Taking measures of the machine

New requirements and technologies advance the art of test and sensing.

Few sensor and instrumentation environments are more challenging than those found inside a jet engine. With temperatures up to 1200°F in the hot section, the climate is particularly hostile to just about anything that an engineer can design.

“Measurements inside an engine are in a number of ways limited by the operational requirements of the engine,” said Gary Hunter, Intelligence Systems Hardware Lead in the Sensors and Electronics branch at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). “It is hot and gases flow at high velocity rates. If you wish something to be in the engine, it needs to survive the harsh environment, and not a lot of things can survive there.”