A Model-Based Controller for Commercial Aero Gas Turbines

This article describes the design and development of a model-based control system for a large commercial aero gas turbine engine. The control system, referred to as the Integrated Margin Management (IMM) control, exploits a real-time engine model (RTEM) to estimate control loop feedback signals, enabling the implementation of nontraditional control modes. These nontraditional control modes include algorithms for controlling, optimizing, and/or trading off margins to key operational limits such as thrust, compressor stability, combustor stability, turbine life, redline limits, and emissions. An overview of the results produced with the IMM controller design illustrates the feasibility of this approach for commercial aero gas turbine applications.