Design of a Multiple Beam Pyrometer for

Measurement of Temperature on Gas Turbine

Blades
Stefan Maurer Michael Willsch Andreas Baumgart
and Norbert Lindlein and Thomas Bosselmann Technische Universitaet Ilmenau
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Siemens AG Ilmenau, Germany
Institute of Optics, Erlangen, Germany
Information and Photonics
(Max Planck Research Group)
Erlangen, Germany
Email: mail@maurerstefan.de

Abstract— In this paper, a new, non-invasive, stationary sensor

design for pyrometry measurements on several separate sensing
spots on a gas turbine blade is presented. The sensor optics
separates these spots and enables a spatially resolved temperature
acquisition. It deflects thermal radiation through a 10mm keyhole
of the turbine wall into waveguides. Parameters of the optical
components are optimized by ray-trace computer simulations,
whereas experimental verification is done by a 4x scaled setup.
Simulation and experimental results from the final design are
shown. At present, a prototype is being constructed according to
the results of this work.
Fig. 1. Side view of the design of the pyrometer. There are shown the turbine
I. I NTRODUCTION blade (1), measuring spots (2), inner (3) and outer turbine wall (4), window
Being aware of dwindling fossil resources, the production (5), prism (6), lens (7) and waveguides (8).
of energy becomes more and more expensive. Nevertheless
the demand of energy increases steadily. One solution is to
make energy production more efficient. Focusing especially
on gas turbines, the increases of their operating temperature
and therefore their efficiency is promising. However, the
maximum operating temperature is limited by the robustness
of the material in the turbine, in particular of the material
of the turbine blades. These are the components stressed at
most. Consequently the very important question is: How hot
become the turbine blades? Do they – especially the first row Fig. 2. Integration of the sensor, which is located in a long cylinder, in the
blades – reach their operating limit? The maximum operating turbine.
temperature of the turbine blades is well-known. It is much
more interesting to what extent they really heat up while they
are in operation. [2], information about the temperature distribution cannot be
Today it is already possible to measure the temperature at one acquired yet by both presented designs.
point of the turbine blade by the means of pyrometry [1]. There is just one further possibility described by [3], which
Thermal radiation from the hot blade is collected and routed enables a spatially resolved temperature measurement on a
through a small ”keyhole” in the turbine wall. The intensity gas turbine blade: Thermal radiation of the complete blade
of the radiation is measured by a detector. Using Planck’s is collected via a dispersion prism and routed by a lens
Law, the temperature of the blade at the measured point can onto one single fiber waveguide. Spatially resolved infor-
be obtained. A disadvantage is that the sensor extends into mation is obtained by using the fact that the deflection of
the inner turbine room during the measurement, as well as the radiation is wavelength dependent and the coupled light
most of the other available sensors do. Although few designs with different wavelengths origins from different parts of the
allow measurements without disturbances in the turbine room blade. Nevertheless, the concept exhibits two disadvantages: (i)
1-4244-2581-5/08/$20.00 ©2008 IEEE 744 IEEE SENSORS 2008 Conference
Fig. 3. Side view of the setup for the RAYTRACE software. The segments
of the turbine blade, numbered from 1 to 7, are set as light source.
No simultaneous temperature measurement on different blade
segments, and (ii), loss of a big part of the beam intensity
by the use of color filters. The aim of our work is to face
the above mentioned disadvantages and to develop a concept
that makes the instant measurement of temperature gradients
possible. An optical setup is developed which enables to route
thermal radiation from several discrete points on the turbine
blade through a keyhole in the turbine wall of approx. 10 mm
diameter. The radiation from the 800◦ C to 1300◦ C hot blade is
then routed into several appropriate fiber waveguides. Finally it
is passed on to detectors to obtain temperature information. In
order to avoid disturbances of the gas flow within the turbine,
no parts of the sensor extend into the inner turbine room.
Furthermore, coupled into waveguides of thermal radiation
which does not come from the measuring points on the blade is
prevented. Figure 1 shows qualitatively the pyrometer design,
fulfilling the conditions mentioned above, in a side view.
Figure 2 illustrates the integration within the turbine.
II. S IMULATION AND E XPERIMENT
A. Simulation
After extensive, preliminary investigations with the ray-
