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Internet operation of aero gas turbines

Internet applications have been extended to various aspects of everyday life and offer
services of high reliability and security. In the Academia, Internet applications offer
useful tools for the remote creation of simulation models and real-time conduction of
control experiments. The aim of this study was the design of a reliable, safe and secure
software system for real time operation of a remote aero gas turbine, with the use of
standard Internet technology at very low cost.
The gas turbine used in this application was an AMT Netherlands Olympus micro gas
turbine. The project presented three prototypes: operation from an adjacent
computer station, operation within the Local Area Netwok (LAN) of Cranfield
University and finally, remotely through the Internet. The gas turbine is a safety critical
component, thus the project was driven by risk assessment at all the stages of the
software process, which adhered to the Spiral Model. Elements of safety critical
systems design were applied, with risk assessment present in every round of the
software process.
For the implementation, various software tools were used, with the majority to be
open source API’s. LabVIEW with compatible hardware from National Instruments was
used to interface the gas turbine with an adjacent computer work station. The main
interaction has been established between the computer and the ECU of the engine,
with additional instrumentation installed, wherever required. The Internet user
interface web page implements AJAX technology in order to facilitate asynchronous
update of the individual fields that present the indications of the operating gas turbine.
The parameters of the gas turbine were acquired with high accuracy, with most
attention given to the most critical indications, exhaust gas temperature (EGT) and
rotational speed (RPM). These are provided to a designed real-time monitoring
application, which automatically triggers actions when necessary.
The acceptance validation was accomplished with a formal validation method – Model
Checking. The final web application was inspired by the RESTful architecture and
allows the user to operate the remote gas turbine through a standard browser,
without requiring any additional downloading or local data processing.
The web application was designed with provisions for generic applications. It can be
configured to function with multiple different gas turbines and also integrated with
external performance simulation or diagnostics Internet platforms. Also, an analytical
proposal is presented, to integrate this application with the TURBOMATCH WebEngine
web application, for gas turbine performance simulation, developed by Cranfield
University.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/9248
Date10 1900
CreatorsDiakostefanis, Michail
ContributorsNikolaidis, T., Stillwell, Mark Lee, Barnes, S, Pilidis, Pericles
PublisherCranfield University
Source SetsCRANFIELD1
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or dissertation, Doctoral, PhD
Rights© Cranfield University 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner.

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