Improving the Measurement Uncertainty of Altitude Test Facility for Turbine Engines

가스터빈엔진 고공성능시험설비의 측정불확도 개선

An Altitude Engine Test Facility(AETF) was built at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute in October 1999 and has been being operated for altitude testing of the gas turbine engines of 3,000 Ibf class or less. The AETF has been calibrated using several engines such as J69 engine of Teledyne Co. as a facility checkout engine. Based on the test results, uncertainty analyses on the air flow rate and thrust were performed according to ASME PTC 19.1-1998. As the analyses showed that the level of uncertainty was not satisfactory over the whole operating envelop, several modifications of the facility and testing method were made in order to improve the measurement uncertainty. As a result, the uncertainty of the air flow measurement was improved by 0.1 % over all the test conditions, and the net thrust measurement by upto 3%. The improved measurement uncertainties of air flow and thrust are 0.68-0.73% and 0.4-1.3%, respectively.