Aerodynamic Optimization of a Winglet-Shroud Tip Geometry for a Linear Turbine Cascade

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhang ◽  
Yan Liu ◽  
Tianlong Zhang ◽  
Mengchao Zhang ◽  
Ying He

This paper presents a continued study on a previously investigated novel winglet-shroud (WS) (or partial shroud) geometry for a linear turbine cascade. Various widths of double-side winglets (DSW) and different locations of a partial shroud are considered. In addition, both a plain tip and a full shroud tip are applied as the datum cases which were examined experimentally and numerically. Total pressure loss and viscous loss coefficients are comparatively employed to execute a quantitative analysis of aerodynamic performance. The effectiveness of various widths (w) of DSW set at 3%, 5%, 7%, and 9% of the blade pitch (p) is numerically investigated. Skin-friction lines on the tip surface indicate that different DSW cases do not alter flow field features including the separation bubble and reattachment flow within the tip gap region, even for the case with the broadest width (w/p = 9%). However, the pressure side extension of the DSW exhibits the formation of separation bubble, while the suction side platform of the DSW turns the tip leakage vortex (TLV) away from the suction surface (SS). Meanwhile, the horse-shoe vortex (HV) near the casing is not generated even for the case with the smallest width (w/p = 3%). As a result, both the tip leakage and the upper passage vortices are weakened and further dissipated with wider w/p in the DSW cases. Larger width of the DSW geometry is indeed able to improve the aerodynamic performance, but only to a slight degree. With the w/p increasing from 3% to 9%, the mass-averaged total pressure loss coefficient over an exit plane is reduced by only 2.61%. Therefore, considering both the enlarged (or reduced) tip area and the enhanced (or deteriorated) performance compared to the datum cases, a favorable width of w/p = 5% is chosen to design the WS structure. Three locations for the partial shroud (linkage segment) are devised, locating them near the leading edge, in the middle and close to the trailing edge, respectively. Results demonstrate that all three cases of the WS design have advantages over the DSW arrangement in lessening the aerodynamic loss, with the middle linkage segment location producing the optimal effect. This conclusion verifies the feasibility of the previously studied WS configuration.

Author(s):  
Min Zhang ◽  
Yan Liu ◽  
Tian-long Zhang ◽  
Meng-chao Zhang ◽  
Hong-kun Li

This paper presents a continued study on a previously investigated novel winglet-shroud (WS) (or partial shroud) geometry for a linear turbine cascade. Various width of double-side winglets and different locations of a partial shroud are considered. In addition, both a plain tip and a full shroud tip are applied as the datum cases which were examined experimentally and numerically. Total pressure loss and viscous loss coefficients are comparatively employed to execute a quantitative analysis of the aerodynamic performance. The effectiveness of various width (w) of double-side winglets (DSW) involving 3%, 5%, 7% and 9% of the blade pitch (p) is numerically investigated. Skin-friction lines on the tip surface indicate that the different DSW cases do not alter flow field features including the separation bubble and reattachment flow within the tip gap region, even for the case with the broadest width (w/p = 9%). However, the pressure side extension of the DSW exhibits the formation of the separation bubble, while the suction side platform of the DSW turns the tip leakage vortex away from the suction surface. Meanwhile, the horse-shoe vortex near the casing is not generated even for the case with the smallest width (w/p=3%). As a result, both the tip leakage and the upper passage vortices are weakened and further dissipated with wider w/p in the DSW cases. Larger width of the DSW geometry is indeed able to improve the aerodynamic performance, but in a slight degree. With the w/p increasing from 3% to 9%, the mass-averaged total pressure loss coefficient over an exit plane is just reduced by 2.61%. Therefore, considering both the enlarged (or reduced) tip area and the enhanced (or deteriorated) performance compared to the datum cases, a favorable width of w/p=5% is chosen to design the WS structure. Three locations of the partial shroud (linkage segment) are devised, which are located near the leading edge, the middle and close to the trailing edge respectively. Results illustrates that all three cases of the WS have advantages in lessening the aerodynamic loss over the DSW arrangement, but with the linkage segment located in the middle having optimal effect. This conclusion verifies the feasibility of the previously studied WS configuration.


