Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2018, Vol. 10(3) 1–13
Ó The Author(s) 2018
A component map adaptation method DOI: 10.1177/1687814018767165
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
for compressor modeling and diagnosis

Xu Li1, Yulong Ying2 , Yinyan Wang1 and Jingchao Li3

Abstract
The accuracy of model-based gas turbine performance prediction, diagnosis, and prognosis is mainly determined by the
precision of compressor thermodynamic model. This article proposes a novel component map adaptation method for
gas turbine compressor modeling and gas-path diagnosis. First, compressor characteristic maps are generated through
stage-stacking calculation. And the generated compressor characteristic maps are expressed in the form of polynomial
functions by partial least squares regression. After integrating the fitting polynomial functions into the gas turbine perfor-
mance model, the adaptation of characteristic maps in the performance model by gas-path measurements from the tar-
get engine can be made easily, through tuning the fitting polynomial coefficients. Application and analysis have illustrated
that the proposed approach can effectively improve the accuracy of the gas turbine thermodynamic model during off-
design performance calculation. The proposed approach exhibits a great potential to tune compressor characteristic
maps for both compressor performance modeling diagnosis, with full consideration of their highly nonlinearity.

Keywords
Gas turbine, compressor characteristic map, partial least squares, stage-stacking calculation, performance adaptation

Date received: 12 October 2017; accepted: 22 February 2018

Handling Editor: Jan Torgersen

Introduction characteristic maps, which are obtained from rig test

bed or through computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
With application of gas turbine engines in the aviation and belong to proprietary information of original
industry,1 gas turbine engines have attracted wide equipment manufacturer (OEM).7
attention from the thermal power plants2,3 and the Gas turbine users may adopt generic compressor
navigation industry,4 due to many virtues, for example, characteristic maps for engine performance modeling
rapid startup performance, wonderful load regulating and therefore, the inaccuracy of the engine thermody-
competence, high thermal efficiency, and environmental namic model may significantly influence the accuracy
friendly capacity. During operation of gas turbine
engines, performance deterioration and abnormal
1
events of their components may happen, due to the College of Power and Energy Engineering, Harbin Engineering
harsh operating conditions with high pressure, high University, Harbin, China
2
College of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai University of
temperature, and high thermal and mechanical stress
Electric Power, Shanghai, China
within their components.5 The urging requirement for 3
College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Shanghai Dianji
efficient gas turbine engine management by means of University, Shanghai, China
health monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics has
promoted engine users to develop high-accurate perfor- Corresponding author:
Yulong Ying, College of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai
mance model.6 Under current modeling technique, the University of Electric Power, No. 2588 Changyang Road, Yangpu District,
precision of a gas turbine thermodynamic model mainly Shanghai 200090, China.
relies on the expression accuracy of the compressor Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without
further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/
open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

