Development and validation of an aero-engine simulation model for advanced controller design

This paper reports the results of a joint academic and industrial study on the development of a detailed simulation model to be used for research into advanced control strategies for civil turbofan aircraft engines. A comprehensive nonlinear dynamic model of a turbofan jet engine has been developed and validated against real industrial data. A switched, gain-scheduled, feedback control system incorporating bumpless transfer and antiwindup functionality has been designed for the engine model and implemented according to current industrial practice. Full flight envelope validation of the model has been performed with the help of Alstom Aerospace by analysing the resulting closed-loop performance properties for a range of different pilot thrust demands against the type of responses required from a real turbofan engine. In this paper, we present a detailed description of the modeling process, the various simulation issues that arise with a model of this complexity, and the validation results of the overall aero-engine system.