scholarly journals High-Fidelity Simulations of a High-Pressure Turbine Vane Subject to Large Disturbances: Effect of Exit Mach Number on Losses

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Yaomin Zhao ◽  
Richard Sandberg

Abstract We report on a series of highly resolved large-eddy simulations of the LS89 high-pressure turbine (HPT) vane, varying the exit Mach number between Ma=0.7 and 1.1. In order to accurately resolve the blade boundary layers and enforce pitchwise periodicity, we for the first time use an overset mesh method, which consists of an O-type grid around the blade overlapping with a background H-type grid. The simulations were conducted either with a synthetic inlet turbulence condition or including upstream bars. A quantitative comparison shows that the computationally more efficient synthetic method is able to reproduce the turbulence characterictics of the upstream bars. We further perform a detailed analysis of the flow fields, showing that the varying exit Mach number significantly changes the turbine efficiency by affecting the suction-side transition, blade boundary layer profiles, and wake mixing. In particular, the Ma=1.1 case includes a strong shock that interacts with the trailing edge, causing an increased complexity of the flow field. We use our recently developed entropy loss analysis (Zhao and Sandberg, GT2019-90126) to decompose the overall loss into different source terms and identify the regions that dominate the loss generation. Comparing the different Ma cases, we conclude that the main mechanism for the extra loss generation in the Ma=1.1 case is the shock-related strong pressure gradient interacting with the turbulent boundary layer and the wake, resulting in significant turbulence production and extensive viscous dissipation.

Author(s):  
Yaomin Zhao ◽  
Richard D. Sandberg

Abstract We report on a series of highly resolved large-eddy simulations of the LS89 high-pressure turbine (HPT) vane, varying the exit Mach number between Ma = 0.7 and 1.1. In order to accurately resolve the blade boundary layers and enforce pitchwise periodicity, we for the first time use an overset mesh method, which consists of an O-type grid around the blade overlapping with a background H-type grid. The simulations were conducted either with a synthetic inlet turbulence condition or including upstream bars. A quantitative comparison shows that the computationally more efficient synthetic method is able to reproduce the turbulence characterictics of the upstream bars. We further perform a detailed analysis of the flow fields, showing that the varying exit Mach number significantly changes the turbine efficiency by affecting the suction-side transition, blade boundary layer profiles, and wake mixing. In particular, the Ma = 1.1 case includes a strong shock that interacts with the trailing edge, causing an increased complexity of the flow field. We use our recently developed entropy loss analysis (Zhao and Sandberg, GT2019-90126) to decompose the overall loss into different source terms and identify the regions that dominate the loss generation. Comparing the different Ma cases, we conclude that the main mechanism for the extra loss generation in the Ma = 1.1 case is the shock-related strong pressure gradient interacting with the turbulent boundary layer and the wake, resulting in significant turbulence production and extensive viscous dissipation.


Author(s):  
Fabien Wlassow ◽  
Francis Leboeuf ◽  
Gilles Leroy ◽  
Nicolas Gourdain ◽  
Ghislaine Ngo Boum

Aerothermal prediction for the high-pressure turbine is challenging because of the complex environment that interacts with the turbine: hot-streak migration, unsteady flow phenomena, fluid/solid thermal coupling and technological details (squealer tip, coolant ejections, fillets, etc.). There is a need to compare their relative impacts on the blade temperature and turbine efficiency prediction. This is the main purpose of this paper. URANS simulations of the flow have been performed with a structured flow solver in a one stage high-pressure turbine. The baseline simulation takes into account the squealer tip and an inlet condition representative of a hot streak generated by the combustion chamber. Other technological details (coolant ejections and fillets) and fluid/solid thermal coupling on the rotor blade are alternatively considered in the simulation in order to quantify their relative contribution. The Chimera technique is used to ease the integration of technological details. The conjugate heat transfer (CHT) problem is solved by means of a code coupling where fluxes and temperatures are exchanged at the blade surface between the fluid dynamics solver and the solid thermal code. Results shows that rotor blade fillets have a little impact on both the blade temperature and the turbine efficiency (less than 1%). On the contrary, taking into account external cooling leads to a modification of radial distribution of loss and loading coefficients and reduces the efficiency by 2%. The blade temperature is also impacted, mainly on the suction side where differences of several per cent with the baseline case are observed. Fluid/solid coupling mainly affects the blade temperature prediction by homogenizing it which induces differences around 3% with the baseline case. To complete the analysis, a post-processing that includes a computation of local entropy production terms is used. It shows that the entropy production is mainly due to turbulent dissipation and allows to identify the reduction of efficiency of the case with cooling as an additional production of entropy where the cooling flow mixes with the main flow.


