A Whole Operation Life Cycle Model of Gas Turbine Blades Under Multi-Physics Based on Variation of Blade Profile Parameters

For long-term operation, blades start to show some defects with increasing operating hours, such as fouling, erosion, corrosion, damage and tip clearance. As the basic unit components of gas turbines, the health conditions of blades directly affect the energy conversation efficiency and service life of the whole equipment. The process from first installation to scrap is blades’ whole operation life cycle. It is an effective way to establish the whole operation life cycle model of blades for real-time monitoring, troubleshooting and prevention, so as to improve the management of equipment. The current research on the whole operation life cycle model is mostly limited to a single subject, such as thermal effects or stress effects. It lacks a profound analysis of this issue from the multi-disciplinary perspective. Meanwhile, the deterioration of blades influence on geometry variation of the blade surface is not taken into consideration in detail. Therefore, the current blade life model is not accurate enough to represent the actual situation. In this paper, the typical gas path deterioration is characterized by blade profile parameters, including the increment of the blade leading edge thickness, the increment of the blade trailing edge, and the change of the blade surface roughness in the whole operation life cycle model of blades. The influencing factors of aerodynamics and strain are synthetically characterized through the study of their multi-disciplinary influence mechanism. And the relationship between the corresponding influencing factors and the variation of blade profile parameters is established. Thus, the numerical simulation model under multi-physics is built to reveal its distribution and trends of the flow field and stress in the gas path. The result shows that it can protect the blades, ensure safe and stable operation, and reduce the deterioration rate.