scholarly journals An Experimental and Computational Investigation of Flow in a Radial Inlet of an Industrial Pipeline Centrifugal Compressor

Author(s):  
M. B. Flathers ◽  
G. E. Bache ◽  
R. Rainsberger

The flowfield of a complex three dimensional radial inlet for an industrial pipeline centrifugal compressor has been experimentally determined on a half scale model. Based on the experimental results, inlet guide vanes have been designed to correct pressure and swirl angle distribution deficiencies. The unvaned and vaned inlets are analyzed with a commercially available fully 3D viscous Navier-Stokes code. Since experimental results were available prior to the numerical study, the unvaned analysis is considered a postdiction while the vaned analysis is considered a prediction. The computational results of the unvaned inlet have been compared to the previously obtained experimental results. The experimental method utilized for the unvaned inlet is repeated for the vaned inlet and the data has been used to verify the computational results. The paper will discuss experimental, design and computational procedures, grid generation, boundary conditions, and experimental versus computational methods. Agreement between experimental and computational results is very good, both in prediction and postdiction modes. The results of this investigation indicate that CFD offers a measurable advantage in design, schedule and cost and can be applied to complex, three dimensional radial inlets.

1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. Flathers ◽  
G. E. Bache ◽  
R. Rainsberger

The flow field of a complex three-dimensional radial inlet for an industrial pipeline centrifugal compressor has been experimentally determined on a half-scale model. Based on the experimental results, inlet guide vanes have been designed to correct pressure and swirl angle distribution deficiencies. The unvaned and vaned inlets are analyzed with a commercially available fully three-dimensional viscous Navier–Stokes code. Since experimental results were available prior to the numerical study, the unvaned analysis is considered a postdiction while the vaned analysis is considered a prediction. The computational results of the unvaned inlet have been compared to the previously obtained experimental results. The experimental method utilized for the unvaned inlet is repeated for the vaned inlet and the data have been used to verify the computational results. The paper will discuss experimental, design, and computational procedures, grid generation, boundary conditions, and experimental versus computational methods. Agreement between experimental and computational results is very good, both in prediction and postdiction modes. The results of this investigation indicate that CFD offers a measurable advantage in design, schedule, and cost and can be applied to complex, three-dimensional radial inlets.


Author(s):  
Mahdi Nili-Ahmadabadi ◽  
Ali Hajilouy-Benisi ◽  
Mohammad Durali ◽  
Sayyed Mostafa Motavalli

In this research, the centrifugal compressor of a turbocharger is investigated experimentally and numerically. Performance characteristics of the compressor were obtained experimentally by measurements of rotor speed and flow parameters at the inlet and outlet of the compressor. Three dimensional flow field in the impeller and diffuser was analyzed numerically using a full Navier-Stokes program with SST turbulence model. The performance characteristics of the compressor were obtained numerically, which were then compared with the experimental results. The comparison shows good agreement. Furthermore, the effect of area ratio and tip clearance on the performance parameters and flow field was studied numerically. The impeller area ratio was changed by cutting the impeller exit axial width from an initial value of 4.1 mm to a final value of 5.1 mm, resulting in an area ratio from 0.792 to 0.965. For the rotor with exit axial width of 4.6 mm, performance was investigated for tip clearance of 0.0, 0.5 and 1.0 mm. Results of this simulation at design point showed that the compressor pressure ratio peaked at an area ratio of 0.792 while the efficiency peaked at a higher value of area ratio of 0.878. Also the increment of the tip clearance from 0 to 1 mm resulted in 20 percent efficiency decrease.


