results are in good agreement with tests in terms of: critical angular speed, blade dynamics and wear pattern on the abradable coated casing.


Author(s):  
C. Landry ◽  
B. Picard ◽  
T. Parent-Simard ◽  
J.-S. Plante ◽  
M. Picard

The integration of monolithic ceramic blades into sub-megawatt microturbines is a low-cost option for increasing Turbine Inlet Temperature and efficiency. The Inside-Out Ceramic Turbine (ICT) is a promising concept for the integration of ceramic blades by loading each blades in compression using a carbon-polymer composite rim to convert the blade radial loads to tangential hoop stress. High tangential velocities lead to elevated radial displacement of the rim and, therefore, the rotor hub needs to be able to maintain the contact with the blades for a large range of radial displacements. This displacements comes with hub structural challenges and rotordynamics considerations. For these reasons, blade tip speed have been previously limited to about 360 m/s. This paper presents a hub design that allows high radial displacement using the combination of inclined blade roots, inclined hub grooves and an axial spring. The contact between the blade root and the hub is maintained through the inclined planes by the axial forces from the spring creating internal friction in the rotor that can induce sub-synchronous rotordynamics instabilities. The onset of instabilities is investigated experimentally with cold spin tests of a simplified ICT prototype. The results first show that the concept remains stable up to the maximum speed tested of 127 kRPM (tip speed of 387 m/s) if the spring is designed such that it remains in contact with the blade roots at all time. On the other hand, when reducing the preload sufficiently to test the limits of the concept, the rotor first mode became unstable at 120 kRPM resulting in failure of the prototype. These results suggest that, provided a sufficient spring preload to prevent excessive relative motion, the blades can reach the desired radial displacements, removing the main constraint on ICT tip speed.


1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1302-1307 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Oohashi ◽  
M. Fukuda ◽  
Y. Kondo ◽  
N. Wada ◽  
Y. Tohmori ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3675
Author(s):  
Zhibo Liu ◽  
Fajie Duan ◽  
Guangyue Niu ◽  
Ling Ma ◽  
Jiajia Jiang ◽  
...  

Rotating blade vibration measurements are very important for any turbomachinery research and development program. The blade tip timing (BTT) technique uses the time of arrival (ToA) of the blade tip passing the casing mounted probes to give the blade vibration. As a non-contact technique, BTT is necessary for rotating blade vibration measurements. The higher accuracy of amplitude and vibration frequency identification has been pursued since the development of BTT. An improved circumferential Fourier fit (ICFF) method is proposed. In this method, the ToA is not only dependent on the rotating speed and monitoring position, but also on blade vibration. Compared with the traditional circumferential Fourier fit (TCFF) method, this improvement is more consistent with reality. A 12-blade assembly simulator and experimental data were used to evaluate the ICFF performance. The simulated results showed that the ICFF performance is comparable to TCFF in terms of EO identification, except the lower PSR or more number probes that have a more negative effect on ICFF. Besides, the accuracy of amplitude identification is higher for ICFF than TCFF on all test conditions. Meanwhile, the higher accuracy of the reconstruction of ICFF was further verified in all measurement resonance analysis.


Author(s):  
Jindrich Liska ◽  
Jan Jakl ◽  
Vojtech Vasicek

Ensuring the reliability of the steam turbine is fundamental task for its proper operation. Early detection of any failure avoids material and financial losses. A very important task in turbomachinery diagnostics is monitoring of rotating blades vibration, especially in terms of the last stages of low-pressure turbine parts, where, in general, the vibration can reach the important level due the blades length. The commonly used methods are based on stress evaluation using strain gauges or on the non-contact measurement of blade tips – blade tip-timing (BTT) method. Rising demand for low-cost monitoring systems suitable for blade monitoring has led to development of a new approach based on signal processing of standard turbine instrumentation. The symptoms of blade vibration could be also visible in signals from relative shaft vibration (SV) sensors, which are standardly installed in turbine journal bearings. This paper illustrates the principles and possibilities of the approach based on processing of SV signals for monitoring of actual state of rotating blades. Finally, the comparison of parallel measurements using SV and BTT in operation of steam turbine reveals the properties and advantages of both methods.


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