of diagnostics and prognostics, as the errors produced And then the stage-stacking technique becomes a useful
by the engine thermodynamic model may stay at the and reliable method to generate the compressor charac-
same level with the performance degradations caused teristic maps, whose calculating procedure is based on
by component deteriorations.8,9 So as to improve the the mean-line one-dimensional flow continuity equa-
reliability of the engine thermodynamic model, many tions together with the generalized stage characteristic
efforts have been made by researchers and scholars, to curves.20,21 Case studies of the application of this
propose efficient approaches to depict compressor approach can be found in the literatures.22–24 This
characteristic maps. One part of efforts has been made method uses one set of generalized stage characteristic
to ensure the generalization of compressor characteris- curves derived by fitting experimental data from exten-
tic maps with good interpolating and extrapolating per- sive tests based on different types of compressor stages
formance, to make full use of off-design flow character (e.g. subsonic, transonic, and supersonic stages).20
and efficiency character on the characteristic maps. In the paper, a novel component map adaptation
One of the most used approaches is lookup table technique for both compressor performance modeling
method, whose core algorithm is linear or spline inter- and gas-path diagnosis is proposed to effectively solve
polation and extrapolation algorithm. Lookup table the existing problems described above. The remainder
method has been widely used in almost every commer- of this article is organized as follows. In section ‘‘Basic
cial thermodynamic calculating software, for example, theory,’’ the basic theory of compressor generalized
Krawal-modular, IPSEpro, and Thermoflex. However, nonlinear thermodynamic model is introduced, and
for this method, the sample data of compressor charac- subsequently, our proposed method is described in sec-
teristic maps in the table should be dense and regular. tions ‘‘Compressor map generation,’’ ‘‘Compressor
Another popular method to express compressor char- map generalization and adaptation,’’ and ‘‘Compressor
acteristic maps is artificial neural network10,11 due to performance diagnosis.’’ The related case studies of the
its highly nonlinear mapping competence. Artificial proposed approach are presented in sections
neural network can approximate any nonlinear func- ‘‘Application’’ and ‘‘Result and analysis,’’ followed by
tions by setting appropriate topology. However, the the conclusions in section ‘‘Conclusion.’’
extrapolating performance of artificial neural network
is often reported to be poor.12,13 Another reported Methodology
method is an ellipse fitting algorithm, in which rotating
ellipse equations are used to fit compressor characteris- Basic theory
tic maps through optimization process.14,15 The practi- The characteristics of a compressor in the form of
cal trial of this method has demonstrated that the Cartesian coordinate’s graph are often defined as
fitting accuracy is highly decided by the selection of the compressor characteristic maps. Axial compressor
initial values of the fitting polynomial coefficients, characteristic maps are used in the gas turbine ther-
which is not easily determined. In order to let compres- modynamic models for estimation of key component
sor characteristic maps match the target ones well, parameters, such as the pressure ratio pC , the cor-
other part of efforts has been made to improve the rected mass flow rate Gcor , and the isentropic effi-
accuracy of engine thermodynamic model by tuning ciency hC at several corrected rotational speeds ncor .
compressor characteristic maps in externally linear- In practical application, pC and hC are expressed as a
scaling8,9,16 or quasi nonlinear-scaling17 manners, or by function of the ncor and Gcor , as shown in equations
generating new ones based on gas-path measure- (7) and (8), respectively.
ments.18,19 The principle of these tuning methods is to According to similarity theory
let the thermodynamic model outputs match the target !
engine measurements by scaling the shape of a similar u ca
compressor characteristic maps through local or global pC = f1 (Mu , Mca ) = f1 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð1Þ
kRg Tin kRg Tin
optimization process. The accuracy of these tuning !
methods highly relies on the similarity of the shape of u ca
the to-be-adapted compressor characteristic map to the hC = f2 (Mu , Mca ) = f2 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð2Þ
kRg Tin kRg Tin
target one, and the shape of each constant speed line
itself cannot be fully adapted. Gas turbine users may where Mu is circumferential Mach number and Mca is
not even have the compressor characteristic maps of axial Mach number.
the fleet engines, as manufacturers are seldom willing Considering pin V = GRg Tin , equations (1) and (2)
to provide component characteristic maps to users. can be converted into equations (3) and (4)
Li et al. 3

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
Dn G Rg Tin
p C = f3 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffi ð3Þ
kRg Tin D2 pin k
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
Dn G Rg Tin
hC = f4 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffi ð4Þ
kRg Tin D2 pin k

where V is air volume flow rate at inlet of compressor

and D is the impeller diameter at inlet of compressor.
For the same compressor, the value of D is constant
and equations (3) and (4) can be converted into equa-
tions (5) and (6) Figure 1. Compressor generalized stage map.
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
n G Rg Tin
p C = f5 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffi ð5Þ
kRg Tin pin k Compressor map generation
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! Gas turbine users may not even have the compressor
n G Rg Tin characteristic maps of the fleet engines, as manufactur-
hC = f6 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , pffiffiffi ð6Þ
kRg Tin pin k ers are seldom willing to offer component characteristic
maps. And the stage-stacking technique becomes a use-
As the change magnitude of the ratio of specific heat ful and reliable method to generate the compressor
capacity k is relatively small due to the varying ambient characteristic maps. In order to fulfill off-design calcu-
temperature, pressure and relative humidity, equations lation, the related stage character for the target com-
(5) and (6) can be converted into equations (7) and (8) pressor need to be used to reconstruct the overall
compressor characteristic maps. For gas turbine users,
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
n G Rg Tin due to the lack of any stage geometric knowledge of the
p C = f7 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , = f7 ðncor , Gcor Þ ð7Þ target compressor, the generalized stage characteristic
Rg Tin Pin
map20 illustrated in Figure 1 is used. The generalized
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! stage characteristic map is derived by fitting experimen-
n G Rg Tin
hC = f8 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi , = f8 ðncor , Gcor Þ ð8Þ tal data from extensive tests based on lots of compres-
Rg Tin Pin sor stages (e.g. subsonic, transonic, and supersonic
stages).
In practical application, equations (7) and (8) can be The relationships between the relative pressure coef-
further converted into generalized forms in equations ficient (c ) and the relative flow coefficient (f ), and
(9) and (10), which represent compressor generalized between the relative isentropic efficiency (h ) and the
nonlinear thermodynamic model relative flow coefficient (f ) are expressed by the gener-
alized stage characteristic maps in Figure 1. The relative
Gcor, rel = f9 (ncor, rel , pC, rel ) ð9Þ
flow coefficient, the relative pressure coefficient, and
hC, rel = f10 (ncor, rel , pC, rel ) ð10Þ the relative isentropic efficiency are defined respectively
as follows
where      
c h  h h  h
n n0 c = = out, s 2 in = out, s 2 in ð11Þ
ncor, rel = pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi = pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi c0 u u 0
 
