Transient Electrical Power Response Enhancement for Turbine Driven Generators

Airborne electrical power requirements are increasing significantly to support Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, electronic attack suites, and directed energy weapons for military applications. When the electric generator is directly coupled to the propulsion engine, relatively large electric torque transients are often introduced with dynamics faster than previously handled by the engine control system. These transients may have serious implications with regard to stall margins, mechanical stress, speed regulation, and available thrust. To address challenges posed by such transients, PCKA will partner with Rolls-Royce Corporation (RRC) to develop novel architectures and system control strategies to maximize transient turbine engine performance of a high mach missile system. In the proposed Phase I effort, PCKA will collaborate with ONR, AFRL, and RRC to define such architectures along with representative operational profiles. PCKA will create dynamic system models to simulate and analyze the resulting architectures. Simulation results will be used to optimize system controls to maximize transient performance capabilities of the turbine engine. If successful, Phase II efforts will refine MS&A results and support a hardware demonstration of the most promising approaches. If successful, developed technologies will ultimately transition to DoD programs under a Phase III contract.