Fiber-Reinforced Structures for Turbine Engine Rotor Fragment Containment. Phase 2

摘要

This program developed the designs for lightweight, fiber-reinforced structures to contain turbine engine rotor failures. These containment ring designs were based on a hybrid sandwich panel concept whose core consisted of several plies of a dry, ballistic fabric laminate. The structure of the panel consisted of metal facesheets mechanically connected with many small-diameter rods penetrating through the thickness of the fabric core laminate. This concept was developed by testing containment rings against a fixed energy level provided by the tri-hub disk burst of a T-53 power turbine stage. Ten spin tests were performed and the ring designs were varied to obtain the lightest-weight ring which would contain the rotor burst. Facesheet and rod structural elements were fabricated from either aluminum or titanium and candidate core materials were S glass, Kevlar(registered), and Zylon(registered) (PBO). The Kevlar and Zylon organic fabrics performed well even at elevated temperature while the S glass was not very effective. Finally, a Kevlar/titanium containment ring design developed during the program was tested on a full-scale T-53 engine. The containment ring stopped the three disk fragments as they began to penetrate the engine case wall. This program resulted in containment ring and hybrid structure designs which can be used in either existing or new installations to satisfy specific containment requirements for certification.