tracing simulation software RAYTRACE [5], the design which
can solve the task best of all (see Fig. 1) was selected. It
consists of a highly temperature resistant sapphire window
which seals the cylinder against the turbine room. A prism
made of fused silica deflects the rays in such a way that
they get parallel to the cylinder axis. Finally, a lens made of
sapphire images the measurement spots onto the end of seven
waveguides. The material of the optical components can only
be sapphire or fused silica, because only those two glasses
resist temperatures up to 2000◦ C and 1000◦ C respectively.
Since the temperature in the turbine is at about 1100◦ C, the
window has to be made of sapphire. The lens is also made of
sapphire, because it has a greater refractive index (nSapphire =
1.75, nF usedSilica = 1.46) and secures that the curvature and
therefore aberrations of the lens are kept small. As on the
other hand, sapphire is birefringent (noSapphire − naoSapphire =
0.00787), the prism is made of fused silica in order to keep the
global drift between ordinary and extraordinary rays as small
as possible. The radiation finally couples into the waveguides
with 62.5µm core diameter and numerical aperture of 0.22
or 0.12 and is routed to detectors. Using RAYTRACE, this
design then was examined more deeply. Different segments
of the blades were set as independent light sources. Then
raytracing was performed with the optical elements window,
prism and lens. For all simulations the used wavelength was
745
Fig. 4. Experimental setup of the sensor. Dimensions are 4x scaled up due
to better handling.
1m. Fig. 3 shows a side view of the simulated configuration.
The following issues were examined within this work: (i)
Optimum waveguide positions and coupling efficiencies, (ii)
Positioning tolerances of the waveguides, (iii) Fault couplings,
(iv) coupling power and (v) Origin of coupled radiation on the
turbine blade. Results are shown in section III.
B. Experiment
After simulation was done, the results were verified by an
experimental setup. As dimensions of the optical elements
are very small, the design was built up 4x scaled. Fig. 4
shows the scheme of the experimental setup. The prism was
fixed on an immovable, but rotary stage (around the x-axis).
The turbine blade, the lens and the holding device for the
waveguides were fixed on translation stages. Additionally, the
waveguides could also be rotated around the x-axis by a
goniometer. At first the waveguides were set as visible light
sources to roughly examine the path of rays. This means that
the problem was tested inversely. Consequently, results will be
slightly different for the not inverse but direct measurement.
Afterwards, different segments of the blade were set as visible
light source. This was achieved by illuminating a small,
properly dimensioned ceramic disk with a bright halogen bulb.
By connecting a photometer to one or several waveguides, the
positions with the best coupled conditions could be found and
compared to simulation results.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
A. Simulation
1) Optimum waveguide positions and coupling efficiencies:
In order to guarantee a signal with enough power as well
as a clear separation of the signals from the different blade
segments, it has to be made sure that the waveguides are
located in their optimum position. The coupling efficiency of
thermal radiation from the appropriate blade segment has to
be maximum, the coupling efficiency of neighboring segments
should be zero. Using the simulation setup in RAYTRACE de-
scribed above, the foci of the different turbine blade segments,
i.e. the optimum position for the waveguides were calculated.
Afterwards, the so called ”Corrected Fiber Efficiency” (CFE)
was calculated for every blade segment at every waveguide
position. The CFE is defined as the ratio between the number
of coupled rays and the number of focused rays behind the
lens (see Fig. 3). The optimum waveguide positions are shown
in Fig. 8. It can be seen easily that the foci of the different
segments lie, due to aberration errors of the third order, on a
Petzval shell [4]. Fig. 5 depicts the CFE’s in every waveguide.
Fig. 5. Corrected Fiber Efficiency (CFE) of all waveguides for all turbine Fig. 6. Corrected Fiber Efficiency (CFE) for waveguide number 2 of radiation
blade segments. from the appropriate and the direct neighboring turbine blade segments as
function of the y-position of the waveguide. The CFE is given relative to the
TABLE I maximum value in the appropriate segment. Birefringence is not considered
ACCEPTABLE TOLERANCES (±) FOR POSITIONING THE OPTICAL here.
ELEMENTS ( BIREFRINGENCE EFFECTS INCLUDED ). TABLE II
R ADIANT FLUX φc , FRACTION Fw OF THIS FLUX , WHICH COUPLES INTO
Translation Rotation THE WAVEGUIDES , AND THE APPROPRIATE ABSOLUTE VALUE φw .

