Operational Sand and Particulate Sensor System for Aircraft Gas Turbine Engines

Gas turbine engines with prolonged exposure to sand and dust are susceptible to component and performance degradation and ultimately engine failure. Hal Technology’s proprietary, compact, rugged, flush-mounted, fiber-optic sensor platform measures particulate size, size distributions, and concentration for real-time engine health monitoring. Our proposed sensor will use an innovative hybrid discrimination approach to incorporate material identification along with size, size distributions, and concentration while maintaining the form factor of the current sensor platform. We will use a systematic test matrix to demonstrate this advanced prototype sensor’s capabilities. The sensor platform performs non-intrusive particle measurements with a multiplexed sensor head that has implementation flexibility, reduced thermal management requirements, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and potentially low cost. Our sensor can be integrated into an engine control system to allow early warning of excessive dust loading and provide information to help manage the health and durability of an aero-turbine engine.