Author(s):  
Adra Benhacine ◽  
Zoubir Nemouchi ◽  
Lyes Khezzar ◽  
Nabil Kharoua

A numerical study of a turbulent plane jet impinging on a convex surface and on a flat surface is presented, using the large eddy simulation approach and the Smagorinski-Lilly sub-grid-scale model. The effects of the wall curvature on the unsteady filtered, and the steady mean, parameters characterizing the dynamics of the wall jet are addressed in particular. In the free jet upstream of the impingement region, significant and fairly ordered velocity fluctuations, that are not turbulent in nature, are observed inside the potential core. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the shear layer between the jet and the surrounding air are detected in the form of wavy sheets of vorticity. Rolled up vortices are detached from these sheets in a more or less periodic manner, evolving into distorted three dimensional structures. Along the wall jet the Coanda effect causes a marked suction along the convex surface compared with the flat one. As a result, relatively important tangential velocities and a stretching of sporadic streamwise vortices are observed, leading to friction coefficient values on the curved wall higher than those on the flat wall.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 841
Author(s):  
Yuzhen Jin ◽  
Huang Zhou ◽  
Linhang Zhu ◽  
Zeqing Li

A three-dimensional numerical study of a single droplet splashing vertically on a liquid film is presented. The numerical method is based on the finite volume method (FVM) of Navier–Stokes equations coupled with the volume of fluid (VOF) method, and the adaptive local mesh refinement technology is adopted. It enables the liquid–gas interface to be tracked more accurately, and to be less computationally expensive. The relationship between the diameter of the free rim, the height of the crown with different numbers of collision Weber, and the thickness of the liquid film is explored. The results indicate that the crown height increases as the Weber number increases, and the diameter of the crown rim is inversely proportional to the collision Weber number. It can also be concluded that the dimensionless height of the crown decreases with the increase in the thickness of the dimensionless liquid film, which has little effect on the diameter of the crown rim during its growth.


2014 ◽  
Vol 663 ◽  
pp. 347-353
Author(s):  
Layth H. Jawad ◽  
Shahrir Abdullah ◽  
Zulkifli R. ◽  
Wan Mohd Faizal Wan Mahmood

A numerical study that was made in a three-dimensional flow, carried out in a modified centrifugal compressor, having vaned diffuser stage, used as an automotive turbo charger. In order to study the influence of vaned diffuser meridional outlet section with a different width ratio of the modified centrifugal compressor. Moreover, the performance of the centrifugal compressor was dependent on the proper matching between the compressor impeller along the vaned diffuser. The aerodynamic characteristics were compared under different meridional width ratio. In addition, the velocity vectors in diffuser flow passages, and the secondary flow in cross-section near the outlet of diffuser were analysed in detail under different meridional width ratio. Another aim of this research was to study and simulate the effect of vaned diffuser on the performance of a centrifugal compressor. The simulation was undertaken using commercial software so-called ANSYS CFX, to predict numerically the performance charachteristics. The results were generated from CFD and were analysed for better understanding of the fluid flow through centrifugal compressor stage and as a result of the minimum width ratio the flow in diffuser passage tends to be uniformity. Moreover, the backflow and vortex near the pressure surface disappear, and the vortex and detachment near the suction surface decrease. Conclusively, it was observed that the efficiency was increased and both the total pressure ratio and static pressure for minimum width ratio are increased.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdelwahab

Vaned diffusers have been used successfully as efficient and compact dynamic pressure recovery devices in industrial centrifugal compressor stages. Typically such diffusers consist of a cascade of two-dimensional blades distributed circumferentially at close proximity to the impeller exit. In this paper three low-solidity diffuser blade geometries are numerically investigated. The first geometry employs variable stagger stacking of similar blade sections along the blade span. The second employs linearly inclined stacking to generate blade lean along the diffuser span. The third geometry employs the conventional two-dimensional low-solidity diffuser geometry with no variable stagger or lean. The variable stagger blade arrangement has the potential of better aligning the diffuser leading edges with the highly non-uniform flow leaving the impeller. Both variable stagger and linearly leaned diffuser blade arrangements, however, have the effect of redistributing the blade loading and flow streamlines in the spanwise direction leading to improved efficiency and pressure recovery capacity of the diffuser. In this paper a description of the proposed diffuser geometries is presented. The results of Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes numerical simulations of the three centrifugal compressor arrangements are discussed. Comparisons between the performance of the two and three-dimensional diffuser blade geometries are presented. The comparisons indeed show that the variable stagger and leaned diffusers present an improvement in the diffuser operating range and pressure recovery capacity over the conventional two-dimensional diffuser geometry.


