Statistics on Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Rotor Failures That Occurred
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOT/FAA/CT-89/5 Statistics on Aircraft Gas FAA Techni",,1 Center Atlantic City International Airport Turbine Engine Rotor Failures N.J. 08405 that Occurred in U.S. Commercial Aviation During 1983 R.A. DelUCia J.T. Salvino Naval Air Propulsion Center Trenton, New Jersey March 1989 Final Report This document Is available to the U.S. public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161 . • DOT/FAA us. Depa Ii i e It of Tronspot laro I CT-89/5 Federal AvIaIton Admlnlstratton 00013414 DOT/FAA CT-89/5 Statistics on aircraft g :~rbt ine engine rotor fa~'~res a oCCurred in U.S. ~ommercial aviation during 983. NOTICE This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U. S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof. The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers' names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the objective of this report. Technical Repart Documentatian Page 1. Report No. 2. Go".rn",."t "'cc ••• ion No. 3. R.cipie"t' . Cotolol No . DOT/FAA/CT-89/5 •• Title o"d Subtitle S . Repo,t "ote March 1989 STATISTICS ON AIRCRAFT GAS TURBINE ENGINE ROTOR 6. P.rforming O'.o"ilolion Code FAILURES THAT OCCURRED IN U.S. COMMERCIAL AVIATION DURING 1983 PE32 I . Per'orll'lin g Orooni&etio" Report No . 7. "'ulho,' .) , R. A. Delucia and J. T. Salvino NAPC-PE-184 9. P.rformi". O, • .,i 10110" N_e and "'ddr ••• 10 . Wo," Unit No . (TRAIS) Commanding Officer Naval Air Propulsion Center II. Controct 0' Gro"l N •. PO Box 7176 DOT/FA71NAAP98 Trenton, NJ 08628-0176 13. Typ. 0' Repo,t ond P.riod Cov.,ed 12. Spon.ori", "'O."cy Nom. and Add,e .. Department of Transportation Final Report Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center 1• . Spo,,,o,i"1 ..... ncy Code Atlantic City International Airport, NJ 08405 ACD-210 15. Supple",.nto,y Not •• Project Manager: B. C. Fenton - Engine/Fuel Safety Branch FAA Technical Center 16 . .... b.tr.ct This report presents statistics relating to gas turbine engine rotor failures which occurred during 1983 in commercial aviation service use. One-hundred and seventy-two failures occurred in 1983. Rotor fragments were generated in 96 of the failures and, of these, 9 were uncontained. The predominant failures involved blade fragments, 95.4 percent of which were contained. Five disk failures occurred and four were uncontained. Fifty-nine percent of the 172 failures occurred during the takeoff and climb stages of flight. This service data analysis is prepared on a calendar year basis and published yearly. The data support flight safety analyses, proposed regulatory actions, certification standards, and cost benefit analyses. 17. Key Worde lB. Di.tributio" 510t.m .... ' • Air Transportation Document is available to the public Aircraft Hazards through the National Technical Ai r cr aft Safet y Information Service, Springfield, Gas Turbine Engine Rotor Failures Virginia 2216 1 Containment 19. S.cu,ity Clollif. (of this ,epo,t) 20. Security CIClllif. Co, thi. pooe) 21. No. 0' Pog •• 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 25 Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-721 Reproduction of completed page authorized ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the following Federal Aviation Administration personnel and offices for their cooperat ive effort in the preparation of this report: o Mr. Bruce Fenton, Project Manager, Engine/Fuel Safety Branch, ACD-210, for his technical assistance. o New England Region, Burlington, MA, for providing verification of the uncontained engine rotor failure occurrences during calendar year 1983. o Flight Standards National Field Office, Oklahoma City, OK, for providing the basic data used to prepare this report. iii TABLE OF CO NTENTS Page EXECUT IVE SUMMARY vii INTRODUCTION RESULTS DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 3 APPENDICES A - DATA OF ENGINE ROTOR FAILURE S IN U.S. COMM ER CIAL AVIATION FOR 1983 LIST OF ILLU STRATIONS Fi gure Page Incidence of Engine Rotor Failures in U.S. Commerc ial Aviation - 1983 5 2 Incidence of Engine Rotor Failures in U.S. Comm ercial Aviation Accordi ng to Affected Engine Fleet Hours for each Engine Model - 1983 6 3 Compone nt and Fragment Type Distributions for Co nta in ed and Unco ntained Rotor Engine Failures (Fai lures that Produced Fragments) - 1983 7 4 Th e In cidence of Engine Ro t or Failures in U.S. Commercial Aviati on According to Engin e Type Affected - 1983 8 5 Gas Turbine Engine Failure Rates According to Engine Model and Type - 1983 9 6 Engine Rotor Failure Cause Categories - 1983 10 7 Flight Co ndition at Engine Rotor Failure - 1983 11 8 Unco ntained Engine Rotor Fai l ure Distribu tions Accord in g to Cause and Flight Co nditions - 1976 through 1983 12 9 The Incidence of Un co ntai ned Engine- Rotor Failures in U.S. Commercial Aviation - 1962 through 1983 13 v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This service, data analysis is prepared on a calendar basis and published yearly. The data support flight safety analyses. proposed regulatory actions. certification standards. and cost benefit analyses. The following statistics are based on gas turbine engine rotor failures that have occurred in United States commercial aviation during 1983 . • One hundred and seventy-two rotor failures occurred in 1983. These failures accounted for approximately 10.8 percent of the 1588 shutdowns experienced by the U.S. commercial fleet. Rotor fragments were generated in 96 of the failures and. of these. 