Aircraft Engine’s Smart Controls
1
12/08/21
AIRCRAFT ENGINE AND OPERATING
CYCLE
TYPES OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES
Engine control
Engine Thrust (Turbo Jet, Turbo Fan)
Engine Torque (Turbo Shaft, Turbo Prop)
Engine Speed
Turbine Gas Temperature
Oil Temperature and Pressure
Electronic Indicating system
Fuel flow
Fuel temperature and pressure
Engine Torque: (Torque meter)
Engine Thrust: (Thrust meter)
Turbine discharge/Jet pipe pressure
Engine pressure ratio (EPR)
Engine Speed:
Engine Speed indication is electrically transmitted
from a small generator driven by engine.
TURBINE GAS TEMPERATURE
The output of the
temperature control
system provide a signal,
will digitally record the life
of the engine.
Oil Temperature and Pressure
Oil temperature is sensed by a temperature sensitive
element fitted in the oil system.
Oil pressure installations use a flag-type indicator or
transmitter (electrical).
An oil low pressure warning switch may be provided
for continued safe running of the engine.
ELECTRONIC INDICATING
SYSTEM
Electronic indicating systems consolidate engine
indications, systems monitoring and crew alerting
functions onto one or more C.R.T mounted in the
instrument panel
Electronic indicating systems offer improved flight
operations by reduction the pilot workload through
automatic monitoring of engine operation and a
centralized caution and warning system.
ENGINE FUEL SYSTEM
Main fuel regulating System
Primary
Supplies fuel into the engine.
Helps to operate at variable modes.
Acceleration and deceleration at any permitted mode of operation.
Secondary
Control of jet nozzle critical section
Engine protection against surge when combat command is ON
Engine control from KRD,BPR and by electrical signals which are received from
the aircraft.
Reheat fuel regulating system
Supplies fuel to after burning system.
Main fuel regulating System components
Fuel oil unit
Additional fuel filter
Main fuel regulating
pump ( pumping unit &
regulating unit )
Additional fuel feed
valve
starting fuel valve
Main igniters
Air blow-off valves
Fuel manifolds with
burners
MAIN FUEL REGULATING
SYSTEM(MANUAL)
MANUAL CONTROL
Throttle valve
Ideal rating
Distributor valve
Drain valve
Starting automat
Pressure rise limiter
Constant pressure value
decelerator unit
AUTOMATIC CONTROL
MECHANICAL
Low pressure centrifugal governor
Mechanical booster pump
ELECTRONICS
KRD (for AL31FP engine)
BPR (for R11 and R25 Engine)
FADEC
Low pressure centrifugal governor
When the engine r p m is higher than the r p m selected by the throttle.
When the engine r p m is less than the r p m selected by the throttle.
MECHANICAL BOOSTER PUMP
Rotor mounted on pump body on two rollers bearings and
drives through gear box drive.
Multi plunger variable stroke positive displacement pump.
Spherical end held in position by spring tension swash
plate bearing and pressure in plunger.
swash plate controlled by servo piston mechanism.
swash plate controls the plunger stroke depends on fuel
requirements.
PURPOSE OF KRD
Engine electronic control unit KRD is the part of
engine electronic–hydro-mechanical regulation
system.
KRD Controls the engine parameters and Sends the
signals to engine control devices.
KRD unit has following components.
[Link] rpm governor
2. Various sensors
(Pressure,Temperature,Displacement,Vibration,Surge)
KRD
Components of KRD
1 - Connector
2 - Casing
3 - PCBs (two sided)
4 - Shock absorbers
5 & 6 - Connector
7 - Strip of earthings
8 -adjustment screws for changing
control laws
Functions of KRD
N1 Regulation & limitation channel.
N2 Regulation & limitation channel.
T4 Regulation & limitation channel.
Automatic Relighting channel.
Afterburner Starting Logic Control channel.
The pre-flight checks of regulator
FADEC OVERVIEW
Full Authority Digital Engine Control
System continuously monitors and controls ignition
timing, fuel injection timing, and fuel-to-air ratio mixture.
Therefore, a FADEC equipped engine does not require
magnetos and eliminates the need for manual fuel/air
mixture control.
In addition to the fuel metering function, the FADEC
performs numerous other control and monitoring
functions such as Variable Stator Vanes (VSV's) and
Variable Bleed Valves (VBV's) control, cabin bleeds and
control of starting and re-starting, turbine blade and vane
cooling and blade tip clearance control, thrust reversers
control, engine health monitoring, oil debris monitoring
and vibration monitoring.
