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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

A PROBABILISTIC IN-FLIGHT THRUST ESTIMATION PROCESS

João Carlos Hoff, Ph.D.

Senior Engineer
Embraer Certification Office
Av. Faria Lima 2170, São Jose dos Campos – SP, Brazil
CEP 12227-900 – jhoff@embraer.com.br

Abstract

Traditionally jet engines installed thrust are estimated, in-flight, by deterministic processes that
starting from the fan and core measured pressures and temperatures calculates, by many different
ways, the intermediate turbomachine parameters up to the exhaust nozzle pressure and temperature.
With this data and the nozzle coefficients, previously determined from nozzle model tests, the installed
thrust is estimated. A new approach to in-flight thrust determination was proposed recently on the
Paper SAE Brazil 2007-01-25421, a more stochastic approach, which in fact estimates the engine fan
and core pressures and temperatures from initial values of nozzle air mass flow and gross thrust
values, or nozzle total pressure and temperature values. Using the Output-Error Method the values of
the engine gross thrust and air mass flow are iteratively updated by a Newton-Raphson algorithm
minimizing the error between estimated and measured parameters as the fan and core calculated
pressure and temperatures, fuel flow, etc. The technique solves in fact, by optimization, the inverse or
backward formulation of the in-flight thrust determination problem. The advantages of the new
technique over the traditional one is that it has stochastic characteristics allowing to process the noisy
flight test data samples without previous averaging of the data over the stabilization time interval. The
paper above referenced presented the technique and its application to a mixed flow turbofan. This
paper demonstrates the technique to a separate-stream turbofan (short cowl), using a set of engine
Deck data transformed to sampled data by application of noise, however, the technique has been
validated with real flight test data.

Acronyms, Abbreviations and Symbols

A Area (in2)
A19 By-pass nozzle area – station 19 (in2)
A9 Core nozzle area - station 9 ( in2)
AFM Airplane Flight Manual
ATF Altitude Test Facility
cL Vector of unknowns
Cd19 By-pass flow coefficient
Cd9 Core Flow coefficient
Cv19 By-pass thrust coefficient
Cv9 Core thrust coefficient
FADEC Full authority Digital Engine Control
FAR Federal Airworthiness Regulation

Copyright © 2008 J.C.Hoff

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FG19 By-pass gross thrust (lb)

FG9 Core gross thrust (lb)
FMU Fuel Metering Unit
FN Net thrust (lb)
FTB Flight Test Bed
FTI Flight Test Instrumentation
GLTF Ground Level Test Facility
ht Enthalpy (ht19, ht9,….) (BTU/lb)
J Cost Functional
J Joule or thermodynamics constant (J=1400)
°K Kelvin (temperature unit)
N Number of samples
NPR Nozzle pressure ratio
P Pressure (psi)
Prt Relative pressure for Tt
Prs Relative pressure for Ts
PS19 Static pressure at engine station 19 (psi)
PS9 Static pressure at engine station 9 (psi)
Pt0 Total pressure (freestream)
Pt13 Total pressure at engine station 13 (psi)
Pt2 Intake total pressure (psi)
Pt49 Total pressure at engine station 49 (psi)
R Residual Covariance Matrix
R Gas constant
REM Residual Error Method
s Seconds
SFC Specific Fuel Consumption
T Temperature (°R) – Ts for static, Tt for total
Ts19 Static temperature at by-pass nozzle (°R)
Ts9 Static temperature at core nozzle (°R)
Tt13 Total temperature at engine station 13 (°R)
Tt19 Total temperature at by-pass nozzle (°R)
Tt49 Total temperature close to station 5 (°R)
Tt9 Total temperature at engine station 9 (°R)
x̂ Vector of estimated states
z Measurement vector
W Air mass flow (lb/s)
W19 Fan air mass flow (lb/s)
W2 Intake air mass flow (lb/s)
W9 Core as mass flow (lb/s)
Wf Fuel flow (lb/s)
φ Entropy ( φT arg et at Ts and φt for Tt)
∂x
States partial derivatives relative to the unknowns.
∂c
13, 19, 49, 9 Engine stations numbering as defined on SAE ARP 775C6

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

INTRODUCTION
The development of an airplane requires the estimation of the engines installed thrust for
drag evaluation and airplane performance calculation. For transport category airplanes, the
FAR 252, states: “the performance must correspond to the propulsive thrust available under the
particular ambient atmospheric conditions, the particular flight condition, and the relative
humidity specified in the regulation. The available propulsive thrust must correspond to the
engine power or thrust, not exceeding the approved thrust less:

1. Installation losses, and

2. The power or equivalent thrust absorbed by the accessories and services appropriate to
the particular ambient atmospheric conditions and particular flight condition.”

