Steady-State and Transient Performance Modeling of Smart UAV Propulsion System Using SIMULINK

Because an aircraft gas turbine operates under various flight conditions that change with altitude, flight velocity, and ambient temperature, the performance estimation that considers the flight conditions must be known before developing or operating the gas turbine. More so, for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) where the engine is activated by an onboard engine controller in emergencies, the precise performance model including the estimated steady-state and transient performance data should be provided to the engine control system and the engine health monitoring system. In this study, a graphic user interface (GUI) type steady-state and transient performance simulation model of the PW206C turboshaft engine that was adopted for use in the Smart UAV was developed using SIMULINK for the performance analysis. For the simulation model, first the component maps including the compressor, gas generator turbine, and power turbine were inversely generated from the manufacturer’s limited performance deck data by the hybrid method. For the work and mass flow matching between components of the steady-state simulation, the state-flow library of SIMULINK was applied. The proposed steady-state performance model can simulate off-design point performance at various flight conditions and part loads, and in order to evaluate the steady-state performance model their simulation results were compared with the manufacturer’s performance deck data. According to comparison results, it was confirmed that the steady-state model agreed well with the deck data within 3% in all flight envelopes. In the transient performance simulation model, the continuity of mass flow (CMF) method was used, and the rotational speed change was calculated by integrating the excess torque due to the transient fuel flow change using the Runge–Kutta method. In this transient performance simulation, the turbine overshoot was predicted.