9 were uncontained. This represents an uncontained failure rate of 1.2 per million gas turbine engine powered aircraft flight hours. or 0.4 per million engine operating hours. Approximately 7.6 and 20.6 million aircraft flight and engine operating hours. respectively. were logged in 1983. Turbine rotor fragment producing failures were approximately two times greater than that of the compressor rotor fragment producing failures (61 and 27 respectively. of the total). Fan rotor failures accounted for 8 of the fragment producing failures experienced. Blade failures were generated in 89 of the rotor failures; 4 of these were uncontained. The remaining 7 fragment generating failures were produced by disk. rim. and seal. Of the 110 known causes of failures (because of the high percentage of unknown causes of rotor failures. the percentages were based on the total number of known causes). the causal factors were (1) foreign object damage--49 (44.5 percent); (2) secondary causes--35 (31.8 percent); (3) design and life prediction problems--23 (20.9 percent); and (4) operational--3 (2.7 percent). One-hundred and two (59.3 percent) of the 172 rotor failures occurred during the takeoff and climb stages of flight. Sixty (62.5 percent) of the 96 rotor fragment producing failures and 7 (77.8 percent) of the 9 uncontained rotor failures occurred during these same stages of flight. The incidence of engine rotor failures producing fragments has remained relatively constant when compared to 1982 (96 in 1983 and 88 in 1982). The uncontained engine rotor failures has decreased 43.8 percent in 1983 (16 in 1982 and 9 in 1983). The 9 year (1975 through 1983) average of uncontained engine rotor failures has decreased from 16 to 15. vii INTRODUCTION This report is sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Technical Center. located at the Atlantic City International Airport. New Jersey. This service data analysis is published yearly. The data support flight safety analyses. proposed regulatory actions. certification standards. and cost benefit analyses • • The intent and purpose of this report is to present data as objectively as possible on rotor failure occurrences in United States commercial aviation. Presented in this report are statistics on gas turbine engine utilization and failures that have occurred in U.S. commercial aviation during 1983. These statistics are based on service data compiled by the FAA Flight Standards District Office. The National Safety Data 8ranch of the FAA Aviation Standards National Field Office disseminate this information in a service difficulty data base and the Air Carrier Aircraft Utilization and Propulsion Reliability Report. The compiled data were analyzed to establish: 1. The incidence of rotor failures and the incidence of contained and uncontained rotor fragments (an uncontained rotor failure is defined as a rotor failure that produces fragments which penetrate and escape the confines of the engine casing). 2. The distribution of rotor failures with respect to engine rotor components. i.e •• fan. compressor. or turbine rotors and their rotating attachments or appendages such as spacers and seals. 3. The number of rotor failures according to engine model and engine fleet hours. 4. The type of rotor fragment (disk. rim. or blade) typically generated at failure. 5. The cause of failure. 6. The flight conditions at the time of failure. 7. Engine failure rate according to engine fleet hours. RESULTS The data used for analysis are contained in Appendi x A. The results of these analyses are shown in figures 1 through 9. Figure 1 shows that 172 rotor failures occu rred in 1983. These rotor failures accounted for approximately 10.8 percent of the 1588 shutdowns experienc ed by the gas turbi ne powered aircraft fleet during 1983 . Rotor fragments were generated in 96 of the failures experienced and. of these. 9 (9.4 percent of the fragment produci ng failures) were uncontained. This represents an un co ntai ned failure rate of 1.2 per million gas turbine engine powered aircraft flight hours. or 0.4 per million engine operating hours. Approximately 7.6 million and 20.6 million aircraft flight and engine operating hours, respectively, were logged by the U.S.