Tin0  Rg0
Tin  Rg c  c     
f a a Gin =rin Gin =rin
f = = = = =
is relative corrected spool-speed f u u 0 n n
0 
  
 0

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi Gin  Rg  Tin Gin  Rg  Tin
G Tin  Rg G0 Tin0  R = = ð12Þ
Gcor, rel = =
g0 Pin  n Pin  n 0
Pin Pin0
h
h = ð13Þ
is relative corrected mass flow rate h0

pC During compressor characteristic map generation,

pC, rel = due to the lack of stage geometric knowledge of
pC0
the target compressor, which is proprietary information
is relative pressure ratio of OEM, the necessary assumptions are made
hC, rel = hC =hC0 is relative isentropic efficiency. accordingly:
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

1. It is assumed that the generalized stage charac-

teristic map illustrated in Figure 1 is suitable for
all stages of the target compressor during off-
design condition.
2. Stage pressure ratio is slightly decreasing from
the inlet to the outlet of the target compressor,
and the pressure ratios of all the stages on-
design condition are distributed by adopting
equations (14) and (15)
!(k1)k
2
Figure 2. The flow chart of our proposed approach.
pC
ac = ð14Þ
pk1, st

pi, st = p1, st  a(i1)

c ð15Þ

where p1, st is the pressure ratio of the first-stage on-

design condition and can be decided through setting
identical enthalpy rise for each stage during compressor
isentropic process; k is the total number of stages. And
on this assumption, each stage consumes almost same
stage power, which may represent a simple estimation
of a real compressor design.

3. Stage isentropic efficiency is same for each stage Figure 3. The expression of compressor characteristic maps in
on-design condition. the form of polynomial functions by PLS-R.

Finally, the characteristic maps of the entire com-

pressor can be obtained through the stage-stacking of is a useful and reliable method to be used in expression
all the stages from the inlet to the outlet. of compressor characteristic maps with the following
two reasons: it shows excellent interpolation and extra-
polation performance and there is no need to select ini-
Compressor map generalization and adaptation tial values of the fitting polynomial function
Due to the simplification of the compressor map genera- coefficients. PLS-R as an effective multiple statistical
tion, the inaccuracy of the engine thermodynamic model analysis tool, originated from chemistry field and pro-
by the stage-stacking calculation is inevitable to some posed by S. Wold and C. Albno in 1983, combines the
extent. In the paper, a component map adaptation tech- basic theories of canonical correlation analysis, princi-
nique is proposed to improve the accuracy of engine ple component analysis, and multiple linear regression
thermodynamic model from two aspects. One process is analysis. And the detailed description of the methodol-
to express compressor characteristic maps with good ogy of PLS-R can be referred to our previous
extrapolating and interpolating performance and the works.25,26
other process is to tune the compressor characteristic After the generated compressor characteristic maps
maps to let the output of the engine thermodynamic are fitted by PLS-R, the compressor characteristic maps
model match the gas-path measurements from the tar- can be expressed in the form of polynomial functions,
get engine with full consideration of highly nonlinearity as shown in Figure 3
of compressor character, as shown in Figure 2. !
X
h X
i
Gcor, rel = (aG, i, j  nij
cor, rel  pjC, rel ) + bG ð16Þ
Compressor map generalization. Many methods have been i=1 j=0

proposed to improve the expression precision of com- !