2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Liu ◽  
Tian-Long Zhang ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Meng-Chao Zhang

A comparative experimental and numerical analysis is carried out to assess the aerodynamic performance of a novel partial shroud in a straight turbine cascade. This partial shroud is designed as a combination of winglet and shroud. A plain tip is employed as a baseline case. A pure winglet tip is also studied for comparison. Both experiments and predictions demonstrate that this novel partial shroud configuration has aerodynamic advantages over the pure winglet arrangement. Predicted results show that, relative to the baseline blade with a plain tip, using the partial shroud can lead to a reduction of 20.89% in the mass-averaged total pressure coefficient on the upper half-span of a plane downstream of the cascade trailing edge and 16.53% in the tip leakage mass flow rate, whereas the pure winglet only decreases these two performance parameters by 11.36% and 1.32%, respectively. The flow physics is explored in detail to explain these results via topological analyses. The use of this new partial shroud significantly affects the topological structures and total pressure loss coefficients on various axial cross sections, particularly at the rear part of the blade passage. The partial shroud not only weakens the tip leakage vortex (TLV) but also reduces the strength of passage vortex near the casing (PVC) endwall. Furthermore, three partial shrouds with width-to-pitch ratios of 3%, 5%, and 7% are considered. With an increase in the width of the winglet part, improvements in aerodynamics and the tip leakage mass flow rate are limited.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Liu ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Tianlong Zhang ◽  
Mengchao Zhang ◽  
Ying He

This paper is a continuous study of a previously investigated novel winglet-shroud (WS) tip configuration. Two additional sealing fins are fixed on the WS tip to further reduce tip leakage. This configuration is referred to WS with seals (WSS) tip. Secondary flow structures and total pressure loss coefficients on a transverse plane downstream of the blade trailing edge are measured. Flow in a blade cascade is also numerically simulated to obtain more information of flow fields. Compared with the WS tip, both experimental and numerical results show that the WSS tip can further improve the aerodynamic performance as expected. Relative to the plain tip, the WSS and WS tips can reduce total pressure loss on one plane downstream of the blade trailing edge by 50% and 28%, respectively. This is mainly due to reduced intensity of tip leakage vortex (TLV). For the tip leakage mass flow rate, the WS tip decreases it by 33.6%, while the implement of two additional sealing fins contributes to an extremely high reduction of 88.7%. This demonstrates that the use of sealing fins is effective to control the tip leakage flow and improve flow fields. In addition, a deeper analysis by applying a normalized helicity scheme to identify the evolution of different vortices and by tracing trajectories of the fluid near the tip offers credible supports for results.


Author(s):  
Koji Murata ◽  
Hiroyuki Abe ◽  
Yasukata Tsutsui

The aerodynamic characteristics of turbine cascades are thought to be relatively satisfactory due to the favorable pressure of the accelerating flow. But within the low Reynolds number region of 50,000 where the 300kW ceramic gas turbines which are being developed under the New-Sunshine Project of Japan operate, the characteristics such as boundary layer separation and reattachment which lead to prominent power losses cannot be easily predicted. In this research, experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of a linear two dimensional turbine cascade. Surface pressure distributions of the airfoil were measured for a range of blade chord Reynolds numbers from 40,000 to 160,000 (at inlet), and at 1.3% inlet turbulence intensity. In addition, the wake of the cascade was measured simultaneously using a five hole pilot tube. Traverses of the wake show that there is a drastic increase in the mean total pressure loss at the wake between the Reynolds number of 80,000 to 40,000, and in some conditions, a rise as much as 10% was confirmed. Thus, in accordance with the pressure distribution of the surface of the airfoil, a relation between the total pressure loss and the length of the laminar separation bubble formed on the airfoil could be seen.


Author(s):  
Yabo Wang ◽  
Yanping Song ◽  
Jianyang Yu ◽  
Fu Chen

Abstract The effect of five arrangements of the double-slot injections on the leakage flow control is studied in a honeycomb-tip turbine cascade numerically. The honeycomb tip is covered with 67 intact honeycomb cavities, since the uneven tip is wearable and the cavity vortex could realize the aerodynamic sealing for the leakage flow. Then in the present study, a pair of injection slots is arranged blow each cavity, aiming to enhance the leakage flow suppression by modifying the cavity vortex. According to the orientation of the two slots, five designs of the double-slot injections are proposed. In detail, the two slots are opposite to each other or keep tangential to the original cavity vortex roughly. The three dimensional calculations were completed by using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method and the k-ω turbulence model in the commercial software ANSYS CFX. The estimation of these tip designs is mainly according to the tip leakage mass flow rate and the total pressure loss. Firstly, the injection structures induced by the slots can be divided into X- and T-types inside the cavity. The results show that the T-type structure is more effective in reducing the tip leakage mass flow rate, with the maximum reduction up to 48.2%. Then the effect on the flow field inside the gap and the secondary flow in the upper passage is analyzed. Compared with the flat tip, the span-wise position of the tip leakage vortex core drops within the cascade and the range of the affected loss region expands. At the cascade exit, the tip leakage vortex moves toward the passage vortex near the casing, while the latter’s core rises. The position changes of the secondary vortices eventually determine the total pressure loss contour downstream the cascade. Finally, the injection total pressure and the upper casing motion are investigated. Interestingly, the injection intensity (mass flow rate) increases with the injection total pressure but this value decreases as the casing speed increases. The tip leakage mass flow rate decreases linearly as increasing the injection total pressure or the casing speed. Yet the averaged total pressure loss downstream the cascade increases with the injection total pressure but appears a nonlinear distribution against the casing speed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Li ◽  
Zhao Liu ◽  
Zhenping Feng

