Sensatek Receives $743,000 National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award

Sensatek receives award to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) of a wireless high temperature sensor for real-time monitoring of power generation gas turbine engines. The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is that unplanned outages of power generation gas turbines are increasingly occurring which pose a risk of $1.6 billion to gas turbine manufacturers across an average fleet of 500 annually on power services contracts. Using these sensors to measure blade surface temperatures will replace the significant cost of unplanned outages, by revealing when combustors are over firing to enable operators to take corrective measures. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, power generation gas turbines accounted for 1.3 million tons of NOx and SOx emissions. NOx emissions are increased due to erroneous combustor firing. This project would also lead to acceleration of adoption for developmental engines owing to reduced cost and labor requirements associated with measurement instrumentation installation. Also, this can be used in monitoring harsh environment parameters in remotely inaccessible locations, while providing insight to control systems increasing the efficiency of systems in nuclear reactors and chemical processing plants. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop a polymer-derived ceramics (PDC) sensor system for gas turbine engine’s blade surface temperature measurement. Currently, no sensors exist that can survive these harsh environments in-situ. This innovation combines unique, wireless, passive, corrosion-resistant PDC-based resonators bonded directly on the blade surface along with high temperature PDC-based antenna for operating in harsh environments. The research objectives are to miniaturize & optimize the sensor utilizing different PDCs; fabrication & validation of high temperature antenna; characterization of PDC material properties, microstructural changes, degradation of sensing performance, bonding mechanism evaluation after long term exposure to high temperatures (~1000C) in a furnace & burner rig. The prototype, including integrated multiple sensors, high temperature antenna & user data interface, will be operated on a rotating micro-turbine to demonstrate performance in actual operating environments. This award reflects NSF’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.