Author(s):  
Dun Lin ◽  
Xinrong Su ◽  
Xin Yuan

The flow in a generic, high-pressure turbine vane was simulated using an in-house DDES code. Two different operating conditions were simulated with one leading to a shock wave while the other does not. One case was used to validate the capability of the DDES method to capture shock waves and other flow structures using an inlet Reynolds number of 271,000 and an exit Mach number of 0.840. The test conditions for the other case were an inlet Reynolds number of 265,000 and an exit Mach number of 0.927, which is representative of a transonic, high pressure turbine vane which was used to further investigate the flow field. The DDES simulations from the first case are compared with published experimental data, RANS simulations and LES simulations. Then, DDES results for two cases with adiabatic and isothermal boundary conditions are compared. The numerical simulations with the isothermal boundary condition are further used to study the flow phenomena with wake vortices, shock waves, pressure waves, wake-shock interactions, and wake-pressure wave interactions. The effects of the pressure waves on the vane heat transfer are also analyzed.


Author(s):  
P Vass ◽  
T Arts

The current contribution reports on the validation and analysis of three-dimensional computational results of the flow around four distinct high-pressure turbine blade tip geometries (TG1, 2, 3, and 4 hereinafter), taking into account the effect of the entire internal cooling setup inside the blade, at design exit Mach number: M = 0.8, and high exit Reynolds number: Re C = 900 000. Three of the four geometries represent different tip design solutions – TG1: full squealer rim; TG2: single squealer on the suction side; TG3: partial suction and pressure side squealer, and one (TG4) models TG1 in worn condition. This article provides a comparison between the different geometries from the aerodynamic point of view, analyses the losses, and evaluates the distinct design solutions. An assessment of the effect of the uneven rubbing of the blade tip was performed as well. TG1 was found to be the top performer followed by TG3 and TG2. According to the investigations, the effect of rubbing increased the kinetic loss coefficient by 10–15 per cent.


Author(s):  
Roland Brachmanski ◽  
Reinhard Niehuis

The results of this investigation consist of two linear cascades at high diffusion factors. The present measurements for each low pressure turbine profile were conducted at midspan under a range of Reynolds- and exit Mach numbers. The exit Mach number was varied in a range covering low subsonic up to values where a transonic flow regime on the suction side of the blade could be expected. The variation of the exit Mach number was also used to create different locations of the maximum Mach number and to evaluate the resulting total pressure losses. This work focuses on two profiles with a diffusion factor in a range of 0.18 ≤ DF ≤ 0.22, which is considered as a comparable level for the two cascades. The profile A is a front-loaded design and has shown no obvious flow separation on the suction side of the blade. Compared to the profile A the design B is a more aft-loaded profile which indicates flow separation on the suction side for all investigated Reynolds numbers. The integral total pressure losses were evaluated by wake traverses downstream of the profile. To determine the isentropic Mach numbers and the character of the boundary layer along the suction side of the profile, static pressure tappings and measurements with a flattened Pitot probe were carried out. Numerical studies were also conducted to investigate further the influence of a reduced turbulence intensity on the boundary layer of the suction side of design B. The results show that the optimum of the integral total pressure losses are significantly dependent on the Reynolds number. Therefore a correlation between the maximum Mach number on the suction side and the integral total pressure losses has been successfully established. A significant change of the turbulence intensity at the inlet of the cascade leads to shift of the location of the maximum Mach number. It also results in an equivalent change of the total pressure losses, which has been predicted by the trend line. However, the trend lines, which are based on the data of the integral total pressure losses of an attached boundary layer, are not able to predict the integral total pressure loss or the location of the maximum Mach number on the suction side of the blade since an open separation bubble occurs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaomin Zhao ◽  
Richard D. Sandberg

Abstract In the present study, highly resolved large-eddy simulations of a VKI LS-89 high-pressure turbine (HPT) blade (T. Arts et al., 1990) with spanwise end-walls are performed at a Reynolds number of 0.57 million and an exit Mach number of 0.9. Two different spanwise temperature profiles, one uniform as baseline and one asymmetric profile extracted at the combustor exit from the public literature, are set at the inlet boundary. The high-fidelity data generated by the present cases are analyzed to investigate the end-wall secondary features, and show that the vortical structures that form near the leading edge of the vane include pressure-side and suction-side legs. While the end-wall vortical structures show no obvious effects on the time-averaged behavior of the pressure-side blade boundary layer, the suction-side structures induce counter rotating vortical structures and trigger rapid transition in the end-wall boundary layers. Furthermore, the cases with different inlet temperature profiles are directly compared, and the effects of the inflow on the aerothermal performance of the HPT vane are discussed. Based on the recently proposed entropy loss analysis (Zhao and Sandberg, GT2019-90126), we have been able to quantitatively show that the end-wall effects contribute significantly to the total loss of the turbine, with the main contributors being the extra viscous dissipation and turbulence production in the end-wall boundary layer.


Author(s):  
D. P. Kenny

A novel analysis of the hub and shroud wall boundary layer growth through the diffusing system of a centrifugal compressor is proposed to model the physical processes. It is shown that the diffuser throat blockage and total pressure loss characteristics can be accurately predicted for a 6:1 PR stage. The static pressure effectiveness and stalling limit are successfully predicted qualitatively, but are underestimated and overestimated by 14 and 12 percent respectively. It is argued that diffuser performance is largely controlled by the combined effect of the boundary layer conditions on the hub and shroud walls at impeller exit and the diffusion required to the diffuser throat. For this reason, it is contended that, for best performance at high pressure ratio (≃ 12:1), impeller exit Mach number must be minimized by employing zero to negative prewhirl at impeller entry which in turn maximizes impeller entry shroud relative Mach number. Performance maps are presented for a single-stage centrifugal compressor based on this premise with specific speed = 90. At 15, 12 and 101 PR, 72, 75 and 76.8 percent efficiency, respectively, were attached at 2.6 lb/sec.


