Earlier studies concerning flat blades were performed for a Garrett turbine and a GE Aircraft Engine turbine. Another major area of study by DERA and the Ohio State turbine lab team is to measure unsteadiness in turbine loads so that turbine manufacturers can improve the design of their high work turbine stages. This can have a profound influence on component fatigue life. Alstom Power believes this research will yield turbine designs capable of providing a minimum 4 percent increase in turbine efficiency. The first measurements consisted of traverse tests made by positioning sting-mounted probes downstream of the turbine.
Stings are slender metal rods used to project the sensors into place.
The four-sensor probe was designed and manufactured at the Osney Laboratories in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University. This instrument measured the pressure and speed of turbine unsteadiness, as well as its yaw and pitch. The frequency response of the four-sensor probe system was on the order of 100 kHz, sufficient to track pressure changes caused by rotor passing events, which occur at 9.5 kHz. N.J. The company has collaborated with Oxford on the development of jet engine sensors for a quarter-century. The XCQ 062 is a piezoresistive pressure transducer consisting of two layers of single crystal silicon wafer.