Conjugate Heat Transfer Simulation and Entropy Generation Analysis of Gas Turbine Blades

Author(s):  
Yaping Ju ◽  
Yi Feng ◽  
Chuhua Zhang

Abstract Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes model-based conjugate heat transfer method is popularly used in simulations and designs of internally cooled gas turbine blades. One of the important factors influencing its prediction accuracy is the choice of turbulence models for different fluid regions because the blade passage flow and internal cooling have considerably different flow features. However, most studies adopted the same turbulence models in passage flow and internal cooling. Another important issue is the comprehensive evaluation of the losses caused by flow and heat transfer for both fluid and solid regions. In this study, a RANS-based CHT solver for subsonic/transonic flows was developed based on OpenFOAM and validated and used to explore suitable RANS turbulence model combinations for internally cooled gas turbine blades. Entropy generation, able to weigh the losses caused by flow friction and heat transfer, was used in the analyses of two internally cooled vanes to reveal the loss mechanisms. Findings indicate that the combination of the k-? SST-?-Re? transition model for passage flow and the standard k-e model for internal cooling agreed best with measurement data. The relative error of vane dimensionless temperature was less than 3%. The variations of entropy generation with different internal cooling inlet velocities and temperatures indicate that reducing entropy generation was contradictory with enhancing heat transfer performance. This study, providing a reliable computing tool and a comprehensive performance parameter, has an important application value for the design of internally cooled gas turbine blades.

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Winchler ◽  
Antonio Andreini ◽  
Bruno Facchini ◽  
Luca Andrei ◽  
Alessio Bonini ◽  
...  

Gas turbine design has been characterized over the years by a continuous increase of the maximum cycle temperature, justified by a corresponding increase of cycle efficiency and power output. In such way, turbine components heat load management has become a compulsory activity, and then, a reliable procedure to evaluate the blades and vanes metal temperatures is, nowadays, a crucial aspect for a safe components design. In the framework of the design and validation process of high pressure turbine cooled components of the BHGE NovaLTTM 16 gas turbine, a decoupled methodology for conjugate heat transfer prediction has been applied and validated against measurement data. The procedure consists of a conjugate heat transfer analysis in which the internal cooling system (for both airfoils and platforms) is modeled by an in-house one-dimensional thermo-fluid network solver, the external heat loads and pressure distribution are evaluated through 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and the heat conduction in the solid is carried out through a 3D finite element method (FEM) solution. Film cooling effect has been treated by means of a dedicated CFD analysis, implementing a source term approach. Predicted metal temperatures are finally compared with measurements from an extensive test campaign of the engine in order to validate the presented procedure.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdel Rahman Salem ◽  
Farah Nazifa Nourin ◽  
Mohammed Abousabae ◽  
Ryoichi S. Amano

Abstract Internal cooling of gas turbine blades is performed with the combination of impingement cooling and serpentine channels. Besides gas turbine blades, the other turbine components such as turbine guide vanes, rotor disks, and combustor wall can be cooled using jet impingement cooling. This study is focused on jet impingement cooling, in order to optimize the coolant flow, and provide the maximum amount of cooling using the minimum amount of coolant. The study compares between different nozzle configurations (in-line and staggered), two different Reynold's numbers (1500 and 2000), and different stand-off distances (Z/D) both experimentally and numerically. The Z/D considered are 3, 5, and 8. In jet impingement cooling, the jet of fluid strikes perpendicular to the target surface to be cooled with high velocity to dissipate the heat. The target surface is heated up by a direct current (DC) power source. The experimental results are obtained by means of thermal image processing of the captured infra-red (IR) thermal images of the target surface. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis were employed to predict the complex heat transfer and flow phenomena, primarily the line-averaged and area-averaged Nusselt number and the cross-flow effects. In the current investigation, the flow is confined along with the nozzle plate and two parallel surfaces forming a bi-directional channel (bi-directional exit). The results show a comparison between heat transfer enhancement with in-line and staggered nozzle arrays. It is observed that the peaks of the line-averaged Nusselt number (Nu) become less as the stand-off distance (Z/D) increases. It is also observed that the fluctuations in the stagnation heat transfer are caused by the impingement of the primary vortices originating from the jet nozzle exit.