x y z α β γ
Window - - - 1◦ 5◦ - Segment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Prism - 100µm 500µm 0.05◦ 0.5◦ 0.5◦ φc / µW 248 297 360 443 555 709 914
Lens 50µm 50µm 200µm 1◦ 1◦ - Fw / 10−3 2.76 2.17 1.74 1.38 1.24 1.44 0.91
Waveguide 100µm 10µm 450µm 1◦ 1◦ - φw / µW 0.69 0.64 0.62 0.61 0.69 1.02 0.83

The diagram confirms that there is coupled only for radiation
from the appropriate, but not from adjacent segments into
the waveguide. In the case that the CFE’s from neighboring
segments were not negligible, i.e. imaging didn’t work that
well, it would have been necessary to replace the lens by an
asphere. This element would feature much less aberrations.
2) Positioning tolerances of the waveguides: Another im-
portant question is: How precise have the optical elements
(waveguides, prism, lens and window) to be positioned? Tol-
erances for each degree of freedom were defined by applying
small shifts or rotations to the elements, and monitoring the
decline of the CFEs. Concretely, translations in x, y and z
direction, as well as rotations around these axes, described by
the angles α, β, and γ were examined. The maximum tolerance
is reached when the CFE into the appropriate waveguide
decreases by 20% or when the CFE into a neighboring
waveguide increases up to 10% of the original signal. Taking
into account that the ordinary and the extraordinary beam split
up by birefringence up to 15µm, the resulting allowances are
shown in Tab. I. The positioning of the lens, prism and window
according to the mentioned tolerances is easily achievable.
On the other side, the realization of the positioning of the
waveguides guaranteeing especially the low y−tolerance of
just 10µm is a challenge. Nevertheless, a solution for this
problem is in progress. As shifts of the waveguides in y-
direction are extremely sensitive, the CFE of the first three
waveguides, which lie together most closely, were examined
more extensively. Moving the waveguide in steps of 20µm,
the CFEs from both the appropriate and the adjacent segments
746
were logged and are depicted exemplarily for waveguide No.
2 in Fig. 6. Birefringence effects are not considered here.
3) Coupling power: Until now, no absolute values for cou-
pled fluxes were given. This was done in a further calculation
accepting the following assumptions: Temperature of turbine
blade: Tb = 1000◦ C, sensitive wavelength range for detector:
800nm < λ < 1800nm. Integrating Planck’s radiation law,
the radiation flux φb , emitted by a turbine blade segment with
an area A = 4mm x 4mm, was calculated:
Z 1800nm
2πc2 h
φb = A ·  ch  dλ = 35, 5mW (1)
800nm λ5 e λkTb − 1
This power is distributed within the half space above the blade.
Just a small fraction, given by the ratio of the spherical’s
cap’s area (2πr2 (1 − cosχ)) and the hemisphere’s area hits
the cylinder. By weighting the result according to Lambert’s
law, we get the radiant flux φc , entering the cylinder (see Tab.
II). The fraction Fw of φc which couples into the waveguides
was evaluated by RAYTRACE. Finally, the absolute radiant
flux, coupled into the waveguides, is given as φw in Tab. II.
φw lies between 0.7 and 1µW and is detectable by the foreseen
detector. If by any reason the coupled radiant flux was too low,
the core diameter of the waveguides could be increased. But,
as the waveguides are already positioned very close together, a
repositioning of the waveguides could be necessary then. This
would be linked with a decrease of the spatial resolution.
4) Origin of coupled radiation on the turbine blade:
The key feature of the pyrometer is its ability to measure

