Embedded Wear Monitoring Sensors in Additively Manufactured Turbine Seals For High Efficiency Gas Turbines

Higher efficiency of gas turbine engines is limited by increasing air leakages through seals and component interfaces that wear and degrade during long term engine operation. Wear of component interfaces are also time dependent and the local loading and temperature conditions are very hard to model and predict, leading to forced engine outages and significant unplanned maintenance costs. The proposed innovation delivers a direct write wireless wear sensor, integrated with a additively manufactured (AM) transition mouth seal. This allows for a real-time monitoring of component wear and enables scheduling of engine outages, only when component wear is unacceptable. The overall project approach consists of designing trenches/grooves in the AM component to accommodate the direct write wireless wear sensor and calibrating the wear sensor data for potential use in an operational engine. In Phase 1, different trench and groove designs (with varying AM surface roughness due to part orientation) are evaluated that enable a robust adhesion of the direct write wear sensor. These embedded wear sensors are tested for their wear behavior at room and high (~ 500C) temperature and the failure modes of the sensor are documented. Wear and trench design are improved in a second design iteration to improve the sensor performance. The improved design is then incorporated in a prototype part, ready for engine insertion in Phase 2. Advances made in direct-write sensors and wireless signal extraction for harsh environments will have value for a wide variety of related sectors beyond power generation such as Aircraft engines, Energy production, Automotive applications and Military vehicles. All industries that have rotating and vibrating hardware and operating in desert, wet and/or high temperatures will benefit from a real-time wireless monitoring of component wear.