The way found by the airframe manufacturers to attend the above requirement while verifying
simultaneously the actual engine SFC specified in contracts with engine manufacturer was
measuring in-flight the installed engine thrust and fuel flow. This is performed for a range of
altitude, airspeed, fan speed, and power extraction. Later these data is used in the calibration
of the engine cycle model (Deck), which becomes the general source of installed thrust for
flight test data analysis and AFM airplane performance calculation.

Jet engine installed thrust is not directly measured. In fact it is indirectly estimated by
processes that require the nozzle characterization from nozzle model tests, and the
measurement (and / or some estimation) of actual engine pressures and temperatures, at the
same stations measured in the model during nozzle model characterization tests. It is a difficult
task that requires a refined plan, an accurate and expensive instrumentation, nozzle model
calibration, real engine calibration on GLTF, FTB, ATF, several hours of expensive flights and
many hours of engineering analysis. The literature presents several methods of determining
deterministically the installed thrust. The reports SAE AIR 1703A3 and SAE AIR 54504 are the
guides on the subject and reflect the state of the art and industry standards. Among the
methods there described the most accurate and used in the industry are the denominated
W T (Weight temperature method), Ap (Area pressure method) and the Residual Error
Method (REM), all ‘gas flow path’ type methods.

These industry standard methods need the nozzle characterization which is obtained via
nozzle model tests in a test stand. The nozzle calibration process consists in determining the
nozzle coefficients Cv, Cd (or others) which are dimensionless groups that relates actual
nozzle thrust to ideal nozzle thrust and actual mass flow to ideal mass flow. In-flight the ideal
thrust and mass flow are iteratively calculated and then, via the coefficients, the actual thrust is
estimated. Before this step it is required to calculate the nozzle total pressure and total
temperature and / or others, which may be calculated from turbo machine maps, energy, mass
and momentum conservation, and will be used in mass flow and gross thrust calculation.

This work deals with the inverse or backward formulation of the in-flight thrust estimation
process, that is, starting from initial values of nozzle parameters as temperature, pressure and
air mass flow, the fan and the core total pressure, temperatures and the engine fuel flow are
calculated. Via an optimization algorithm the error between the calculated and the measured

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

parameters are minimized by inserting appropriately the values of gross thrust (or nozzle total
pressure) and air mass flow (fan and core). The method is applied to a separate-stream large
turbofan.

DEVELOPMENT
It is applied an optimization algorithm to the estimation of the installed engine gross thrust
and air mass flow by minimizing the error between calculated and measured engine
parameters. As the engine thrust and mass flow doesn’t have specific equations or state
space models the, Output-Error is the ideal algorithm to be used to identify the unknowns,
thrust and air mass flow. The problem is formulated as an optimization problem where given
the measured quantities as fan and core pressures, temperatures, fuel flow, etc., the algorithm
inserts values of gross thrust, fan and core air mass flow, by minimization of a cost functional
based on the calculated and measured fan and core pressures, temperatures, fuel flow, etc.
The cost functional is derived from the negative logarithm of the Likelihood Function, which
comes from the conditional probability p ( c / Z ) , and after simplifications takes the format of Eq.
1.

1 N
J= ∑ ( z − xˆ )T R −1 ( z − xˆ )
N − 1 K =1
(1)

Equation 1 is minimized by a Newton-Raphson type algorithm and the unknown gross thrust
and air mass flow are calculated iteratively by Eq. 2 from given initial values:
−1
∂ 2 J  ∂J
c L = c L −1 − 2  (2)
 ∂c  ∂c

The derivatives of J to the unknowns are calculated by:

∂J 2 ∂ ( z − xˆ )
∑
N
= k =1
( z − xˆ )T R −1
∂c N − 1 ∂c
2 T
(3)
∂ J 2 N ∂ (z − x ˆ ) −1 ∂ ( z − xˆ )
∂c 2
= ∑
N − 1 k =1 ∂c
R
∂c

In Eq. 1 and 3 above R is the matrix of the covariance of the residuals which is calculated by:

1 N
R= ∑
N − 1 K =1
( z − xˆ )( z − xˆ )T (4)

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

The accuracy of the estimates may be evaluated by the Cramer-Rao Bound for white noise
assumption, from terms of Eq. 2, or by its improved version applicable for colored noise, as
presented in Morelli, Klein5 for both cases.

