A new tool for automation of mission analysis process for aero-engine turbine rotors

Abstract

The life of a turbine blade rotor is a critical parameter in the design and operation of a gas turbine engine. The component’s life depends on the mission it will perform, which refers to the environmental conditions it will be exposed to during the different phases of a flight, such as take-off, climbing, and cruise. Since these operating conditions will affect the turbine rotor’s life, they must be considered during the life evaluation. This procedure is called “mission analysis” and it requires a series of thermal, structural and lifing analysis in a sequence. Besides being essential, mission analysis is a highly intensive process. Dozens of missions may need to be analyzed for just one turbine blade geometry. For each mission, a sequence of thermal, structural and lifing analyses must be performed and for each analysis, files must be named and stored manually, and the right files must be provided to the tools. Since a large amount of data is produced for each mission and each analysis, handling them manually and transferring data between analyses may lead loss of productivity as number of missions increases. Automation of the overall process and integration of different analyses offers an efficient solution to save time and avoid unnecessary repetitions. This research aims to develop a new automation tool for the mission analysis process of turbine rotors as a part of an Industrial Research Chair (IRC , 2011-2028) at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS). The automation tool is called AMAP (Automated Mission Analysis Process), and it targets minimizing manual work to be done by the engineers, streamline the process, provide a well-defined workflow and well-structured data management to the engineering teams. A time gain of 20% to 65% was obtained in the evaluation of the tool compared to manual procedures. Moreover, an average time reduction of approximately 30% is expected for a typical test case. This will enhance the quality and productivity of the turbine design process by shortening design time, reducing costs, and eventually leading to more dependable turbine designs.

Date	13 Sept 2025
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Saïd Hany Moustapha (Supervisor) & Patrick Germain (Co-supervisor)