Author(s):  
Siavash Khajehhasani ◽  
Bassam Jubran

A numerical study on the effects of sister holes locations on film cooling performance is presented. This includes the change of the location of the individual discrete sister holes in the streamwise and spanwise directions, where each one of these directions includes 9 different locations, The simulations are performed using three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes analysis with the realizable k–ε model combined with the standard wall function. The variation of the sister holes in the streamwise direction provides similar film cooling performance as the base case for both blowing ratios of 0.5 and 1. On the other hand, the spanwise variation of the sister holes’ location has a more prominent effect on the effectiveness. In some cases, as a result of the anti-vortices generated from the sister holes and the repositioning of the sister holes in the spanwise direction, the jet lift-off effect notably decreases and more volume of coolant is distributed in the spanwise direction.


Author(s):  
Jean Franc¸ois Sigrist ◽  
Christian Laine ◽  
Dominique Lemoine ◽  
Bernard Peseux

This paper is related to the study of a nuclear propulsion reactor prototype for the French Navy. This prototype is built on ground and is to be dimensioned toward seismic loading. The dynamic analysis takes the coupled fluid structure analysis into account. The basic fluid models used by design engineers are inviscid incompressible or compressible. The fluid can be described in a bidimensional by slice or a three-dimensional approach. A numerical study is carried out on a generic problem for the linear FSI dynamic problem. The results of this study are presented and discussed. As a conclusion, the three-dimensional inviscid incompressible fluid appears to be the best compromise between the description of physical phenomena and the cost of modeling. The geometry of the reactor is such that large displacements of the structure in the fluid can occur. Therefore, the linearity hypothesis might not be longer valid. The case of large amplitude imposed oscillating motion of a cylinder in a confined fluid is numerically studied. A CFD code is used to investigate the fluid behavior solving the NAVIER-STOKES equations. The forces induced on the cylinder by the fluid are computed and compared to the linear solution. The limit of the linear model can then be exhibited.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiajun Chen ◽  
Yue Sun ◽  
Hang Zhang ◽  
Dakui Feng ◽  
Zhiguo Zhang

Mixing in pipe junctions can play an important role in exciting force and distribution of flow in pipe network. This paper investigated the cross pipe junction and proposed an improved plan, Y-shaped pipe junction. The numerical study of a three-dimensional pipe junction was performed for calculation and improved understanding of flow feature in pipe. The filtered Navier–Stokes equations were used to perform the large-eddy simulation of the unsteady incompressible flow in pipe. From the analysis of these results, it clearly appears that the vortex strength and velocity non-uniformity of centerline, can be reduced by Y-shaped junction. The Y-shaped junction not only has better flow characteristic, but also reduces head loss and exciting force. The results of the three-dimensional improvement analysis of junction can be used in the design of pipe network for industry.


Author(s):  
N. Lymberopoulos ◽  
K. Giannakoglou ◽  
I. Nikolaou ◽  
K. D. Papailiou ◽  
A. Tourlidakis ◽  
...  

Mechanical constraints dictate the existence of tip clearances in rotating cascades, resulting to a flow leakage through this clearance which considerably influences the efficiency and range of operation of the machine. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes solvers are often used for the numerical study of compressor and turbine stages with tip-clearance. The quality of numerical predictions depends strongly on how accurately the blade tip region is modelled; in this respect the accurate modelling of tip region was one of the main goals of this work. In the present paper, a 3-D Navier-Stokes solver is suitably adapted so that the flat tip surface of a blade and its sharp edges could be accurately modelled, in order to improve the precision of the calculation in the tip region. The adapted code solves the fully elliptic, steady, Navier-Stokes equations through a space-marching algorithm and a pressure correction technique; the H-type topology is retained, even in cases with thick leading edges where a special treatment is introduced herein. The analysis is applied to two different cases, a linear cascade and a compressor rotor, and comparisons with experimental data are provided.


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