ENGINE MAINTENANCE

Source: Lufthansa Technik

Understanding
the Engine
Engines rely on so many complex, interconnected components that a perfect understanding
of how each affects the other over thousands of cycles will always remain elusive. Nonetheless,
significant strides are being made in data analysis, inspection technology and industrial research.
Susi Debus talks to Lufthansa Technik about how these are being used to optimise engine
maintenance processes and planning.

C
ommercial aircraft take off in their
thousands every day. Safety is always
the most important consideration, but the
enormous cost pressures faced by operators
and maintenance companies are playing an
increasingly significant role. Operators must
keep a tight lid on running costs to survive
cut-throat competition from budget and other
airlines, while MRO providers must cope with
flat-rate contracts and other aftermarket plays
by manufacturers.
A number of information systems,
such as the Aircraft Condition Monitoring
System (ACMS) and Aircraft Communications
Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS),
assist MRO providers with maintenance of
the engine and aircraft. ACMS monitors the
status of on-board systems and components
and collects a broad range of flight data,
sending it under certain conditions to ground
stations using the ACARS data communication
What must be
system. The frequency of transmission varies avoided in any case is
according to the operator. Two different types
of engine report, one during take-off and one that a healthy engine
during cruise, provide information on the
status of the systems. is removed and sent
MRO providers can receive these in-
flight reports from their customers’ engines.
to the shop.”
Lufthansa Technik, for instance, receives
Christian Werner-Spatz, project
them at its central data center in Frankfurt, manager for innovation, engine
Germany. These reports are used for what is services, Lufthansa Technik
termed engine condition monitoring (ECM).
Key parameters such as engine speed, exhaust
gas temperature, fuel flow, vibrations and oil
consumption are monitored in ECM and their
development trends tracked over time. Both
normal and abnormal aging processes can be
established from the changes.

2 ENGINE YEARBOOK 2017 www.mro-network.com

 ENGINE MAINTENANCE
Moreover, sudden engine damage can be
identified from jumps in the trend curves. This
procedure has been standard for decades
and is an important requirement for the on-
condition maintenance that is typical today.
When an engine from long-haul operation
comes into the shop, for example for overhaul,
it has performed around 3,000 cycles, has
spent more than 25,000 hours in the air and
has been in operation for nine hours per day
on average. Such longevity between shop
visits would not be conceivable without the
continuous monitoring of ECM.
One of the major advantages of ECM is to
pre-empt major problems with engines and
the interruptions to flight operations they
cause. First, any minor damage must be reliably
identified and diagnosed. This means that
the ECM system unequivocally identifies the
existence of damage, and assigns it to a module
or component in the engine. Such diagnosis
is the prerequisite for taking an appropriate
counter-measure, be it replacing the engine or
an on-wing repair.
“The speed and extent to which damage
can be identified and diagnosed is therefore
a quality criterion for an ECM system and is
an area where a certain level of development
AST repair at Santiago de Chile
4 ENGINE YEARBOOK 2017
potential still exists,” says Christian Werner-
Spatz, engineer and project manager for
The speed and
innovation in the engine services product
division at Lufthansa Technik.
extent to which
“However this should not be limited to damage can be
damage that occurs suddenly, but should
also cover gradual wear that exceeds normal identified and
diagnosed is a quality
thresholds,” he adds.
HOW ENGINES AGE
Werner-Spatz’s second condition is difficult to
criterion for an ECM
fulfill, as it requires the ability to differentiate
between wear attributable to normal aging
system and is an
processes, and uncommon wear that results area where a certain
from problems in the engine. “It is important in
this respect to understand the aging processes level of development
potential still exists.”
in the engine,” says Werner-Spatz. “And this in
turn is dependent on having all of the available
data as well as a solid, physics-based model of
Christian Werner-Spatz
the engine to use as a basis.”
Understanding the aging processes
in engines is a necessary basis for not
only identifying and diagnosing existing
problems, but also for predicting the ongoing
development of the condition. “At this point
we are no longer simply talking about engine
condition monitoring, rather proper engine
health management,” says Werner-Spatz.
Source: Sonja Brüggemann
www.mro-network.com
 ENGINE MAINTENANCE

