Minimally-Intrusive Real-Time Temperature and Composition Sensor for Combustor Applications

An innovative, minimally intrusive temperature and composition sensor concept, proven in Phase I, will be developed into a prototype and tested in a high-pressure combustor in Phase II. The sensor, designed to monitor the hot gas stream at the turbine inlet in advanced, high performance turbine engines, uses passive fiber-optical probes and a remote readout device to collect and analyze the spatially resolved spectral signature of the hot gas in the combustor/turbine flowpath. Advanced information processing techniques are used to extract the average temperature, temperature pattern factor, and chemical composition on a sub-second time scale. An option task is also proposed to extend the approach to measure the radial temperature profile in the flow path.The proposed approach should provide a real-time temperature and chemical species sensing capability for multiple-point monitoring of the high-temperature and high-pressure gasses at the combustor exit. It will have application as an engine development diagnostic tool, as a sensor for an engine control system, and ultimately, as a real-time active control component for high performance gas turbines.