The development of accurate stagnation temperature probes for gas turbine applications

During gas turbine development testing, measurements of the gas-path stagnation temperature are used to characterise the engine running condition and establish individual engine component performance. These measurements are typically acquired using passively ventilated thermocouple probes, which are capable of achieving absolute stagnation temperature uncertainties of approximately 0.5 %. Historically, this measurement accuracy has been considered adequate to evaluate gains in turbomachinery efficiency. However, realisable turbomachinery efficiency gains have recently become sufficiently small that an improvement in measurement accuracy is now required. This has resulted in the specification of a target absolute stagnation temperature uncertainty of 0.1 %. The research presented in this thesis focusses on the development of a new stagnation temperature probe that will achieve a measurement uncertainty close to the target value. The new probe has been designed to utilise a thin-film platinum resistance thermometer (PRT) as the temperature sensitive element. For certain aspects of gas turbine engine testing, this type of sensor offers an improvement in measurement accuracy compared to a thermocouple. [Continues.]