scholarly journals A Simplified Program to Predict the Temperature Distribution in Gas Turbine Components as a Function of the Mission Profile of the Aircraft

Author(s):  
Alwyn F. Naudé ◽  
Jan A. Visser

One of the main thrusts of the modern aerospace industry is to reduce the operating costs of aircraft. This requires a longer on-wing time for the gas turbines and subsequently reduced maintenance. Such a program can only be effectively implemented if the effects of operating conditions on the aircraft can be evaluated continuously. This paper presents a simplified computer program, operating on a personal computer, to predict the temperature distribution in components as a function of the operating condition of the aircraft. This information is then used to determine the deterioration of the engine under the specified operating conditions. The program consists of a simplified model to calculate the conditions in the different modules of the engine as a function of parameters like throttle position, altitude, speed of the aircraft etc. The detailed heat transfer to components is calculated using simplified analytical formulations accounting for three-dimensional effects. As a test case, the temperature change on a semi-cooled nozzle guide vane (NGV) is shown as the engine accelerates to full load conditions. It can be concluded that this approach produces realistic values for the thermal loading on components that can be used to predict long-term engine deterioration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood H. Alqefl ◽  
Kedar P. Nawathe ◽  
Pingting Chen ◽  
Rui Zhu ◽  
Yong W. Kim ◽  
...  

Abstract Modern gas turbines are subjected to very high thermal loading. This leads to a need for aggressive cooling to protect components from damage. Endwalls are particularly challenging to cool due to a complex system of secondary flows near them that wash and disrupt the protective coolant films. This highly three-dimensional flow not only affects but is also affected by the momentum of film cooling flows, whether injected just upstream of the passage to intentionally cool the endwall or as combustor cooling flows injected further upstream in the engine. This complex interaction between the different cooling flows and passage aerodynamics has been recently studied in a first stage nozzle guide vane. The present paper presents a detailed study on the sensitivity of aero-thermal interactions to endwall film cooling mass flow to mainstream flow ratio. The test section represents a first stage nozzle guide vane with a contoured endwall and endwall film cooling injected just upstream of it. The test section also includes an engine-representative combustor–turbine interface geometry with combustor cooling flows injected at a constant rate. The approach flow conditions represent flow exiting a low-NOx combustor. Adiabatic surface thermal measurements and in-passage velocity and thermal field measurements are presented and discussed. The results show the dynamics of passage vortex suppression and the increase of impingement vortex strength as MFR changes. The effects of these changes of secondary flows on coolant distribution are presented.



Author(s):  
Mahmood H. Alqefl ◽  
Kedar P. Nawathe ◽  
Pingting Chen ◽  
Rui Zhu ◽  
Yong W. Kim ◽  
...  

Abstract Modern gas turbines are subjected to very high thermal loading. This leads to a need for aggressive cooling to protect components from damage. Endwalls are particularly challenging to cool due to a complex system of secondary flows near them that wash and disrupt the protective coolant films. This highly three-dimensional flow not only affects but is also affected by the momentum of film cooling flows, whether injected just upstream of the passage to intentionally cool the endwall, or as combustor cooling flows injected further upstream in the engine. This complex interaction between the different cooling flows and passage aerodynamics has been recently studied in a first stage nozzle guide vane. The present paper presents a detailed study on the sensitivity of aero-thermal interactions to endwall film cooling MFR (cooling mass flow to mainstream flow ratio). The test section represents a first stage nozzle guide vane with a contoured endwall and endwall film cooling injected just upstream of it. The test section also includes an engine-representative combustor-turbine interface geometry with combustor cooling flows injected at a constant rate. The approach flow conditions represent flow exiting a low-NOx combustor. Adiabatic surface thermal measurements and in-passage velocity and thermal field measurements are presented and discussed. The results show the dynamics of passage vortex suppression and the increase of impingement vortex strength as MFR changes. The effects of these changes of secondary flows on coolant distribution are presented.



1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. N. Dawes

This paper describes recent developments to a three-dimensional, unstructured mesh, solution-adaptive Navier–Stokes solver. By adopting a simple, pragmatic but systematic approach to mesh generation, the range of simulations that can be attempted is extended toward arbitrary geometries. The combined benefits of the approach result in a powerful analytical ability. Solutions for a wide range of flows are presented, including a transonic compressor rotor, a centrifugal impeller, a steam turbine nozzle guide vane with casing extraction belt, the internal coolant passage of a radial inflow turbine, and a turbine disk cavity flow.