Author(s):  
D. Corriveau ◽  
S. A. Sjolander

Linear cascade measurements for the aerodynamic performance of a family of three transonic, high-pressure (HP) turbine blades have been presented previously by the authors. The airfoils were designed for the same inlet and outlet velocity triangles but varied in their loading distributions. The previous papers presented results for the design incidence at various exit Mach numbers, and for off-design incidence at the design exit Mach number of 1.05. Results from the earlier studies indicated that by shifting the loading towards the rear of the airfoil an improvement in the profile loss performance of the order of 20% could be obtained near the design Mach number at design incidence. Measurements performed at off-design incidence, but still at the design Mach number, showed that the superior performance of the aft-loaded blade extended over a range of incidence from about −5.0° to +5.0° relative to the design value. For the current study, additional measurements were performed at off-design Mach numbers from about 0.5 to 1.3 and for incidence values of −10.0°, +5.0° and + 10.0° relative to design. The corresponding Reynolds numbers, based on outlet velocity and true chord, varied from roughly 4 × 105 to 10 × 105. The measurements included midspan losses, blade loading distributions and base pressures. In addition, two-dimensional Navier-Stokes computations of the flow were performed to help in the interpretation of the experimental results. The results show that the superior loss performance of the aft-loaded profile, observed at design Mach number and low values of off-design incidence, does not extend readily to off-design Mach numbers and larger values of incidence. In fact, the measured midspan loss performance for the aft-loaded blade was found to be inferior to, or at best equal to, that of the baseline, mid-loaded airfoil at most combinations of off-design Mach number and incidence. However, based on the observations made at design and off-design flow conditions, it appears that aft-loading can be a viable design philosophy to employ in order to reduce the losses within a blade row provided the rearward deceleration is carefully limited. The loss performance of the front-loaded blade is inferior or at best equal to that of the other two blades for all operating conditions. As such, it appears that there is no advantage to front loading the airfoil for transonic high-pressure turbine blades. The results also provide a significant addition to the data available in the open literature on the off-design performance of transonic HP turbine airfoils.


Author(s):  
Zuo-Jun Wei ◽  
Wei-Yang Qiao ◽  
Ping-Ping Chen ◽  
Jian Liu

As modern turbines are designed with low aspect ratio and high blade loading, secondary flow interactions become more important. In the present work, numerical simulation is performed in a two-stage high-pressure turbine with divergent meridional passage to investigate the transport and interaction of secondary vortex from the first stage rotor within the second stage’s stator. Scale-Adaptive Simulation model coupled with Shear Stress Transport model (SAS-SST turbulence model) is used to capture the flow structures caused by the interaction in the second stator. Coupled with the passage vortex of the first rotor, the shed vortex rotates opposite in the direction and has comparable strength. As both of these vortices convect downstream to the stator bladerow, each deforms into two legs on the pressure and suction sides in the passage. In the passage due to the cross pressure gradient by blade loading, all the low-momentum fluid contained in these vortices moves towards the suction side. Besides, with the existing static pressure gradient in radial direction and vortex dynamics, the suction-side leg and the pressure-side leg move in different radial directions. The suction side leg of incoming passage vortex moves towards the endwall along the suction surface and interacts with the developing passage vortex of the second stator. The incoming shed vortex moves towards the midspan and rolls up the boundary layer fluid from suction surface. Due to the interactions between the incoming shed vortices from the hub and casing and the boundary layer of second stator, two counter-rotating vortices are formed near the midspan. Additional high loss is found there at the outlet plane, which has a comparable magnitude to the endwall secondary loss. The pressure side leg of the incoming passage vortex remains in a certain span with that of the incoming shed vortex and is not engulfed by the developing passage vortex.


Author(s):  
Zhe Liu ◽  
James Braun ◽  
Guillermo Paniagua

AbstractIn this paper, a diffuser is used to integrate a transonic high-pressure turbine with a rotating detonation combustor (RDC). The paper focuses on the required design modifications to the turbine endwalls (EW) to enable high efficiency, while preserving the airfoil blade-to-blade geometry. The main challenge is the stator passage unstarting, due to the high inlet Mach number. First of all, steady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes simulations were performed to compare the efficiency of turbines with constant-radius EWs to turbines with axisymmetric EWs. A modified EW design prevented the unstarting of the stator passage, enabling a significant gain in performance. Afterward, the influence on the turbine efficiency and damping due to the unsteadiness from the diffuser-like fluctuations of the RDC was evaluated with unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes simulations with a mixing plane approach (MPA). Full unsteady simulations were carried out on selected inlet conditions and compared to the mixing plane results. This parametric study provides turbine designers with recommended diffusion rates along the vane EWs. Additionally, we provide guidance on the upstream diffuser design, specifically the required damping and outlet Mach number.


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