scholarly journals Gas Turbine Main Shaft Internal Flow and Heat Transfer

Author(s):  
David V. Roscoe ◽  
Richard C. Buggeln ◽  
Peter M. Munsell ◽  
F. C. Hsing

A CFD analysis of the cooling flow through a gas turbine engine low pressure turbine shaft is presented. Three cases are considered in which throughflow and rotation rate are varied. The primary objective of the analysis was to derive improved heat transfer coefficient information, over those obtainable via semi-empirical means. The coefficients so obtained were then used in a one-dimensional, time-dependent analysis for use in predicting shaft wall temperature throughout a snap acceleration phase of the engine. A second objective was to obtain insight into the flow structure within the shaft with a view to possible design input in future engine programs. Results presented include detailed velocity vector plots at select locations, heat transfer coefficient distributions for each case and finally, for Case 2 predicted wall temperature vs. time is shown in conjunction with engine test data.

Author(s):  
Godwin Ita Ekong ◽  
Christopher A. Long ◽  
Peter R. N. Childs

Compressor tip clearance for a gas turbine engine application is the radial gap between the stationary compressor casing and the rotating blades. The gap varies significantly during different operating conditions of the engine due to centrifugal forces on the rotor and differential thermal expansions in the discs and casing. The tip clearance in the axial flow compressor of modern commercial civil aero-engines is of significance in terms of both mechanical integrity and performance. In general, the clearance is of critical importance to civil airline operators and their customers alike because as the clearance between the compressor blade tips and the casing increases, the aerodynamic efficiency will decrease and therefore the specific fuel consumption and operating costs will increase. This paper reports on the development of a range of concepts and their evaluation for the reduction and control of tip clearance in H.P. compressors using an enhanced heat transfer coefficient approach. This would lead to improvement in cruise tip clearances. A test facility has been developed for the study at the University of Sussex, incorporating a rotor and an inner shaft scaled down from a Rolls-Royce Trent aero-engine to a ratio of 0.7:1 with a rotational speed of up to 10000 rpm. The idle and maximum take-off conditions in the square cycle correspond to in-cavity rotational Reynolds numbers of 3.1×106 ≤ Reφ ≤ 1.0×107. The project involved modelling of the experimental facilities, to demonstrate proof of concept. The analysis shows that increasing the thermal response of the high pressure compressor (HPC) drum of a gas turbine engine assembly will reduce the drum time constant, thereby reducing the re-slam characteristics of the drum causing a reduction in the cold build clearance (CBC), and hence the reduction in cruise clearance. A further reduction can be achieved by introducing radial inflow into the drum cavity to further increase the disc heat transfer coefficient in the cavity; hence a further reduction in disc drum time constant.


Author(s):  
Riccardo Da Soghe ◽  
Cosimo Bianchini ◽  
Antonio Andreini ◽  
Lorenzo Mazzei ◽  
Giovanni Riccio ◽  
...  

The transition-piece of a gas turbine engine is subjected to high thermal loads as it collects high temperature combustion products from the gas generator to a turbine. This generally produces high thermal stress levels in the casing of the transition piece, strongly limiting its life expectations and making it one of the most critical components of the entire engine. The reliable prediction of such thermal loads is hence a crucial aspect to increase the transition-piece life span and to assure safe operations. The present study aims to investigate the aero-thermal behaviour of a gas turbine engine transition-piece and in particular to evaluate working temperatures of the casing in relation to the flow and heat transfer situation inside and outside the transition-piece. Typical operating conditions are considered to determine the amount of heat transfer from the gas to the casing by means of CFD. Both conjugate approach and wall fixed temperature have been considered to compute the heat transfer coefficient, and more in general, the transition-piece thermal loads. Finally a discussion on the most convenient heat transfer coefficient expression is provided.


Author(s):  
Gregory Vogel ◽  
Anmol Agrawal ◽  
Praneetha Nannapaneni

The turbine blade tip is considered as one of the most critical areas of gas turbine engines. The tip region often lacks durability and is challenging to cool. To achieve successful blade tip cooling designs, ALSTOM engineers are performing state of the art aero thermal analyses of blade tip cooling configurations. This paper describes the approach used for this analysis and draws conclusion for blade tip cooling optimization. Numerical simulations of flow and heat transfer are presented for a modern industrial gas turbine blade with a film cooled tip. The blade tip metal temperature distribution is analyzed for three different blade tip clearances with a detailed CFD analysis around the blade tip performed. The CFD analysis provides flow streamlines through the blade tip as well as a total blade tip leakage flow. Rough streamlines estimates are then used to define a set of control volumes for which dedicated cooling flow mixing is considered. The total mass flowing through all volumes corresponds to the CFD blade tip leakage. For each control volume corresponds a specific Reynolds number that is used to define a corresponding heat transfer coefficient. The latter is obtained from experimental Nusselt number correlations for the different regions of a blade squealer tip (crown, fillet and cavity). Application of the obtained heat transfer coefficient and mixing temperature boundary conditions on a 3D blade tip finite element model, together with an internal cooling flow network associated to the 3D model allows calculating the blade tip metal temperature. Results for two different tip clearances relative to nominal blade tip gap are presented and discussed. Comparison with experimental data such as thermal paint test and metallurgical data are given, showing good agreement with the blade tip cooling modeling introduced in this paper. Cooling performance of the blade tip is discussed based on the modeling approach proposed in this paper. The latter allows drawing conclusions for blade tip cooling optimization.