Author(s):  
Andrea Giusti ◽  
Luca Magri ◽  
Marco Zedda

Indirect noise generated by the acceleration of combustion inhomogeneities is an important aspect in the design of aeroengines because of its impact on the overall noise emitted by an aircraft and the possible contribution to combustion instabilities. In this study, a realistic rich-quench-lean combustor is numerically investigated, with the objective of quantitatively analyzing the formation and evolution of flow inhomogeneities and determine the level of indirect combustion noise in the nozzle guide vane (NGV). Both entropy and compositional noise are calculated in this work. A high-fidelity numerical simulation of the combustion chamber, based on the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) approach with the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) combustion model, is performed. The contributions of the different air streams to the formation of flow inhomogeneities are pinned down and separated with seven dedicated passive scalars. LES-CMC results are then used to determine the acoustic sources to feed an NGV aeroacoustic model, which outputs the noise generated by entropy and compositional inhomogeneities. Results show that non-negligible fluctuations of temperature and composition reach the combustor’s exit. Combustion inhomogeneities originate both from finite-rate chemistry effects and incomplete mixing. In particular, the role of mixing with dilution and liner air flows on the level of combustion inhomogeneities at the combustor’s exit is highlighted. The species that most contribute to indirect noise are identified and the transfer functions of a realistic NGV are computed. The noise level indicates that indirect noise generated by temperature fluctuations is larger that the indirect noise generated by compositional inhomogeneities, although the latter is not negligible and is expected to become louder in supersonic nozzles. It is also shown that relatively small fluctuations of the local flame structure can lead to significant variations of the nozzle transfer function, whose gain increases with the Mach number. This highlights the necessity of an on-line solution of the local flame structure, which is performed in this paper by CMC, for an accurate prediction of the level of compositional noise. This study opens new possibilities for the identification, separation and calculation of the sources of indirect combustion noise in realistic aeronautical gas turbines.



Author(s):  
Ranjan Saha ◽  
Boris I. Mamaev ◽  
Jens Fridh ◽  
Björn Laumert ◽  
Torsten H. Fransson

Experiments are conducted to investigate the effect of the pre-history in the aerodynamic performance of a three-dimensional nozzle guide vane with a hub leading edge contouring. The performance is determined with two pneumatic probes (5 hole and 3 hole) concentrating mainly on the endwall. The investigated vane is a geometrically similar gas turbine vane for the first stage with a reference exit Mach number of 0.9. Results are compared for the baseline and filleted cases for a wide range of operating exit Mach numbers from 0.5 to 0.9. The presented data includes loading distributions, loss distributions, fields of exit flow angles, velocity vector and vorticity contour, as well as, mass-averaged loss coefficients. The results show an insignificant influence of the leading edge fillet on the performance of the vane. However, the pre-history (inlet condition) affects significantly in the secondary loss. Additionally, an oil visualization technique yields information about the streamlines on the solid vane surface which allows identifying the locations of secondary flow vortices, stagnation line and saddle point.



Author(s):  
Robin R. Jones ◽  
Oliver J. Pountney ◽  
Bjorn L. Cleton ◽  
Liam E. Wood ◽  
B. Deneys J. Schreiner ◽  
...  

Abstract In modern gas turbines, endwall contouring (EWC) is employed to modify the static pressure field downstream of the vanes and minimise the growth of secondary flow structures developed in the blade passage. Purge flow (or egress) from the upstream rim-seal interferes with the mainstream flow, adding to the loss generated in the rotor. Despite this, EWC is typically designed without consideration of mainstream-egress interactions. The performance gains offered by EWC can be reduced, or in the limit eliminated, when purge air is considered. In addition, EWC can result in a reduction in sealing effectiveness across the rim seal. Consequently, industry is pursuing a combined design approach that encompasses the rim-seal, seal-clearance profile and EWC on the rotor endwall. This paper presents the design of, and preliminary results from a new single-stage axial turbine facility developed to investigate the fundamental fluid dynamics of egress-mainstream flow interactions. To the authors’ knowledge this is the only test facility in the world capable of investigating the interaction effects between cavity flows, rim seals and EWC. The design of optical measurement capabilities for future studies, employing volumetric velocimetry and planar laser induced fluorescence are also presented. The fluid-dynamically scaled rig operates at benign pressures and temperatures suited to these techniques and is modular. The facility enables expedient interchange of EWC (integrated into the rotor bling), blade-fillet and rim-seals geometries. The measurements presented in this paper include: gas concentration effectiveness and swirl measurements on the stator wall and in the wheel-space core; pressure distributions around the nozzle guide vanes at three different spanwise locations; pitchwise static pressure distributions downstream of the nozzle guide vane at four axial locations on the stator platform.