The FADEC has a rpm sensor, a thermocouple input, a
throttle servo input, power connections for the fuel pump
and the battery and a digital (RS232) serial port to
program and read the data in real-time to a PC.
FADEC
Operating System Application System
The operating system includes not only the real-time operating system
software but also all mechanical and electronic hardware that comprises the
FADEC.
The application system includes software to provide control algorithms, fault
detection, and performance monitoring. The application system code may be
hand written, typically in C or Ada, or more recently, automatically generated
model-based code.
The user programmable parameters are:
Full power RPM
Idle RPM
Stop RPM
Maximum Temperature
Start / minimum Temperature
Position of the throttle control at maximum power
Position of the throttle and trim control at idle
Position of the throttle and trim control in stop / shutdown.
Speed of acceleration/deceleration (spool up / down ramp)
Pump start point
Fuel pump start ramp to idle
Requirements
Engineering processes must be used to design,
manufacture, install and maintain the sensors
which measure and report flight and engine
parameters to the control system itself.
Software engineering processes must be used in
the design, implementation and testing of the
software used in these safety-critical control
systems.
The measurements made by the FADEC are:
Temperature of the exhaust gas
Pump battery voltage
Width of the throttle pulses from the radio
transmitter
Engine rotor RPM
Engine run time.
Electronic Control Unit (ECU)
“Brain” of the Engine Control System
ECU divided into an upper and lower portion
Lower portion contains the
Electronic Circuit Board that
processes all data
Upper portion contains the
ignition coils for the spark
plugs (each ECU has (4) coils)
ECU cont’d
The electronic circuit board (lower portion) of each
ECU contains TWO independent microprocessor
controllers which serve as control channels.
Control channel will receive the sensor inputs and
monitor any changes.
Control channel will use these inputs to precisely
trim the fuel to air ratio going into each
cylinder/engine.
Therefore, the control channels allow each
cylinder/engine to be individually leaned or enriched.
ECU cont’d
If one control channel fails within an ECU the other control
channel can operate it’s assigned cylinder as well as the
opposing cylinder as backup control for fuel injection and
ignition timing.
All critical sensors are redundant with one sensor from each
type connected to a control channel in different ECUs.
Synthetic software default values are also used should both
sensors of a redundant pair fail…therefore, FADEC will
always have a value to work off of so it can inject an average
amount of fuel to the cylinder.
Health Status Annunciator (HSA)
Power Supplies
Primary Power Source (PPS)-
14v 60amp alternator and 12v 25Ah Lead Acid type
battery (located aft baggage compartment)
Secondary Power Source (SPS)-
12v 7Ah Lead Acid type battery
FADEC System Redundancy
Power Supplies (PPS and SPS)
If a control channel (CC) has a fault, the other CC
within the same ECU is capable of operating its
assigned cylinder as well as the other cylinder
experiencing the fault.
All sensors are redundant with one sensor from each
pair connected to channels in different ECUs.
Synthetic software defaults are used in case of sensor
failure
Advantages
Better fuel efficiency
Automatic engine protection against out-of-tolerance operations
Safer as the multiple channel FADEC computer provides redundancy in case
of failure
Care-free engine handling, with guaranteed thrust settings
Ability to use single engine type for wide thrust requirements by just
reprogramming the FADECs
Provides semi-automatic engine starting
Better systems integration with engine and aircraft systems
Can provide engine long-term health monitoring and diagnostics
Number of external and internal parameters used in the control processes
increases by one order of magnitude
Reduces the number of parameters to be monitored by flight crews
Due to the high number of parameters monitored, the FADEC makes possible
"Fault Tolerant Systems" (where a system can operate within required
reliability and safety limitation with certain fault configurations)
Can support automatic aircraft and engine emergency responses (e.g. in case
of aircraft stall, engines increase thrust automatically).
Disadvantages
True full authority digital engine controls have no
form of manual override available, placing full
authority over the operating parameters of the
engine in the hands of the computer. If a total
FADEC failure occurs, the engine fails. In the
event of a total FADEC failure, pilots have no way
of manually controlling the engines for a restart,
or to otherwise control the engine. As with any
single point of failure, the risk can be mitigated
with redundant FADECs.
Conclusion
FADEC utilize a set of redundant sensors linked to the
respective ECU
ECU then uses data to analyze and control the ignition
timing, fuel injection timing and fuel to air ratio for each
cylinder
FADEC is powered by 3 sources: alternator, primary
battery, emergency battery…FADEC needs only 1 power
source to operate
Reduces a pilot’s “busy work”
15% more fuel efficiency than correct and accurate
conventional mixture control