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-81
Author(s):  
Илья Иванович Петухов ◽  
Тарас Петрович Михайленко ◽  
Андрей Александрович Брунак ◽  
Сергей Валерьевич Епифанов ◽  
Артём Викторович Ковалёв ◽  
...  

The development of gas turbine technology is accompanied by an increase in temperatures, pressures, and airflow velocity in the gas path. Increasing operating cycle parameters for gas turbine engine complicates the tasks of ensuring the permissible temperature state of engine parts, requires improving the methods of their calculation and design. This fact fully applies bearing assemblies, especially those operating in a hot environment, and causes interest in the study of thermohydraulic processes in the bearing chamber, which determines the temperature state of the rotor parts. The necessity of pressurizing the seals leads to the presence of the oil-air mixture in the bearing chamber. A wide range of operating parameters, flow inhomogeneity, phase disequilibrium, and phase separation significantly complicate the mathematical description of processes in the bearing chamber, including the use of CFD-modeling. Therefore, considerable attention is paid to experimental research. The experimental results are used not only to verify mathematical models but also to obtain generalizing dependencies. Most often, the desired value is the heat transfer coefficient in the oil cavity of the support. The article deals with the heat transfer features in the near-wall zone of the gas-turbine engine bearing chamber which were associated with the presence of oil-air flow. Also, approaches to the experimental determination of the heat transfer coefficient were analyzed and an appropriate system for measuring the local temperatures of the media was formed. The values of the error of the experimental heat transfer coefficient and the degree of influence of the determining factors were estimated. The contribution of the non-uniformity of the temperature field in the walls of the chamber and the uncertainty in the value of the temperature of the flow core was determined. The advantages of using the averaged heat transfer coefficient for engineering calculations and the significant influence of the averaging method on its value were also shown. Averaging over the heat flux density corresponds most accurately to the tasks of such calculations, at which the total heat flux through the chamber walls does not change.


Author(s):  
Illia Petukhov ◽  
Taras Mykhailenko ◽  
Sergiy Yepifanov ◽  
Oleg Shevchuk

Abstract The heat transfer coefficient (HTC) is one of the key parameters that should be known at the stage of the bearing chamber design. This ensures safe temperature conditions for the lubrication oil and reliable operation of the gas turbine engine. The temperature gradient method is commonly used in experimental practice to determinate the HTC. The accuracy of the HTC determination is sensitive to changing of the bearing chamber operating conditions and should be analyzed at the stage of experimental studies planning. This paper presents a study on the accuracy of HTC determination when the external cooling of the bearing chamber is used to obtain the temperature difference sufficient for measurement. Three ways to reduce the relative error of the HTC determination in the bearing chamber were analyzed: i) decreasing the temperature measurement error; ii) decreasing the temperature of external cooling medium; iii) increasing the external heat transfer coefficient and contribution of wall thermal resistance optimization. For different operating conditions of the bearing chamber, the temperature of the outer wall that ensures the specified accuracy of the experimental HTC and the required parameters of the cooling medium were determined and recommended for practical implementation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Laveau ◽  
Reza S. Abhari ◽  
Michael E. Crawford ◽  
Ewald Lutum

In order to continue increasing the efficiency of gas turbines, an important effort is made on the thermal management of the turbine stage. In particular, understanding and accurately estimating the thermal loads in a vane passage is of primary interest to engine designers looking to optimize the cooling requirements and ensure the integrity of the components. This paper focuses on the measurement of endwall heat transfer in a vane passage with a three-dimensional (3D) airfoil shape and cylindrical endwalls. It also presents a comparison with predictions performed using an in-house developed Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solver featuring a specific treatment of the numerical smoothing using a flow adaptive scheme. The measurements have been performed in a steady state axial turbine facility on a novel platform developed for heat transfer measurements and integrated to the nozzle guide vane (NGV) row of the turbine. A quasi-isothermal boundary condition is used to obtain both the heat transfer coefficient and the adiabatic wall temperature within a single measurement day. The surface temperature is measured using infrared thermography through small view ports. The infrared camera is mounted on a robot arm with six degrees of freedom to provide high resolution surface temperature and a full coverage of the vane passage. The paper presents results from experiments with two different flow conditions obtained by varying the mass flow through the turbine: measurements at the design point (ReCax=7.2×105) and at a reduced mass flow rate (ReCax=5.2×105). The heat transfer quantities, namely the heat transfer coefficient and the adiabatic wall temperature, are derived from measurements at 14 different isothermal temperatures. The experimental data are supplemented with numerical predictions that are deduced from a set of adiabatic and diabatic simulations. In addition, the predicted flow field in the passage is used to highlight the link between the heat transfer patterns measured and the vortical structures present in the passage.


