A FRACTIONAL-FACTORIAL INVESTIGATION OF THE DESIGN PARAMETERS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF A PYROMETER PURGE AIR SYSTEM

摘要

One of the most strategically important devices within the field of gas turbine instrumentation is the optical pyrometer for turbine blade temperature measurement. With this instrument, the greatest operational problem is the optical fouling of its lens and the associated design problem is to fit the device within a given size envelope without adversely comprising the effectiveness of the purge air system. Consequently, a statistical-numerical investigation using the design of experiments approach was conducted by utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques to study the trade-offs in purge system design. This paper reports on the study carried out to determine the relative effects of the main geometrical design parameters on the performance of a purge air system using a two-level fractional factorial experiment.