Preliminaries

Abstract

The research work presented in this book was inspired by Rolls-Royce’s desire to explore the application and impact which recent and predicted advances in technology will have on gas turbine engines in the year 2000. Many areas are being investigated, from the use of ceramics for turbine blades, to new control strategies based around a simplified fuel system, notably the “pump and tap” concept. These new controllers will have to be able to control engines with a much higher degree of variable geometry in the form of variable position blades and multivariable nozzle control as well as variable bypass flow control. There is also a move to combine reheat engine control within the main engine controller. The requirement for processing to cope with these advances in control will put greater demands upon the engine control processors. In addition to this, currently, engine health monitoring is performed by an Engine Monitoring Unit (EMU) which is physically separate from the main control computers. The integration of the tasks carried out by this unit within the main control computers is desirable in order to reduce system complexity and weight. Already there is a need for increased health monitoring of engines and in future engines the degree of health monitoring needed will be far greater. Although processor throughput is increasing with the use of submicron technology to give higher clocking rates, it is likely that the demands on future systems will outstrip these advances and make the use of parallel processing essential.