X
h X
i
pressor characteristic maps in terms of map generaliza- hC, rel = (ah, i, j  nij  pjC, rel ) + bh ð17Þ
cor, rel
tion with good extrapolating and interpolating i=1 j=0
performance. We have discussed the relative merits of
lookup table method, artificial neural network method, where aG, i, j and bG are the elements of the fitting poly-
and other reported approaches in section nomial function coefficient vector for the compressor
‘‘Introduction.’’ Our previous works25,26 have demon- flow character; ah, i, j and bh are the elements of the fit-
strated that the partial least squares regression (PLS-R) ting polynomial function coefficient vector for the
Li et al. 5

Figure 5. Flow chart of compressor performance diagnosis.

function OF is minimized by implementing the Nelder–

Figure 4. Flow chart of compressor characteristic map Mead algorithm,27,28 which is one of the MATLAB’s
adaptation. built-in nonlinear unconstrained optimization algo-
rithms. When the objective function OF gets close to
zero during optimization process, the calculated gas-
compressor efficiency character; h is the maximum path parameters Z^ match the measured gas-path para-
power of the fitting polynomial function and here h is !
meters Z very well, and then the optimal tuned coeffi-
equal to 6, which is indicated in our previous cients a and b can be obtained.
works.25,26 The above compressor map adaptation can effec-
tively remove the uncertainty introduced with engine-
Compressor map adaptation. After integrating the fitting to-engine variability due to manufacturing and assem-
polynomial functions into the gas turbine thermody- bly tolerance, different disturbances, unknown initial
namic model, the internal tuning of compressor charac- conditions, and modeling simplifications due to the
teristic maps based on gas-path measurements from the stage-stacking technique. After compressor map adap-
target engine can be made easily over adapting fitting tation as shown in Figure 4 by gas-path measurements
polynomial function coefficients, as shown in Figure 4. from the target engine, the compressor map in the ther-
The adaptation of the fitting polynomial function modynamic model can match the real one in the target
coefficients a and b plays the main role in modification engine.
of the shape of each relative corrected spool-speed line
with full consideration of nonlinearity of the compres-
sor behavior. And the gas turbine compressor charac- Compressor performance diagnosis
teristic map adaptation process can be treated as an After compressor map adaptation as shown in Figure 4
optimized identification problem, as shown in Figure 4. by gas-path measurements from a clean/healthy/new
Set the ambient conditions (ambient pressure, tem- target engine, the compressor map in the thermody-
perature, and relative humidity) and the operating con- namic model can match the real one in the target
trol conditions of the engine thermodynamic model engine. The adapted thermodynamic model can then be
same as those of the target engine, and take the root taken as benchmark model for gas turbine performance
mean squares5 between the calculated gas-path para- prediction and diagnosis. Gas-path analysis (GPA)
!
meters Z^ and the measured gas-path parameters Z as method has been widely used to monitor gas turbine
the objective function OF shown as follows health and has become one of the key techniques in
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi favor of condition-oriented maintenance strategy.
uP
u m P M
When the level of degradation is small, it is always
u ½(z  zi, j, actual )=zi, j, actual 2
tj = 1 i = 1 i, j, predicted assumed that the characteristic maps of the degraded
OF = ð18Þ
m3M components (i.e. compressors, combustors, and tur-
!, ! bines) will keep more or less the same shape as their
Z = f (map u) ð19Þ
original ones, based on the fact that the geometries of
where ! z 2 RM is the measured gas-path parameter vec- gas-path components do not change significantly after
tor; m indicates the number of selected operating points degradation. And thus the degradation of gas-path
and M is the number of measured gas-path parameters. components can be represented by the externally linear
During compressor map adaptation, the objective shift of the characteristic curves on the maps.29,30
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 6. Representation of the engine models implemented for the initial global adaptation and the adaptive local diagnosis
processes.

Figure 7. The diagram of the three-shaft marine engine.

