Manufacturers of gas turbines have searched for three decades for a reliable way to use gas path measurements to determine the health of jet engine components. They have been hindered in this pursuit by the quality of the measurements used to carry out the analysis. Engine manufacturers have chosen weighted-least-squares techniques to reduce the inaccuracy caused by sensor error. While these algorithms are clearly an improvement over the previous generation of gas path analysis programs, they still fail in many situations. This paper describes some of the failures and explores their relationship to the underlying analysis technique. It also describes difficulties in implementing a gas path analysis program. The paper concludes with an appraisal of weighted-least-squares-based gas path analysis.