The algorithm allows processing a set of test samples recorded in-flight during an
engine/airplane stabilization taking into account the noise of the recorded data.

To demonstrate the use of the estimation process an in-flight thrust algorithm applicable to a
separate-stream turbofan has been defined and the deterministic (traditional) and the new
probabilistic process are compared.

The Deterministic Algorithm

The direct algorithm, i.e., the traditional deterministic algorithm is similar to the one
presented in paragraph 6.6.5 of SAE AIR 1703A3. Pressures and temperatures are measured
at engine stations 13 and 49. From known flow path pressure loss, the pressures at by-pass
and core nozzle, respectively Pt19 and Pt9 are calculated. The temperature at the stations 19
and 9 are calculated by correcting the measurements of stations 13 and 49. From the nozzle it
is assumed full expansion from total pressure to ambient pressure, and the nozzle static
temperature is calculated from the target entropy ( φT arg et ) calculated as:

R
φT arg et = φt − Log ( NPR ) (5)
J

With the nozzle pressures and temperatures the air density and speed are calculated allowing
the calculation of the mass flow and the gross thrust in both the by-pass and core nozzles.
Considerations shall be taken for chocked and unchocked nozzle conditions. Figure 1 below
summarizes the direct method, or deterministic algorithm.

Figure 1 – Direct algorithm

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

The Inverse Problem

From initial values of air mass flow W19 and W9, static temperatures Ts19 and Ts9, the
temperatures and pressure Pt13, Tt13, Pt49, Tt49 and the fuel flow Wf are estimated using the
backward formulation of the algorithm above presented. The errors between Pt13, Tt13, Pt49,
Tt49 and Wf measured and calculated are then minimized by updating iteratively the values of
W19, W9, Ts19 and Ts9 using the optimization procedure presented in the paragraph 2 above.
The fuel flow (Wf) is calculated from an energy balance equation which is also of fundamental
importance in the air mass flow estimation.

Figure 2 summarizes the inverse problem or the stochastic algorithm;

Figure 2: The inverse problem – the probabilistic algorithm

A convergence criterion shall be specified for the Cost Functional J or for two consecutive set
of estimates to be used to stop the iteration process. Upon reaching final values (optimized) of
Ts19, Ts9, W19, W9 and also having Pt19, Pt9, Cv9, Cv19, Cd9, Cd19, the gross thrust is calculated
for the by-pass and core sections finishing the whole estimation process.

RESULTS

The above described estimation technique was initially developed with engine Deck
data and later validated with real engine flight test data. The results presented below have
been derived from engine Deck data. One set of fan and core pressure and temperature and
the associated gross thrust and air mass flow has been obtained from an engine Deck. Later
the data was scaled up in area and thrust. To this data set white noise has been added
generating 100 samples. Noise characteristics (covariance) have been obtained from real
engine data taken from engine stabilizations. Initially the data has been used as it was a GLTF
data calculating the nozzle Cv and Cd coefficients (thrust and mass flow coefficients,
respectively) to be used latter in both estimation processes.

The probabilistic algorithm has been implemented together with the direct algorithm and the
results of the direct algorithm have been used as initial values for the probabilistic algorithm.

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However, to show the robustness of the new algorithm, perturbations have been applied to the
initial values, and the final results always converged to the same final values. The new
estimation process produced gross thrust and air mass flow very close to the results of the
direct method and both reproduced very well the source data. Table 1, below presents the
resultant net thrust, by-pass and core gross thrust and air mass flow for both algorithms.