However, when the level of component degradation degradation of the target engine. The performance
gradually becomes large, the actual component charac- adaptation is once again implemented for performing
teristic maps must undergo an inherent nonlinear shape the diagnostic task. For the initial adaptation of the
change. In this phase, the diagnostic error will inevita- engine model to the target engine, the entire set of his-
bly increase with the augment of the level of compo- torical operating data is used for establishing a bench-
nent degradation using traditional GPA method. In the mark model that represents the clean/healthy condition
paper, the proposed component map adaptation of the target engine. For diagnostic purpose, the above
method can be further used for component perfor- tuning process is performed discretely for every new set
mance diagnosis by tuning component characteristic of engine measurement data, as seen from Figure 6.
maps with full consideration of their highly nonlinear-
ity, as shown in Figure 5.
Normally, gas turbine overall health status is repre- Application
sented by component health parameters (i.e. compres- In the paper, a three-shaft marine gas turbine is chosen
sor and turbine flow capacity indices and efficiency as the target gas turbine for validation of our proposed
indices, and combustor efficiency index), which repre- approach due to the availability, which is applied in
sent a shift of the characteristic curves on component’ Chinese Navy marine integrated power system, as
maps due to degradation.5 In the operation of gas tur- shown in Figure 7.
bine, the engine thermodynamic model can be adapted The generator electric power output is the key con-
to keep track with target engine by the proposed trol parameter to let engine runs at a certain operating
method shown in Figure 5, to output compressor point, and the power turbine (PT) rotational speed is
health parameters to capture the inherent nonlinear kept constant to maintain the constant electrical fre-
shape change of the degraded compressor characteristic quency. For more detailed description about this
maps. engine, readers can refer to Ying and colleagues.5,31
At this stage, the objective of the diagnosis task is to The engine gas-path instrumentation set is seen in
deal with estimating the level of the component Table 1.
Li et al. 7

Table 1. Engine gas-path instrumentation set. Table 2. Performance specification of reference engine.

Parameter Symbol Unit Parameter Value Units

Ambient pressure P0 bar Ambient temperature 26.85 °C

Ambient temperature t0 °C Relative humidity 0 %
Relative humidity RH % Ambient pressure 1.01325 bar
Fuel flow rate Gf kg/s Air mass flow rate 81.3 kg/s
LPC outlet temperature t2 °C LPC pressure ratio 4.57 2
LPC inlet pressure P1 bar HPC pressure ratio 4.53 2
LPC outlet pressure P2 bar LPT shaft rotational speed 7436 r/min
LPT shaft rotational speed n1 r/min HPT shaft rotational speed 9739 r/min
HPC outlet pressure P3 bar PT shaft rotational speed 3273 r/min
HPC outlet temperature t3 °C Thermal efficiency 35.38 %
HPT outlet temperature P5 bar Fuel flow rate 1.63 kg/s
HPT outlet pressure t5 °C Electric power 24265 kW
HPT shaft rotational speed n2 r/min PT outlet temperature 521.46 °C
LPT outlet temperature t6 °C
LPT outlet pressure P6 bar LPC: low-pressure compressor; HPC: high-pressure compressor; LPT:
PT outlet temperature t7 °C low-pressure turbine; HPT: high-pressure turbine; PT: power turbine.
PT outlet pressure P7 bar
PT shaft rotational speed n3 r/min
Generator electric power output Ne kW
Table 3. Compressor design specifications.
LPC: low-pressure compressor; HPC: high-pressure compressor; HPT:
high-pressure turbine; LPT: low-pressure turbine; PT: power turbine. Compressor Number Mass flow Overall Speed
of stages rate (kg/s) pressure (r/min)
ratio
To test our proposed approach, considering the
information security for the Chinese navy, two engine LPC 9 81.3 4.57 7436
thermodynamic models are used. The engine thermody- HPC 9 80.9 4.53 9739
namic model for this three-shaft marine gas turbine
LPC: low-pressure compressor; HPC: high-pressure compressor.
established in our previous works5,31 is regarded as the
reference engine, with its compressor characteristic maps
obtained from experimental rig. The second engine ther-
During compressor map adaptation, the objective
modynamic model for this three-shaft marine gas tur-
function OF is minimized using the Nelder–Mead algo-
bine implementing the proposed approach for low-
rithm.27,28 The simultaneous adaptation of LPC and
pressure compressor (LPC) and high-pressure compres-
HPC characteristic maps in the engine performance
sor (HPC) modeling is referred to as the engine perfor-
model is performed based on the gas-path measure-
mance model. Performance design specifications of the
ments shown in Table 1 from reference engine. Here six
reference engine are shown in Table 2.
sets of gas-path measurements from reference engine
And the related compressor design specifications of
with various load conditions at same ambient condi-
the reference engine are shown in Table 3.
tions are used to simultaneously tune the polynomial
The compressor characteristic maps of LPC gener-
function coefficients of LPC and HPC characteristic
ated by the stage-stacking calculation based on com-
maps internally (Figures 10 and 11). And then test cases
pressor design specifications are shown in Figure 8.
with performance prediction and performance diagno-
And the compressor characteristic maps of HPC are
sis are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of
generated by the same way.
the proposed method in the following section.
Figure 8(a) shows the flow character of the relation-
ship among the relative corrected spool-speed ncor, rel ,
relative pressure ratio pC, rel , and relative corrected Result and analysis
mass flow rate Gcor, rel . And Figure 8(b) shows the effi-
ciency character of the relationship among the relative
Test cases with performance prediction
corrected spool-speed ncor, rel , relative corrected mass Test cases with various load conditions at same ambient
flow rate Gcor, rel , and relative isentropic efficiency conditions. It is observed from Figures 9 and 12, the cal-
hC, rel . And then the generated compressor characteris- culating error of the engine performance model before
tic maps are fitted by PLS-R, as shown in Figure 9, adaptation is rising when the operating point is gradu-
where the dotted points are the original data generated ally far away from the design operating point. After
by the stage-stacking calculation, and the solid lines are tuning the polynomial function coefficients of the com-
the fitting curves expressed by the polynomial function pressor characteristic maps, the calculating error of the
with the maximum power h of 6. engine performance model can be reduced. The
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 8. The compressor characteristic maps of LPC generated by the stage-stacking calculation: (a) flow character and
(b) efficiency character.