Engine health management means

A CFM56 overhaul identifying and classifying problems at
an early stage, and then using a reliable
projection of progressive development to
decide how and when to respond. This can
sometimes mean that an engine has to
be removed prematurely to avoid serious
damage. On the other hand, not all damage
automatically means that a shop visit is
necessary.
Should an unforeseen incident occur
with an engine, for example as a result of a
bird strike, Lufthansa Technik offers a 24/7
airline support service. Following preliminary
diagnosis of the incident, an ‘Airline Support
Team’ (AST) is dispatched to the incident
location within the shortest possible time
along with tools and replacement parts. And
with new repair processes, damage that
might once have necessitated a shop visit
can be addressed at the customer’s location.
For instance, Lufthansa Technik’s ‘Blending
Scope’ can fix damage to compressor blades
overnight by means of regrinding. In the past,
though, this problem might have required
complete dismantling of the engine.
Lufthansa Technik’s positive experience
with mobile services, such as AST, has led it
to question the expensive engine overhauls
of the past. “The more diagnosis and repair
we can do on site and on wing during
ongoing flight operation, the less work is
required in the shop. This saves a lot of time
and money in the long term,” comments
Werner-Spatz.

BORESCOPE INSPECTIONS
Engine problems cannot always be reliably
diagnosed with ECM data alone, as its
analysis often leaves several options open
as to the precise cause of the damage.
These options can be narrowed down by
borescope insepctions on the ground. These
visual inspections use a flexible hose fitted
with a lens, which can be introduced into
the particular cavity of the engine that is
to be examined. While optical fibers were
formerly used to transmit the image from
the lens to the viewer, the image is now
typically displayed on a screen using digital
technology. Thus the borescope supplies
images of locations that would never be
accessible without the removal of larger
Source: Sonja Brüggemann
components.

