I-Corps: High-Temperature Sensors for Turbine Industry

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to reduce damage from undetected hot-spots in turbine engines, a common industry problem which impacts costs in repairs, maintenance, and unplanned downtime. Industrial gas turbine production is expected to increase over the coming years and these turbines are expected to operate at much higher temperatures to achieve higher efficiencies, thereby being prone to more incidents that involve overheating. Hotspots go undetected because current thermocouple systems are generally not capable of being placed in pertinent areas and because of bulky cables that restrict placement inside gas turbines.This I-Corps project is based on wireless passive sensors that have significant impacts on a new class of sensor technology which is suitable for harsh-environment applications such as turbines, rockets, and fuel cells. This technology can provide reliable long-term sensing to increase the efficiency, improve the operational reliability and reduce the pollution for many systems. A temperature sensor using dielectric resonator structure, a low-profile reflective patch temperature sensor, and a pressure sensor based on evanescent-mode resonator structure, have been demonstrated with operation up to 1300C. These sensors are made of high-temperature-stable and corrosion-resistant Silicoboron Carbonitride (SiBCN) ceramic materials which are suitable for harsh-environment applications. The pressure sensor uses an evanescent-mode resonator structure, in which an air gap dimension decreases when the external pressure increases, causing a decrease in the resonant frequency.