Experimental Evaluation of Service-Exposed Nozzle Guide Vane Damage in a Rolls Royce A-250 Gas Turbine

Author(s):  
D. Bouchard ◽  
A. Asghar ◽  
M. LaViolette ◽  
W. D. E. Allan ◽  
R. Woodason

A unique methodology and test rig was designed to evaluate the degradation of damaged nozzle guide vanes (NGVs) in a transonic annular cascade in the short duration facility at the Royal Military College. A custom test section was designed which featured a novel rotating instrumentation suite. This permitted 360 deg multispan traverse measurements downstream from unmodified turbine NGV rings from a Rolls-Royce/Allison A-250 turbo-shaft engine. The downstream total pressure was measured at four spanwise locations on both an undamaged reference and a damaged test article. Three performance metrics were developed in an effort to determine characteristic signatures for common operational damage such as trailing edge bends or cracked trailing edges. The highest average losses were observed in the root area, while the lowest occurred closer to the NGV tips. The results from this study indicated that multiple spanwise traverses were required to detect localized trailing edge damage. Recommendations are made for future testing and to further develop performance metrics.

Author(s):  
D. Bouchard ◽  
A. Asghar ◽  
M. LaViolette ◽  
W. D. E. Allan ◽  
R. Woodason

A unique methodology and test rig was designed to evaluate the degradation of damaged Nozzle Guide Vanes in a transonic annular cascade in the short duration facility at the Royal Military College. A custom test section was designed which featured a novel rotating instrumentation suite. This permitted 360° multi-span traverse measurements downstream of unmodified turbine NGV rings from a Rolls-Royce/Allison A-250 turbo-shaft engine. Downstream total pressure was measured at four span-wise locations on both an undamaged reference and a damaged test article. Three performance metrics were developed in an effort to determine characteristic signatures for common operational damage such as trailing edge bends or cracked trailing edges. The highest average losses were observed in the root area, while the lowest occurred closer to the NGV tips. The results from this study indicated that multiple span-wise traverses were required to detect localized trailing edge damage. Recommendations have been made for future tests, for test rigs and for ideas to develop performance metrics.


Author(s):  
Charles R. B. Day ◽  
Martin L. G. Oldfield ◽  
Gary D. Lock ◽  
Stephen N. Dancer

This paper further extends the research reported by Day et al. (1997), which reported aerodynamic efficiency measurements on an annular cascade of engine representative transonic nozzle guide vanes with extensive film cooling. This work compares the measured aerodynamic efficiencies of blades with 14 rows of cylindrical cooling holes with a new geometry in which 8 of the rows have been replaced by holes having a fan-shaped exit geometry. The effects of adding trailing edge slot ejection are also presented. By selectively blocking rows of holes, the cumulative effect on the mid-span efficiency of adding rows of cooling holes has also been determined. A dense foreign gas (SF6/Ar mixture) is used to simulate engine representative coolant-to-mainstream density ratios, momentum ratios and blowing rates under ambient temperature conditions. The flowfield measurements have been obtained using a four-hole pyramid probe in a short duration blowdown facility which correctly models engine Reynolds and Mach numbers, as well as the inlet turbulence intensity. Experimental results are presented as area traverse maps (total pressure, isentropic Mach number and flow angles), from which the incremental changes in efficiency due to film cooling have been calculated. The effects of different assumptions for the coolant total pressure are shown. Experimental data agrees reasonably well with loss predictions using a Hartsel model.


Author(s):  
Kasem E. Ragab ◽  
Lamyaa El-Gabry

One of the approaches adopted to improve turbine efficiency and increase power to weight ratio is reducing vane count. In the current study, numerical analysis was performed for the heat transfer over the surface of nozzle guide vanes under the condition of reduced vane count using three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. The investigation has taken place in two stages: the baseline nonfilm-cooled nozzle guide vane, and the film-cooled nozzle guide vane. A finite volume based commercial code (ANSYS CFX 15) was used to build and analyze the CFD models. The investigated annular cascade has no heat transfer measurements available; hence in order to validate the CFD models against experimental data, two standalone studies were carried out on the NASA C3X vanes, one on the nonfilm-cooled C3X vane and the other on the film-cooled C3X vane. Different modelling parameters were investigated including turbulence models in order to obtain good agreement with the C3X experimental data, the same parameters were used afterwards to model the industrial nozzle guide vanes. Three Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model variations were evaluated, the SST with Gamma-Theta transition model was found to yield the best agreement with the experimental results; model capabilities were demonstrated when the laminar to turbulent transition took place.