Author(s):  
Ilhan Gorgulu ◽  
Baris Gumusel ◽  
I. Sinan Akmandor

There are different characters of air flow in a conventional gas turbine blade cooling channel. These flow characters; including high streamline curvature caused from 180 degree bends, sequential flow separations caused from rib turbulators and pin-fin structures are analyzed separately with available commercial software for different turbulence models and validated against reliable experimental data from open literature. Also coupled conjugate heat transfer analyses on NASA C3X vane, which has only radial holes through blade span for cooling, are conducted with the same turbulence models. The accuracy information gathered from all these analyses; each interested with a single character of air and coupled conjugate heat transfer are put together and applied to a conjugate numerical analysis of internally cooled (VKI) LS-89 turbine blade. Internal cooling scheme which is applied to (VKI) LS-89 turbine blade encompassed the aforementioned flow characters and analyses are performed under realistic conditions. Because of the high temperature values occurring at realistic conditions, thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of air and metal (Inconel 718) are modeled as temperature dependent material properties instead of using constant values. Conducted research revealed that 4 eqn. V2-f turbulence model gives similar results compared to the 2 eqn. Realizable k-e, k-w SST turbulence models for 180 degree bend and rib turbulator cases. However, at NASA C3X vane analyses V2-f turbulence model results are far more accurate than other two turbulence models in the manner of heat transfer coefficient and surface temperature distribution.


Author(s):  
Oguz Uzol ◽  
Cengiz Camci

A new concept for enhanced turbulent transport of heat in internal coolant passages of gas turbine blades is introduced. The new heat transfer augmentation component called “oscillator fin” is based on an unsteady flow system using the interaction of multiple unsteady jets and wakes generated downstream of a fluidic oscillator. Incompressible, unsteady and two dimensional solutions of Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are obtained both for an oscillator fin and for an equivalent cylindrical pin fin and the results are compared. Preliminary results show that a significant increase in the turbulent kinetic energy level occur in the wake region of the oscillator fin with respect to the cylinder with similar level of aerodynamic penalty. The new concept does not require additional components or power to sustain its oscillations and its manufacturing is as easy as a conventional pin fin. The present study makes use of an unsteady numerical simulation of mass, momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate conservation equations for flow visualization downstream of the new oscillator fin and an equivalent cylinder. Relative enhancements of turbulent kinetic energy and comparisons of the total pressure field from transient simulations qualitatively suggest that the oscillator fin has excellent potential in enhancing local heat transfer in internal cooling passages without significant aerodynamic penalty.


Author(s):  
Zhenfeng Wang ◽  
Peigang Yan ◽  
Hongfei Tang ◽  
Hongyan Huang ◽  
Wanjin Han

The different turbulence models are adopted to simulate NASA-MarkII high pressure air-cooled gas turbine. The experimental work condition is Run 5411. The paper researches that the effect of different turbulence models for the flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbine. The turbulence models include: the laminar turbulence model, high Reynolds number k-ε turbulence model, low Reynolds number turbulence model (k-ω standard format, k-ω-SST and k-ω-SST-γ-θ) and B-L algebra turbulence model which is adopted by the compiled code. The results show that the different turbulence models can give good flow characteristics results of turbine, but the heat transfer characteristics results are different. Comparing to the experimental results, k-ω-SST-θ-γ turbulence model results are more accurate and can simulate accurately the flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbine with transition flow characteristics. But k-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model overestimates the turbulence kinetic energy of blade local region and makes the heat transfer coefficient higher. It causes that local region temperature is higher. The results of B-L algebra turbulence model show that the results of B-L model are accurate besides it has 4% temperature error in the transition region. As to the other turbulence models, the results show that all turbulence models can simulate the temperature distribution on the blade pressure surface except the laminar turbulence model underestimates the heat transfer coefficient of turbulence flow region. On the blade suction surface with transition flow characteristics, high Reynolds number k-ε turbulence model overestimates the heat transfer coefficient and causes the blade surface temperature is high about 90K than the experimental result. Low Reynolds number k-ω standard format and k-ω-SST turbulence models also overestimate the blade surface temperature value. So it can draw a conclusion that the unreasonable choice of turbulence models can cause biggish errors for conjugate heat transfer problem of turbine. The combination of k-ω-SST-γ-θ model and B-L algebra model can get more accurate turbine thermal environment results. In addition, in order to obtain the affect of different turbulence models for gas turbine conjugate heat transfer problem. The different turbulence models are adopted to simulate the different computation mesh domains (First case and Second case). As to each cooling passages, the first case gives the wall heat transfer coefficient of each cooling passages and the second case considers the conjugate heat transfer course between the cooling passages and blade. It can draw a conclusion that the application of heat transfer coefficient on the wall of each cooling passages avoids the accumulative error. So, for the turbine vane geometry models with complex cooling passages or holes, the choice of turbulence models and the analysis of different mesh domains are important. At last, different turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages are given and K-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model is adopted in order to obtain the effect of turbulence characteristic boundary conditions for the conjugate heat transfer computation results. The results show that the turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages have a great effect on the conjugate heat transfer results of high pressure gas turbine.


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