No matter how efficient your selected engine is, scheduled maintenance is necessary to keep it in perfect shape and to get the best performance out of it. These regular maintenance jobs are also necessary to ensure the safe performance of an engine over the years. If you are not up to date on your engine’s maintenance checks or have delayed its repairs, you will be putting yourself and other in a lot at risk. Of all the important tasks associated with the maintenance of your engine, hot section inspections are undoubtedly the most important if you want your engine to deliver the best performance it is capable of.

When to Perform a Hot Section Inspection

The right time to carry out a hot section inspection is clearly outlined in the manufacturer’s manual that you get with your engine, but it is usually the halfway point to TBO (Time before Overhaul). It is important that you take note of this schedule to ensure the perfect performance of your engine. However, in some cases, an inspection might be required on an unscheduled instance as well if there are some over-temp situations or engine degradation problems.

To carry out a hot engine inspection, you should either remove the hot section and send it to a professional or call them for on-site inspections. The latter option is more preferable if you have no idea about how to remove or reinstall a hot section. On the other hand, a professional company like Jetset Airmotive can help with the removal and installation of the hot section if you need to send it to a specific professional for inspection.

The Steps of a Hot Section Inspection

To ensure that your hot engine inspection is carried out properly, make sure that the following phases are carried out.

• Engine Performance Check – This needs to be carried out before and after every hot section inspection to determine what the current status of each hot section component currently is. Based on this analysis, the performance parameters of the engine are outlined.
• Disassembly – In order to perform a detailed hot section inspection, all the components of the hot section are disassembled as specified in the manufacturer’s manual. If you are trying to get a specific component inspected, all the components will not need to be disassembled.
• Specific Inspection – After you have disassembled the components, you should start with a detailed inspection of the components. You need to check the gas generator case, the liner and exit ducts of combustion chamber, the compressor turbine, the sealing rings, the temperature sensing system, the disk blades, the fuel nozzles and nozzle sheaths, and the reduction gearbox oil strainer. If there are defects in these parts, the corrective actions are also specified in the manual to be undertaken.
• Zero Grind Fit – After inspecting the hot section, the shroud segments of the compressor turbine are sent for grinding. This is done to ensure that there is very high tolerance between the segments and the disk. That way, no additional grinding would be required at the time of assembling the engine.
• Reassembly – After the inspection is completed and the defects have been removed, the units of the hot section are reassembled. However, proper clearance is required to ensure that reassembling is done successfully. An engine performance check should be made again, after which your engine’s hot section inspection would be completed.

If you want your aircraft engine to perform in an efficient and safe way, make sure to keep up with the hot section inspection schedule as described in the manufacturer’s manual.