Imaging Operating Turbine Engines Using Synchronous Multiplane Tomography (SMT)

Synchronous Multiplane Tomography (SMT) is an X-ray-based nondestructive testing technique that will produce a series of contiguous freeze-frame cross-sectional images of the deep interior of a turbine engine operating at speed. Based on techniques derived from computed tomography, SMT can image interior components of turbine engines while they are hot, running, and under load. SMT is based on physical components and reconstructive algorithms that have been previously developed for other purposes on other programs, mostly under Air Force sponsorship. No new hardware is requiested, only an assembly of existing components and subsystems. In Phase I, Foster-Miller joins with Lockheed, Pratt & Whitney, Boeing and others to present a program that performs an experimental demonstration of the SMT technique to establish performance, that sets requirements and that provides a conceptual design for a full-up SMT system. Quantitative image data from the SMT system can be overlaid with other nondestructive testing and diagnostic data on the IHPTET knowledge template. The Phase I program establishes a cost-benefit plan for the SMT system and a strategy for identifying users. In Phase II we would build and demonstrate a prototype SMT. This prototype system would be essential to the commercialization of SMT through further demonstration and applications development.