Abstract The blade tip region of the shroud-less high-pressure gas turbine is exposed to an extremely operating condition with combined high temperature and high heat transfer coefficient. It is critical to design new tip structures and apply effective cooling method to protect the blade tip. Multi-cavity squealer tip has the potential to reduce the huge thermal loads and improve the aerodynamic performance of the blade tip region. In this paper, numerical simulations were performed to predict the aerothermal performance of the multi-cavity squealer tip in a heavy-duty gas turbine cascade. Different turbulence models were validated by comparing to the experimental data. It was found that results predicted by the shear-stress transport with the γ-Reθ transition model have the best precision. Then, the film cooling performance, the flow field in the tip gap and the leakage losses were presented with several different multi-cavity squealer tip structures, under various coolant to mainstream mass flow ratios (MFR) from 0.05% to 0.15%. The results show that the ribs in the multi-cavity squealer tip could change the flow structure in the tip gap for that they would block the coolant and the leakage flow. In this study, the case with one-cavity (1C) achieves the best film cooling performance under a lower MFR. However, the cases with multi-cavity (2C, 3C, 4C) show higher film cooling effectiveness under a higher MFR of 0.15%, which are 32.6%%, 34.2%% and 41.0% higher than that of the 1C case. For the aerodynamic performance, the case with single-cavity has the largest total pressure loss coefficient in all MFR studied, whereas the case with two-cavity obtains the smallest total pressure loss coefficient, which is 7.6% lower than that of the 1C case.


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

This paper addresses the issue of aerodynamic performance of a novel 3D leading edge modification to a reference low pressure turbine blade. An analysis of tubercles found in nature and used in some engineering applications was employed to synthesize new leading edge geometry. A sinusoidal wave-like geometry characterized by wavelength and amplitude was used to modify the leading edge along the span of a 2D profile, rendering a 3D blade shape. The rationale behind using the sinusoidal leading edge was that they induce streamwise vortices at the leading edge which influence the separation behaviour downstream. Surface pressure and total pressure measurements were made in experiments on a cascade rig. These were complemented with computational fluid dynamics studies where flow visualization was also made from numerical results. The tests were carried out at low Reynolds number of 5.5 × 104 on a well-researched profile representative of conventional low pressure turbine profiles. The performance of the new 3D leading edge geometries was compared against the reference blade revealing a downstream shift in separated flow for the LE tubercle blades; however, total pressure loss reduction was not conclusively substantiated for the blade with leading edge tubercles when compared with the performance of the baseline blade. Factors contributing to the total pressure loss are discussed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ki-Seon Lee ◽  
Seoung-Duck Park ◽  
Young-Chul Noh ◽  
Hak-Bong Kim ◽  
Jae-Su Kwak ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Shan Ma ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Haoguang Zhang ◽  
Chuanle Liu

The performance of a compressor cascade is considerably influenced by flow control methods. In this paper, the synergistic effects of combination between micro-vortex generators (MVG) and boundary layer suction (BLS) are discussed in a high-load compressor cascade. Seven cases, which are grouped by a kind of micro-vortex generator and boundary layer suction with three locations, are investigated to control secondary flow effects and enhance the aerodynamic performance of the compressor cascade. The MVG is mounted on the end-wall in front of the passage. The rectangle suction slot with three radial positions is installed on the blade suction surface near the trailing edge. The numerical results show that: at the design condition, the total pressure loss is effectively decreased as well as the static pressure coefficient increase when the combined MVG and SBL method (COM) is used, which is superior to MVG in an aerodynamic performance. At the stall condition, the induced vortex coming from MVG could mix the low-energy fluid and mainstream, which result in the reduced separation, and the total pressure loss decreased by 11.54% when the suction flow ratio is 1.5%. The total pressure loss decreases by 14.59% when the COM control methods are applied.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tu Baofeng ◽  
Zhang Kai ◽  
Hu Jun

AbstractIn order to improve compressor performance using a new design method, which originates from the fins on a humpback whale, experimental tests and numerical simulations were undertaken to investigate the influence of the tubercle leading edge on the aerodynamic performance of a linear compressor cascade with a NACA 65–010 airfoil. The results demonstrate that the tubercle leading edge can improve the aerodynamic performance of the cascade in the post-stall region by reducing total pressure loss, with a slight increase in total pressure loss in the pre-stall region. The tubercles on the leading edge of the blades cause the flow to migrate from the peak to the valley on the blade surface around the tubercle leading edge by the butterfly flow. The tubercle leading edge generates the vortices similar to those created by vortex generators, splitting the large-scale separation region into multiple smaller regions.


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