Author(s):  
S. Ravelli ◽  
G. Barigozzi

The main purpose of this numerical investigation is to overcome the limitations of the steady modeling in predicting the cooling efficiency over the cutback surface in a high pressure turbine nozzle guide vane. Since discrepancy between Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) predictions and measured thermal coverage at the trailing edge was attributable to unsteadiness, Unsteady RANS (URANS) modeling was implemented to evaluate improvements in simulating the mixing between the mainstream and the coolant exiting the cutback slot. With the aim of reducing the computation effort, only a portion of the airfoil along the span was simulated at an exit Mach number of Ma2is = 0.2. Three values of the coolant-to-mainstream mass flow ratio were considered: MFR = 0.66%, 1.05%, and 1.44%. Nevertheless the inherent vortex shedding from the cutback lip was somehow captured by the URANS method, the computed mixing was not enough to reproduce the measured drop in adiabatic effectiveness η along the streamwise direction, over the cutback surface. So modeling was taken a step further by using the Scale Adaptive Simulation (SAS) method at MFR = 1.05%. Results from the SAS approach were found to have potential to mimic the experimental measurements. Vortices shedding from the cutback lip were well predicted in shape and magnitude, but with a lower frequency, as compared to PIV data and flow visualizations. Moreover, the simulated reduction in film cooling effectiveness toward the trailing edge was similar to that observed experimentally.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 734-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Harasgama ◽  
C. D. Burton

Heat transfer and aerodynamic measurements have been made on the endwalls of an annular cascade of turbine nozzle guide vanes in the presence of film cooling. The results indicate that high levels of cooling effectiveness can be achieved on the endwalls of turbine nozzle guide vanes (NGV). The NGV were operated at the correct engine nondimensional conditions of Reynolds number, Mach number, gas-to-wall temperature ratio, and gas-to-coolant density ratio. The results show that the secondary flow and horseshoe vortex act on the coolant, which is convected toward the suction side of the NG V endwall passage. Consequently the coolant does not quite reach the pressure side/casing trailing edge, leading to diminished cooling in this region. Increasing the blowing rate from 0.52 to 1.1 results in significant reductions in heat transfer to the endwall. Similar trends are evident when the coolant temperature is reduced. Measured heat transfer rates indicate that over most of the endwall region the film cooling reduces the Nusselt number by 50 to 75 percent.


Author(s):  
M. Funes-Gallanzi ◽  
P. J. Bryanston-Cross ◽  
K. S. Chana

The quantitative whole field flow visualization technique of PIV has over the last few years been successfully demonstrated for transonic flow applications. A series of such measurements has been made at DRA Pyestock. Several of the development stages critical to a full engine application of the work have now been achieved using the Isentropic Light Piston Cascade (ILPC) test facility operating with high inlet turbulence levels: • A method of seeding the flow with 0.5μm diameter styrene particles has provided an even coverage of the flow field. • A method of projecting a 1 mm thick high power Nd/YAG laser light sheet within the turbine stator cascade. This has enabled a complete instantaneous intra-blade velocity mapping of the flow field to be visualized, by a specially developed diffraction-limited optics arrangement. • Software has been developed to automatically analyze the data. Due to the sparse nature of the data obtained, a spatial approach to the extraction of the velocity vector data was employed. • Finally, a comparison of the experimental results with those obtained from a three-dimensional viscous flow program of Dawes; using the Baldwin-Lomax model for eddy viscosity and assuming fully turbulent flow. The measurements provide an instantaneous quantitative whole field visualization of a high-speed unsteady region of flow in a highly three-dimensional nozzle guide vane; which has been successfully compared with a full viscous calculation. This work represents the first such measurements to be made in a full-size transonic annular cascade at engine representative conditions.