calculating results after adaptation match the measure- Test cases with various ambient temperatures at same load
ments of the reference engine very well with the maxi- conditions. It is observed from Figure 13 that the cal-
mum relative error less than 1%. What is more, the culating errors of the engine performance model
calculating results of engine performance model before before adaptation are not evident with various ambi-
adaptation in Figures 8 and 9 also show the robustness ent temperatures at nominal load conditions with the
of the stage-stacking calculation with the maximum maximum relative error less than 0.35%, which also
relative error not more than 2%. The calculating errors shows the robustness of the stage-stacking calcula-
produced by engine performance model before adapta- tion. After adaptation, the calculating errors of the
tion are mainly due to the necessary assumptions made engine performance model are almost thoroughly
to generate the overall compressor characteristic maps. eliminated.
Li et al. 9

Figure 9. The compressor characteristic maps of LPC fitted by PLS-R: (a) flow character and (b) efficiency character.

From Figure 14, it can be seen that the calculating Figure 15 shows the normalized values of initial and
error of the engine performance model before adapta- tuned polynomial function coefficients of LPC and
tion is augmented with various ambient temperatures HPC characteristic maps. Due to each polynomial
at 70% rated-load conditions with the maximum rela- function of flow character and efficiency character for
tive error more than 0.8%. After tuning the polynomial LPC and HPC with the maximum power h of 6, there
function coefficients of the compressor characteristic are totally 112 number of polynomial function coeffi-
maps, the calculating errors of the engine performance cients, controlling the compressor map generalization
model can be reduced. The calculating results after and adaptation process. Here, the polynomial function
adaptation match the measurements of the reference coefficient from numbers 1 to 27 is aG, 1 , aG, 2 , :::, aG, 27
engine very well with the maximum relative error less for LPC flow character, respectively. The polynomial
than 0.1%. function coefficient from numbers 28 to 54 is
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 12. Relative error of measurable parameters with

Figure 10. HPT shaft rotational speed.
various relative load conditions at design ambient conditions.

Figure 11. LPT shaft rotational speed.

