Analysis of Oil Debris in an Aero Gas Turbine Engine

Oil debris count is an important health monitoring parameter in aero gas turbine engine. Present paper deals with the oil debris analysis collected from the bearing houses and gear box of a military gas turbine engine. Due to relative motion between stationary parts, wearing-out has taken place in turbine bearing house. Improper assembly or dimensional inaccuracies found to be the root cause of high debris generation. For wearing-out of the drive shaft in gear box, lapses in assembly procedure and improper tolerances are found to be responsible. Though high ‘g’ maneuvers of the aircraft, hard landings, missile launch and bird hit or foreign object impact can lead to such high debris in the oil circuit, utmost care needs to be taken during assembly. © 2017, ASM International.