Author(s):  
J. Yan ◽  
D. G. Gregory-Smith ◽  
P. J. Walker

A linear cascade of HP steam turbine nozzle guide vanes was designed and built in order to study the effect of a non-axisymmetric profile for the endwall. The profile was designed by using CFD for the purpose of reducing the secondary flow. The method was to use convex curvature near the pressure surface to reduce the static pressure and concave curvature near the suction surface to increase it. Thus the cross passage pressure gradient which drives the secondary flow would be reduced. Detailed investigations of the flow field with a flat end-wall and the profiled end-wall were conducted. The effect of the profiled end-wall on the secondary flow development was determined and also compared with the CFD design predictions. It was found that the secondary loss and secondary kinetic energy were both reduced by about 20% with the shaped endwall, and a more uniform exit flow was also achieved.


Author(s):  
S. P. Harasgama ◽  
C. D. Burton

Heat transfer and aerodynamic measurements have been made on the endwalls of an annular cascade of turbine nozzle guide vanes in the presence of film cooling. The results indicate that high levels of cooling effectiveness can be achieved on the endwalls of turbine nozzle guide vanes (NGV). The NGV were operated at the correct engine non-dimensional conditions of Reynolds number, Mach number, gas-to-wall temperature ratio and gas-to-coolant density ratio. The results show that the secondary flow and horse-shoe vortex act on the coolant which is converted towards the suction side of the NGV endwall passage. Consequently the coolant does not quite reach the pressure side/casing trailing edge, leading to diminished cooling in this region. Increasing the blowing rate from 0.52 to 1.1 results in significant reductions in heat transfer to the endwall. Similar trends are evident when the coolant temperature is reduced. Measured heat transfer rates indicate that over most of the endwall region the film cooling reduces the Nusselt number by 50% to 75%.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 741-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Harasgama ◽  
C. D. Burton

Results have been presented on the heat transfer characteristics of the film cooled endwall (platform) of a turbine nozzle guide vane in an annular cascade at engine representative conditions in a companion paper by Harasgama and Burton (1992). The present paper reports on the analysis of these measurements. The experimental results are well represented by the superposition theory of film cooling. It is shown that high cooling effectiveness can be achieved when the data are corrected for axial pressure gradients. The data are correlated against both the slot-wall jet parameter and the discrete hole injection function for flat-plate, zero pressure gradient cases. The pressure gradient correction brings the present data to within ± 11 percent of the discrete hole correlation. Preliminary predictions of heat transfer reduction have been carried out using the STANCOOL program. These indicate that the code can predict the magnitude of heat transfer reduction correctly, although the absolute values are not in good agreement. This is attributed to the three-dimensional nature of the flow at the endwall.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjan Saha ◽  
Jens Fridh ◽  
Torsten H. Fransson ◽  
Boris I. Mamaev ◽  
Mats Annerfeldt ◽  
...  

An experimental investigation on a cooled nozzle guide vane (NGV) has been conducted in an annular sector to quantify aerodynamic influences of shower head (SH) and trailing edge (TE) cooling. The investigated vane is a typical high pressure gas turbine vane, geometrically similar to a real engine component, operated at a reference exit Mach number of 0.89. The investigations have been performed for various coolant-to-mainstream mass–flux ratios. New loss equations are derived and implemented regarding coolant aerodynamic losses. Results lead to a conclusion that both TE cooling and SH film cooling increase the aerodynamic loss compared to an uncooled case. In addition, the TE cooling has higher aerodynamic loss compared to the SH cooling. Secondary losses decrease with inserting SH film cooling compared to the uncooled case. The TE cooling appears to have less impact on the secondary loss compared to the SH cooling. Area-averaged exit flow angles around midspan increase for the TE cooling.


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