Direct Algorithm Stochastic Algorithm

Net Thrust (lb) 5393 5396
FG19 (lb) 7628 7630
FG9 (lb) 2233 2234
Fan Mass Flow (lb/s) 226.18 226.2
Core Mass Flow/ (lb/s) 46.5 46.5

Table 1 – Estimated Thrust and Mass Flow

Figure 3, below shows the Cost Functional values plotted against the algorithm iteration
number. Figure 4 shows the by-pass ideal air mass (W19) flow estimated values along the
algorithm iterations. Figure 5 shows the core ideal air mass flow (W9) along the iterations.
Figures 6 and 7 show the static temperatures estimated for the by-pass and core, respectively.
All estimated parameters converged to final values in less than 10 iterations indicating the
good comportment of the algorithm, and always converged to the same final values when
perturbing one or more initial values in different directions.

Figure 3. Cost Functional (J) values versus algorithm iterations

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Figure 4. By-pass ideal air mass flow (W19) versus iteration

Figure 5. Core ideal air mass flow (W9) versus iteration

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Figure 6. By-pass static temperature Ts19 (°R) versus iteration

Figure 7. Core nozzle static temperature Ts9 (°R) versus iteration

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

FINAL COMMENTS

A statistical approach to in-flight thrust estimation for a large separate-stream turbofan

engine has been demonstrated. The new process finds the unknowns thrust and air mass flow,
through an optimization process, minimizing the error between some calculated and measured
parameters.
The main advantage of the new process is that it allows for the use of a large set of data
samples without previous time averaging. As a statistical process the resultant thrust and air
mass flow reflects the properties associated to the whole data set and is updated iteratively by
the optimization process. It also allows using data from different sources, as for instance fuel
flow data from FTI and from FMU, from both FADEC channels, simultaneously in the
optimization process. The nozzle characterization, that is, the determination of nozzle
coefficients from nozzle model tests, shall take into account a direct process equivalent to the
inverse problem.

The algorithm is robust and may be started with mass flow from generalized flow function for
the fan and core not requiring good initial estimates. Disturbing the initial values the algorithm
is able to converge always to the same solution. As an optimization process the algorithm
allows for different implementations depending on the constraint equations and optimization
parameters used in the problem formulation. For the present application the use of the air
mass flow and the nozzle static temperature as optimization parameters resulted in the best
algorithm implementation among the tested configurations. Some algorithm implementation
using pseudo-measurements have been tested presenting good results. This was done by
using a constraint as it was a measurement with zero mean and a noise whose covariance
allows to attend the constraint tolerance. For instance, one constraint equation should be the
entropy change rewritten as:

R
φT arg et − φt − Log (Pr t / Pr s ) = noise (6)
J

Equation (6) is minimized for Ts and Tt. The noise reflects the pseudo-measurement tolerance
to Ts acceptance.

The algorithm is fast and may process one hundred samples in few seconds. The partial
derivatives required by Eq. 3 were numerically calculated by central differences, from
perturbations to the optimization parameters. A 1% perturbation produced good results for the
chosen optimization parameters. The Levenberg-Marquardt search algorithm may be used in
place of the used Newton-Raphson algorithm.

REFERENCES

1. Hoff, J.C. Towards a Stochastic In-Flight Determination Process. Paper SAE 2007-01-
2542. SAE BRASIL 2007 Congress, São Paulo, Nov. 2007.

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39 Annual International Symposium 17 November – 21 November, 2008, Ft. Worth, TX

2. PART 25 – Airworthiness Standard: Transport Category Airplanes. FAA, Department of

Transport. USA.
3. SAE AIR 1703A. In-Flight Thrust Determination. Society of Automotive Engineer E-33
Committee. USA, Draft Feb. 2006
4. SAE AIR 5450. Advanced Ducted Propulsor In-Flight Thrust Determination. Society of
Automotive Engineers. USA, Draft 2006-06-15
5. Morelli, E, A; Klein, V. Determining the accuracy of Maximum Likelihood parameter
estimates with colored residuals. NASA Report 194893, 1994.
6. SAE ARP 755C. Gas Turbine Engine Performance Station Identification and
Nomenclature. SAE, USA, December 1997.

BIOGRAPHY
J.C. Hoff has a B.Sc degree in Mechanical Engineering (1972), M.Sc. degree in Structural
Analysis (1974) and Ph.D. degree in Flight Dynamics (1995). Works for Embraer since 1978
being involved mainly with flight test related activities (airplane performance, armament and
system tests).

SOCIETY OF FLIGHT TEST ENGINEERS