Fig. 7. The CFE into the appropriate waveguide is shown for every turbine
blade segment from segment 1 at z = −42 to segment 7 at z = −18 as
function of the emission position.
temperature spatially resolved. Thus, it was examined where
exactly the coupled radiation comes from on the turbine blade.
This was done by shifting a small light source on a grid
of 16x16 sub segments on every segment of the blade and
logging the CFE (see Fig. 7). The results show that the coupled
radiation origins from a quite small area of 1mm x 1mm.
Therefore the temperature on the blade is not measured by
averaging over a big area, but on a relatively sharp spot. Thus
exact temperature information is obtainable.
5) Fault couplings: Fault couplings occur when light,
which was not emitted from the turbine blade but for example
from the cylinder walls, couples into waveguides. At first, the
origin of the fault radiation was located. Assuming further
that the temperature of the turbine blade is Tb = 1000◦ C,
the fraction of the coupled radiation, which origins from the
four most intense areas together, i.e. the fraction with fault
radiation was calculated. The temperature of the cylinder, Tc
was assumed to be 900, 800, .. . or 400◦ C. Depending on
Tc , the fraction of fault coupled lies in a range from 0.01%
to 5%. Including results of a temperature simulation [6], a
reasonable value for Tc is 800◦ C. The fault fraction then lies
at about 2%. This would be acceptable, as it would result in
an absolute temperature error of only 4◦ C.
B. Experiment
Each optical element was positioned according to the sim-
ulation results. Then, on the waveguide mount, one single
waveguide, coupled to a laser light source, was positioned.
Its position was adapted in such a way that the image of
the waveguide end was centered sharply on each of the
seven turbine blade segments successively. The waveguide
positions (in y- and z-direction) were noted and are depicted
in Fig. 8. This procedure was done for both a waveguide with
numerical aperture N A = 0.22 and one with N A = 0.12. The
core diameter was 62.5µm. In the same Fig. 8 the optimum
waveguide positions according to the simulation results are
747
Fig. 8. The diagram displays the y− and z− position of each of the
seven waveguides according to simulation results and experimental results.
The simulated positions are shown with tolerance bars, which are 4x scaled
due to the experimental setup.
presented as well. Within the tolerance range of 40 µm the
experimental y− positions of the N A = 0.12 waveguide are
in an excellent agreement with the simulated ones. Also the
z− positions are in good agreement, although the experimental
positions of waveguide 1 and 2 are slightly out of the tolerance
range of 1.8mm. This is due to the big focus, which was not
easy to identify. As this procedure was even more difficult for
the N A = 0.22 waveguide, the corresponding results do not
fit as well as those of the proceeding one.
The very motivating simulation results as well as the experi-
ment, confirming these results, indicate that the prototype in
construction will work successfully.
IV. C ONCLUSION
The prototype construction, adapted to small industrial
turbines, is currently in progress. First test runs will soon
be done. As the complete design of the multiple beam py-
rometer is easily scalable, it will subsequently be adapted
to bigger turbines with powers of up to 200M W . With the
knowledge about the exact temperature distribution on their
turbine blades, it will be possible to adapt the turbine design
in such a way that an increase of the operating temperature
and eventually of the efficiency can be achieved.
R EFERENCES
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International Conference on Gas Turbine Instrumentation, 28th & 29th
September 2004
[2] R.A. Rooth, Dual wavelength temperature monitoring of TBC coated
Alstom 13E2 turbine blades, Proceedings of ASME/IGTI Turbo Expo
2003: Power of Land, Sea & Air, June 16-19, 2003, Atlanta, Georgia,
USA
[3] US Patent 4240706, Optical Probe, Joseph Douglas, 23.12.1980, Rolls-
Royce Limited, London, England
[4] E. Hecht, Optics, 3. ed., Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley 1998
[5] N. Lindlein, F. Simon, M. Lano, O. Stolz, A. Mitnacht, RAYTRACE
Version 0.9(15), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Copyright 2006
[6] A. Baumgart, Vielstrahlpyrometer fuer Temperaturmessungen an Gastur-
binenschaufeln, Diploma Thesis, Technische Universitaet Ilmenau, 2008