Research on the dynamic characteristics of a turbine flow meter

In the hardware-in-loop simulation of aero-engine control system where the real fuel regulator is engaged, it's crucial to measure the real-time flow rate. In view of this, a flow meter with high precision and fast response is important. In this paper, modeling and experiments are conducted to verify the dynamic characteristics of a turbine flow meter (TFM). For the modeling part, driving torque and resistance torques are analyzed to derive the kinetic equation of TFM. Simulation with the kinetic equation shows good dynamic performance of TFM. In experiments, a workbench is designed to generate step-type flow and sine-type flow for identification in time domain and frequency domain. Results show that the settling time for TFM is no more than 100 ms and its band-with is over 4.61 Hz. Compared with the settling time of a main fuel valve and the band-width of a main fuel control loop, that is, 1.2 s and 2 Hz respectively, TFM is considered to be adaptive to measure the fuel of aero-engine.