1986 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. K. Jennions ◽  
P. Stow

The purpose of this paper is to show, for both rotating and non-rotating blade rows, the importance of including circumferential non-uniform flow effects in a quasi-three-dimensional blade design system. The paper follows from previous publications on the system in which the mathematical analysis and computerized system are detailed. Results are presented for a different stack of the nozzle guide vane presented previously and for a turbine rotor. In the former case it is again found that the blade force represents a major contribution to the radial pressure gradient, while for the rotor the radial pressure gradient is dominated by centrifugal effects. In both examples the effects of circumferential non-uniformities are detailed and discussed.



Author(s):  
Shahrokh Shahpar

A new approach to three-dimensional design of turbomachinery blades is presented. A number of heuristic and gradient based optimisers are used in conjunction with a linear sensitivity analysis tool, FAITH, to re-design a turbine nozzle guide vane. A novel linear approach is used to eliminate the large computational costs usually associated with function evaluations which are essentially solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. Results are compared with those obtained previously from the inverse design mode of FAITH. With the present approach, it is shown that nonlinear complicated cost functions can be reduced significantly and aerodynamic and geometrical constraints can be handled easily and efficiently.



Author(s):  
Ranjan Saha ◽  
Jens Fridh ◽  
Mats Annerfeldt

Given the shortage of fossil fuels and the growing greenhouse effect, one strive in modern gas turbines is to make maximum usage of the burnt fuel. By reducing the number of vanes or blades and thereby increasing the loading per vane (or blade) it is possible to spend less cooling air, which will have a positive impact on the combined cycle efficiency. It also reduces the number of components and usage of metal and thereby also the cost of the engine. These savings should be achieved without any efficiency deficit in aerodynamic efficiency. Based on the fact, aerodynamic investigations were performed to see the aerodynamic implications of reduced vane number in a transonic annular sector cascade. The number of new nozzle guide vane was reduced with 24% compared to a previous design with higher vane count. The investigated vanes were two typical high pressure gas turbine vanes. Results regarding the loading indicated an expected increase with the reduced vane case. The minimum static pressure at the suction side is lower and at an earlier location for the reduced vane case and therefore, an extension of the trailing edge deceleration zone is observed for the reduced vane case. Results regarding losses indicate that even though the losses produced per vane significantly increases for the reduced vane case, a comparison of mass averaged losses between the reduced vane case and previous vane case show similar spanwise loss distributions. Assessing results leads to a conclusion that the reduction of the number of vanes in the first stage seems to be a useful method to save cooling flow as well as material costs without any significant deficit in overall efficiency.



Author(s):  
Arash Farahani ◽  
Peter Childs

Sealing of components where there is no relative motion between the elements concerned remains a significant challenge in many gas turbine engine applications. Loss of sealing and cooling air from the internal air system through seals impacts on specific fuel consumption and can lead to undesirable flow interactions with resultant cost implications. For gas turbines, various strip seal types have been developed for use between Nozzle Guide Vanes in order to limit the flow of gas between the main stream annulus and the internal air system. Many different types of design have been proposed for overcoming strip seal problems such as misalignment of the grooves due to manufacturing and assembly constraints. In this paper various methods, with a particular focus on patents, for minimising the amount of leakage caused by such problems for strip seals between nozzle guide vanes are reviewed. By considering the advantages and disadvantages of each technique it is concluded that although apparently new strip seal designs for NGVs have improved performance, none of them can be considered to be ideal. This paper reviews the techniques and makes recommendations for future designs.



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