Author(s):  
A. Nikparto ◽  
M. T. Schobeiri

Efficiency and performance of gas turbine engines are affected by the flow field around the blades. The flow field inside a gas turbine engine is very complex. One of the characteristics of the flow inside an engine is existence of periodic unsteady wakes, originating from the upstream stator blades. The unsteady wakes, with their highly vortical core, impinge on the downstream blade surfaces and cause an intermittent transition of the flow regime from laminar to turbulent. This study aims at investigating and modeling the behavior and development of the boundary layer along the suction surface of a highly loaded low-pressure turbine blade under steady and unsteady inlet flow condition. The current paper includes results of a computational work substantiated by the experimental verifications. For the experimental investigations, the linear cascade facility in Turbomachinery Performance and Flow research Lab (TPFL) at Texas A&M University was used to simulate the periodic unsteady flow condition inside gas turbine engine. Moving wakes, originating from upstream blades, were simulated in this facility by moving rods attached to two parallel timing belts. Measurements and calculations were conducted at Reynolds number of 110,000. This Reynolds number pertains to cruise condition of a low-pressure turbine. At this Reynolds number, the flow around the blades is transitional and highly susceptible to flow separation. Aerodynamics experiments include measuring the boundary layer, locating its transition, separation and finally re-attachment using miniature hot wire probes. Heat transfer measurements along the suction and pressure surfaces were conducted utilizing a specially designed heat transfer blade that was instrumented with liquid crystal coating. To numerically simulate the transitional behavior of the boundary layer under periodic unsteady flow condition, a new intermittency function is developed which is based on the universal intermittency function developed by Chakka and Schobeiri [1]. Accurate prediction of the boundary layer behavior under the above conditions requires minimum and the maximum intermittency functions. These functions were developed inductively using the experimental results that were obtained in the absence of flow separation. In the current investigation the impact of the separation on the minimum and maximum intermittency are accounted for. The enhanced minimum and maximum intermittency functions along with the universal intermittency are implemented in a RANS based solver for computational simulation. The computational results are compared with (a) experimental ones and (b) with the computational results from RANS that involves Langtry-Menter [2, 3] method.


Author(s):  
Gm S. Azad ◽  
Je-Chin Han ◽  
Robert J. Boyle

Experimental investigations are performed to measure the detailed heat transfer coefficient and static pressure distributions on the squealer tip of a gas turbine blade in a five-bladed stationary linear cascade. The blade is a 2-dimensional model of a modern first stage gas turbine rotor blade with a blade tip profile of a GE-E3 aircraft gas turbine engine rotor blade. A squealer (recessed) tip with a 3.77% recess is considered here. The data on the squealer tip are also compared with a flat tip case. All measurements are made at three different tip gap clearances of about 1%, 1.5%, and 2.5% of the blade span. Two different turbulence intensities of 6.1% and 9.7% at the cascade inlet are also considered for heat transfer measurements. Static pressure measurements are made in the mid-span and near-tip regions, as well as on the shroud surface opposite to the blade tip surface. The flow condition in the test cascade corresponds to an overall pressure ratio of 1.32 and an exit Reynolds number based on the axial chord of 1.1×106. A transient liquid crystal technique is used to measure the heat transfer coefficients. Results show that the heat transfer coefficient on the cavity surface and rim increases with an increase in tip clearance. The heat transfer coefficient on the rim is higher than the cavity surface. The cavity surface has a higher heat transfer coefficient near the leading edge region than the trailing edge region. The heat transfer coefficient on the pressure side rim and trailing edge region is higher at a higher turbulence intensity level of 9.7% over 6.1% case. However, no significant difference in local heat transfer coefficient is observed inside the cavity and the suction side rim for the two turbulence intensities. The squealer tip blade provides a lower overall heat transfer coefficient when compared to the flat tip blade.


Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Van Treuren ◽  
Zuolan Wang ◽  
Peter T. Ireland ◽  
Terry V. Jones ◽  
S. T. Kohler

Recent work, Van Treuren et al. (1993), has shown the transient method of measuring heat transfer under an array of impinging jets allows the determination of local values of adiabatic wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient over the complete surface of the target plate. Using this technique, an inline array of impinging jets has been tested over a range of average jet Reynolds numbers (10,000–40,000) and for three channel height to jet hole diameter ratios (1, 2, and 4). The array is confined on three sides and spent flow is allowed to exit in one direction. Local values are averaged and compared with previously published data in related geometries. The current data for a staggered array is compared to those from an inline array with the same hole diameter and pitch for an average jet Reynolds number of 10,000 and channel height to diameter ratio of one. A comparison is made between intensity and hue techniques for measuring stagnation point and local distributions of heat transfer. The influence of the temperature of the impingement plate through which the coolant gas flows on the target plate heat transfer has been quantified.


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