Figure 13. Relative error of measurable parameters with
various ambient temperatures at nominal load conditions.
ah, 1 , ah, 2 , :::, ah, 27 for LPC efficiency character, respec-
tively. The polynomial function coefficient of number
55 is bG for LPC flow character and the polynomial
Test cases with performance diagnosis
function coefficient of number 56 is bh for LPC flow
character. The polynomial function coefficient from After compressor map adaptation by gas-path mea-
numbers 57 to 83 is aG, 1 , aG, 2 , :::, aG, 27 for HPC flow surements from a clean/healthy/new reference engine,
character, respectively. The polynomial function coeffi- the compressor maps in the engine performance model
cient from numbers 84 to 110 is ah, 1 , ah, 2 , :::, ah, 27 for match the real ones in the reference engine during a
HPC efficiency character, respectively. The polynomial wide range of off-design conditions. The adapted engine
function coefficient of number 111 is bG for HPC flow performance model can then be taken as benchmark
character and the polynomial function coefficient of model for gas turbine performance diagnosis. Because
number 112 is bh for HPC flow character. It is also that compressor fouling is the most common degrada-
observed from Figure 15 that due to the reliability of tion in the practical operation, here two test cases of
the stage-stacking calculation, the margin between the compressor fouling, which were simulated by shifting
initial and tuned polynomial function coefficients of of LPC characteristic maps of the reference engine, were
LPC and HPC characteristic maps is quite small. used to test the effectiveness of the proposed method in
However, these case studies still demonstrate that the compressor performance diagnosis.
proposed approach can effectively improve the accu- As measurement noise is inevitable in actual gas-
racy of the gas turbine thermodynamic model during a path measurements and can produce a side effect on
wide range of off-design performance prediction with diagnosis, measurement noise is introduced in the simu-
full consideration of the nonlinearity of the compressor lated gas-path measurements to make the analysis more
behavior through internal adapting the fitting polyno- realistic. The maximum measurement noise for different
mial function coefficients based on gas-path gas-path measurements is according to the information
measurements. provided by Dyson and Doel,32 as shown in Table 4.
Li et al. 11

Table 4. Maximum measurement noise.

Measurement Range Typical error

P 3 to 45 psia 6 0.5%
8 to 460 psia 6 0.5% or 0.125 psia
whichever is greater
T 265°C to 290°C 6q3.3°C
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
290°C to 1000°C
6 2:52 + (0:0075t)2
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1000°C to 1300°C
6 3:52 + (0:0075t)2
Gf Up to 5450 kg/h 63.4 kg/h
Up to 12,260 kg/h 142.7 kg/h

Figure 14. Relative error of measurable parameters with

various ambient temperatures at 70% rated-load conditions. the diagnostic results obtained by traditional GPA
method are also acceptable when the level of compo-
nent degradation gradually becomes large.

Conclusion
In the paper, a novel component adaptation technique
for both compressor performance modeling and diag-
nosis is proposed. Some meaningful conclusions have
been obtained through application and analysis, as
follows:

1. The proposed approach can be applied without

any stage geometric knowledge of the targeted
compressor or any empirical knowledge about
similar compressor characteristic maps.
Figure 15. Initial and tuned polynomial function coefficients of 2. After tuning the polynomial function coeffi-
compressor characteristic maps of LPC and HPC. cients of the compressor characteristic maps,
the calculating error of the engine thermody-
namic model can be minimized. The calculating
To reduce the side effect of measurement noise on results after adaptation match the measure-
diagnostic analysis, multiple gas-path measurement ments of the reference engine very well during a
samples are obtained in the simulation and a 30-point wide range of off-design conditions. And thus
rolling average31 was used to obtain an averaged mea- the corresponding expression mode of compres-
surement sample before the measurements are input to sor characteristic maps may replace simple
the diagnostic system. The mathematical expression for lookup tables and/or externally linear-scaled or
the rolling averaging is shown in equation (20) quasi nonlinear-scaled maps in any engine ther-
modynamic model.
1X P
3. The proposed approach can effectively tune
zi = zi ð20Þ
P i=1 compressor characteristic maps for both com-
pressor performance modeling and diagnosis
where zi is ith gas-path measurement samples and P is with full consideration of the nonlinearity of the
the number of samples (P = 30 for 10-point rolling compressor behavior through internal adapting
average). the fitting polynomial function coefficients
And the implanted compressor degradations and based on gas-path measurements from target
diagnostic results are shown in Table 5. engine.
From Table 5, it can be seen that the proposed
method can obtain better diagnostic results compared In this study, we focus a component map adaptation
with traditional GPA method. Because the test cases of method for gas turbine compressor modeling and diag-
compressor degradation are simulated by externally lin- nosis, on the assumption that turbine model, combus-
ear shift of LPC characteristic maps of reference engine, tor model, and auxiliary system model are accurate
12 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 5. Implanted compressor degradation and diagnostic 3. Jianhong C, Huanyan H, Wei L, et al. Peaking capacity
results. enhancement of combined cycle power plants by inlet air
cooling—analysis of the critical value of relative humid-
LPC Flow capacity Isentropic ity. Appl Therm Eng 2016; 114: 864–873.
index efficiency index 4. Ying Y, Cao Y and Li S. Research on fuel supply rate of
DSFLPC, FC (%) DSFLPC, Eff (%) marine intercooled-cycle engine based on simulation
experiment. Int J Comput Appl T 2013; 48: 212–221.
Case 1 Implanted 22 22
Diagnostic result 21.9839 21.9444 5. Ying Y, Cao Y, Li S, et al. Nonlinear steadysState model
GPA31 21.8615 22.0236 based gas turbine health status estimation approach with
Case 2 Implanted 24 24 improved particle swarm optimization algorithm. Math
Diagnostic result 23.8717 24.0246 Probl Eng 2015; 2015: 940757.
GPA31 23.8188 23.8690 6. Tsoutsanis E, Meskin N, Benammar M, et al. A dynamic
prognosis scheme for flexible operation of gas turbines.
LPC: low-pressure compressor; GPA: gas-path analysis. Appl Energ 2016; 164: 686–701.
7. Aldi N, Morini M, Pinelli M, et al. Cross validation of
enough. The engine thermodynamic model for a three- multistage compressor map generation by means of com-
shaft marine gas turbine established in our previous putational fluid dynamics and stage-stacking techniques.
In: ASME turbo expo: turbine technical conference and
works is regarded as the reference engine, with its com-
exposition, Düsseldorf, 16–20 June 2014,
pressor characteristic maps obtained from experimental pp.V03BT25A009-1–V03BT25A009-11. New York:
rig. The proposed method can be applied to any type ASME.
of industrial gas turbine engine with axial-flow com- 8. Li YG, Pilidis P and Newby MA. An adaptation
pressor. In a real situation, all engine components are approach for gas turbine design-point performance simu-
deteriorated. The proposed approach can be extended lation. J Eng Gas Turb Power 2006; 128: 789–795.
to all main gas-path components in the gas turbine and 9. Li YG, Ghafir MA, Wang L, et al. Nonlinear multiple
further validation of the effectiveness of simultaneous points gas turbine off-design performance adaptation
diagnosis of all main gas-path components by the pro- using a genetic algorithm. J Eng Gas Turb Power 2011;
133: 071701.
posed approach should be carried out in the future
10. qawryńczuk M. Jet engine turbine and compressor char-
work.
acteristics approximation by means of artificial neural
networks. In: International conference on adaptive and nat-
Declaration of conflicting interests ural computing algorithms, Warsaw, 11–14 April 2007,
pp.143–152. Berlin: Springer.
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
11. Fei J, Zhao N, Shi Y, et al. Compressor performance pre-
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
diction using a novel feed-forward neural network based
article.
on Gaussian Kernel function. Adv Mech Eng 2016. Epub
ahead of print 28 January 2016. DOI: 10.1177/
Funding
1687814016628396.
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- 12. Ghorbanian K and Gholamrezaei M. An artificial neural
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this network approach to compressor performance prediction.
article: This research is supported by the National Natural Appl Energ 2009; 86: 1210–1221.
Science Foundation of China (no. 61603239) and Shanghai 13. Gholamrezaei M and Ghorbanian K. Compressor map
Municipal Science and Technology Committee (no. generation using a feed-forward neural network and rig
16020500700). data. Proc IMechE, Part A: J Power and Energy 2010;
224: 97–108.
14. Tsoutsanis E, Meskin N, Benammar M, et al. A compo-
ORCID iD
nent map tuning method for performance prediction and
Yulong Ying https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3867-5893 diagnostics of gas turbine compressors. Appl Energ 2014;
135: 572–585.
15. Tsoutsanis E, Meskin N, Benammar M, et al. Transient
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