On digital technologies for managing the life cycle of a gas turbine engine
04.11.2021
The widespread use of digital twins allows the enterprises of the United Engine Corporation to reduce investment in production by 40% and significantly accelerate the development of new products.
To compete in the marketplace, it is necessary to demonstrate an advantage in development speed and product quality. Today, one of the key indicators for the UEC is the speed of launching new products on the market.
Previously, any gas turbine engine traveled from paper to production in 15-18 years. The new PD-14 engine was developed and put into mass production in 10 years, and with the PD-8 engine, UEC-Aviadvigatel and UEC-Perm Motors plan to keep within 5 years. This is basically impossible without digitalization of product lifecycle management.
How was the engine designed before? By order of the central design bureau, other design bureaus developed individual engine components on paper: compressors, turbines, rotation parts. The results were sent by mail to the central design bureau for approval. Such a process may not be effective.
Today, all UEC design bureaus operate in a single virtual master model of the product being designed. The model itself coordinates the elements with each other and shows in real time how, for example, fuel automation affects the combustion chamber, which is being designed by another team at the same time. This technology allows you to take into account a large number of interrelated factors. The designer is able to keep in mind two, three, four parameters interconnected. And when there are thousands of them, you can only follow them in numbers.
Another area where digital twins cannot be dispensed with today is engine testing. Reliability is the most important characteristic that the power plant together with the airframe must provide, especially in civil aviation. To confirm this reliability, full-scale tests are carried out.
Previously, a pilot had to fly an aircraft for three years in different modes, including overload mode, in order to study what critical parameters lead to this or that destruction. Now a significant part of the tests has been transferred to the virtual space. Digitalization makes it possible to reduce, reduce the cost and simplify this process: thanks to calculation models, you can avoid wasting enormous human resources and not producing unnecessary expensive samples, avoiding the consumption of aviation fuel and reducing the amount of emissions into the atmosphere.
But some of the tests are still being carried out on "live" engines. Among the technologies involved, one can single out digital control of parameters on test benches. This is not quite artificial intelligence yet, but the program makes some decisions on its own. If a situation arises that can lead to the destruction of the engine, damage to the test bench and a threat to the lives of the testers, the program automatically stops the installation.
Predictive analytics can work not only in testing but also in production. The technology allows collecting information from sensors on machine tools, comparing it with retrospective data of the same sensors and generating a forecast. For example, this is how you can predict the failure of equipment.
The self-learning system generates a trend and signals to the mechanics that, for example, with a 90% probability, after 25 hours of operation, such and such a bearing will fail. This will lead to an accident on the machine, the guide will go away, and you will have to carry out major repairs. The system allows you to prevent such a situation, stop the machine, replace the unit and do with less losses.
When about 15 years ago, the UEC only began to introduce digital technologies, no one had yet talked about digitalization and artificial intelligence, it was about automation. Now digitalization in engine building is a seamless management of the entire life cycle of a product from idea to mass production and service maintenance, right up to its disposal when the engine has exhausted itself. Virtually every leading enterprise in the industry is already approaching the full realization of such a cycle.
At the same time, digitalization remains a tool that does not work without a person's creativity. Decisions are still made by the engineer: how to interpret the data received from the machine, what conclusions to draw. This is something that has not yet been digitized with decent quality. Systems can prompt a person, give him an idea of improvement, but they themselves cannot yet offer such improvements. Whereas previously the slide rule and calculator were the tools of an engineer, now it is a computer and a digital twin.
Any major investment decision is made only after a simulation model of the future production or workshop has been formed in the virtual space. It may turn out, for example, that the machines are not optimally positioned. And if you arrange them differently, then one of them will complement the other, and the required throughput will be provided not with three, but with two machines. When the whole picture is formed in digital format, the project begins: a new workshop is built, equipment is purchased and placed in the same way as it was tested on a model. By eliminating the human factor from the design process of future production, you can save up to 40% of your investment.
Based on the materials of the magazine "Wings of the Motherland" 9/10/2021, pp. 103-105