www.mro-network.com ENGINE YEARBOOK 2017 5

 ENGINE MAINTENANCE
EVE project’s
experimental
engine in test cell
When an engine
from long-haul
operation comes
into the shop it has
performed around
3,000 cycles, has
spent more than
25,000 hours in the
air and has been in
operation for nine
hours per day on
average.”
6 ENGINE YEARBOOK 2017
The ECM generally provides initial findings
and more detailed investigations are then
carried out on site. The borescope is already
very important for many actions carried
out by mobile service teams, since the data
obtained allows binding statements to be made
concerning the condition inside the engine,
and improves forecasting. Nevertheless, the
efficiency of borescope procedures needs to be
improved to allow even broader application.
Optimizing existing diagnostic procedures
is just one possibility, however. It is even more
efficient to collect as much data as possible in a
separate system, and then to correlate this data
in order to obtain reliable predictions concerning
the actual condition of an engine. However,
a better understanding of all processes and
interworkings of the engine is also necessary so
that reliable predictions can be made.
APOSEM AND EVE
Whatever advances are in store, every engine
must be overhauled or repaired in shop at
some point. “What is most important here is to
ensure that reliable planning can be carried out
Source: Jan Brandes
as early as possible,” says Werner-Spatz. With
this in mind, Lufthansa Technik has developed
physical models under the APOSEM (Advanced
Prediction Of Severity Effects on Engine
Maintenance) research project – models that
can be used to make predictions regarding the
operation-related aging of engines.
“This concerns a physics-based model of the
engine, which responds sensitively to operational
constraints,” says Werner-Spatz. “To put it another
way: You tell me how you fly and I’ll tell you when
your engine has to visit the shop.”
APOSEM was carried out between January
2014 and December 2016 together with
ANSYS, the DLR, the University of Stuttgart
and TU Braunschweig, and was funded by
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and
Technology (BMWI).
The three-year project developed detailed
models through thermomechanical lifetime
consumption analyses for a number of critical
components and validated these with existing
data. It produced a methodology for simulating
flight operation and for predicting general aging
of an engine.
www.mro-network.com
 ENGINE MAINTENANCE
In order to validate under real conditions
the aging behavior of engines simulated by
APOSEM, a decommissioned CFM56-5C engine
was modified as part of the EVE (Engine for
Validation Experiments) research project with
extensive additional instrumentation. Up to 310
additional parameters can now be established
using an independent data acquisition system
– corresponding to a tripling of the existing
measured values. A detailed impression of the
engine can therefore be gained in a test cell
under the most varied conditions. This provides
for a better understanding of the response of
the secondary air system and also enables its
impact on the air flow and aging behavior in the
turbine to be recorded.
“The more parameters whose impact we
can identify the better. This will allow potential
damage, faults or problems in the engine to be
detected early on. And this will therefore allow
a wider selection of measures and better ability
to influence costs than without these findings,”
says Werner-Spatz.
With the results from the APOSEM and EVE
projects, it will be possible to make long-term
predictions regarding the operation-related
aging of engines. This will allow reliable
predictions about service life and extent of
Source: Sonja Brüggemann
from left: System Engineers and members
of APOSEM-Project team Stefan Kuntzagk,
Christian Werner-Spatz, Marc Zschieschank
8 ENGINE YEARBOOK 2017
intervention, thus influencing factors such as
scrap rates and workscopes. Moreover, the
research results can be used by Lufthansa
Technik in the future as a basis for improved
costing in long-term, flat-rate maintenance
contracts. And the findings derived will help
to acquire a deeper and more comprehensive
understanding of engines.
RELIABLE PREDICTIONS
A major goal of engine support is to identify
the precise effect of stresses on different
components to make predictions for
maintenance. For example, many defects in the
low-pressure turbine can already be resolved
on-wing, up to replacement of the entire
module. On the other hand, a shop visit is often
inevitable if there are faults in the high-pressure
system. Yet with reliable prognoses, concrete
indications of the scope of the work required
and precise pre-planning, maintenance costs
can be calculated much more precisely for
individual operators.
“We will always have to bring the engine
into the shop for overhaul at some point over
its lifetime, be it for damage diagnosis or for
repair,” says Werner-Spatz. “Yet, if we can
familiarize ourselves with the engine to such
an extent that we can also reliably diagnose
many problems directly on-wing, we will reduce
unnecessary maintenance costs.”
For example, if a bleed air leak occurs,
kerosene consumption can be more than one
per cent higher than normal and a traditional
analysis of ECM data would conclude that the
high-pressure compressor was inefficient. In
fact, however, the fault is not in the engine, but
in the aircraft, and can be resolved very simply
in line maintenance. “It is critical that the fault is
diagnosed accordingly so that troubleshooting
can be initiated,” explains Werner-Spatz. “What
must be avoided in any case is that a healthy
engine is removed and sent to the shop.”
The scope of shop events will
consequently be reduced in future, while
the number of on-wing repairs will increase.
Furthermore, more precise planning in the
shop will be possible by knowing exactly
when something is going to break and what
the resulting costs will be. For maintenance
organizations, this means more efficient spare
parts planning and, for operators, it means
shop visits are shorter and can be planned
better. Thus significant savings can be made
across an engine fleet. Positive developments
in predicting service lifetimes, scrap rates and
extent of intervention will therefore be to the
benefit of both airline customers and MROs
like Lufthansa Technik.
INSIGHT SAVES MONEY
As stated, a prioity is to reduce costs per flight
hour for the operator – not only in the shop but
also on wing. Both aspects must dovetail and
be considered together, while planning needs
to be adapted to each individual operator and
its fleet. The earlier a higher-quality diagnosis
can be made, the greater the scope to find
the the most balanced and timely package of
measures. In addition, this generally also allows
a decision as to whether to perform a repair on
wing, on site or in the shop.
Innovative companies like Lufthansa
Technik want to use optimized diagnostic tools
to identify potential work- and cost-intensive
faults in engines earlier, faster and more
precisely – lowering the risk of unexpected
engine failure. And it is the company’s extensive
knowledge of damage mechanisms in the
engine that allows it to develop new repairs –
or even to completely redefine maintenance
measures. 
www.mro-network.com