A qualitative evaluation method for engine and its operating-envelope using GSP (Gas turbine Simulation Program)

Regarding to the project SUAV (Smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) in KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute), several engine configurations has been evaluated. However it's not an easy task to collect all the necessary data of each engine for the analysis. Usually, some kind of modeling technique is required in order to determine the unknown data. In the present paper a qualitative method for reverse engineering is proposed, in order to identify some design patterns and relationships between parameters. The method can be used to estimate several parameters that usually are not provided by the manufacturer. The method consists of modeling an existing engine and through a simulation, compare its transient behavior with its operating envelope. In the simulation several parameters such as thermodynamics, performance, safety and mechanics concerning to the definition of operation-envelope, have been discussed qualitatively. With the model, all engine parameters can be estimated with acceptable accuracy, making possible the study of dependencies among different parameters such as power-turbine total inertia, TIT, take-off time and part load, in order to check if the engine transient performance is within the design criteria. For more realistic approach and more detailed design requirements, it will be necessary to enhance the compressor map first, and more realistic estimated values must be taken into account for intake-loss, bleed-air and auxiliary power extraction. The relative importance of these “unknown” parameters must be evaluated using sensitivity analysis in the future evaluation. Moreover, fluid dynamics, thermal analysis and stress analysis necessary for the resulting life assessment of en engine, will not be addressed here but in a future paper. With the methodology presented in the paper was possible to infer the relationships between operation-envelope and engine parameters.