Optimization of Approach Flow Conditions of Vertical Pumping Systems by Computational Analysis and Physical Model Investigation

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kilian Kirst ◽  
D.-H. Hellmann
Keyword(s):  
Free Surface ◽  
Physical Model ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Mechanical Load ◽  
Energy Content ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Acceptance Criteria ◽  
Application Range

Approach flow conditions of intake structures should be in compliance with state of the art acceptance criteria for all operating conditions, to provide the required flow rates of cooling or circulating water properly. Specially for high specific speed vertical pumps the direct inflow should be vortex free, with low prerotation and symmetric velocity distribution. Flow separation in front of open and covered intake structures can lead to free surface vortices. Depending on the strength, vortices can emerge a coherent air core, starting from the surface and entering the inlet nozzle directly. High mechanical load of the pump and decreasing hydraulic performance are an immediate consequence. Energy content, stability and position of a free surface vortex are determinated by intake system geometry and operating conditions. By installing flow guiding devices, the generation of vortex formations can be prevented. Optimization steps should be accomplished with respect to installation costs and complexity on-site. Therefore the effectiveness of the improvements has to be verified. Physical model investigations are common practice and state of the art to evaluate, to optimize and to document flow conditions inside intake structures. Nowadays, computational analysis is more and more adopted in this work field. A combination of both leads to well-defined and reproducible results within a wide application range. By this means prototype intake structures can be investigated and, if necessary, optimized for their best approach flow conditions. In the report the optimization of insufficient approach flow by computational analysis and physical model tests is presented. Therefore various intake structures for cooling water systems — all having approach flow not in compliance with the acceptance criteria of common standards — were physically modeled and investigated. Simultaneously initial and optimized layouts were reviewed by numerical calculations of different kinds. Calculated results are compared with model test and prototype data for different cases and operating points. Focusing on the occurrence of free surface vortices, methods of reproducing free surface vortices with numerical approaches will be presented and evaluated.

Optimization of Approach Flow Conditions of Vertical Pumping Systems by Physical Model Investigation

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Scha¨fer ◽  
D.-H. Hellmann
Keyword(s):  
Physical Model ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Vortex Formation ◽  
Initial Point ◽  
Model Tests ◽  
Acceptance Test ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Acceptance Criteria ◽  
Physical Model Tests

Circulating flow in front of open and covered intake systems in many cases is the initial point of free-surface vortex formation. Depending on the strength of the circulation air pulling vortex formation up to a coherent air core will appear starting at the surface leading directly to an installed pump inside the intake. Thus the mechanical load of the pump will increase and the hydraulic performance will be degraded. Furthermore, pre-rotation of the fluid close to the suction bell can be forced up to limits which are not in compliance to state of the art acceptance criteria. At least non-symmetric velocity distribution at the impeller will arise out of this flow conditions. Within physical model tests intakes together with pumps can be optimized for their best efficiency point of operation. Flow conditions can be achieved generating kinematical affinity at the suction bell which are close to the conditions of the acceptance test. The report shows application oriented solutions for the installation of cost effective flow guiding devices in open and covered intake systems to assure adequate pump performance. Test results of model investigations and experiences by modifying intake structures of existing plants will be presented. Concerning the sensitivity of high specific speed vertical pumps approach flow conditions especially at the intake structures have to be in accordance to state of the art acceptance criteria to assure adequate availability of the pumps. By today it is common practise and state of the art to test the behaviour of intake and outfall structures by physical model tests.

Avoiding Sedimentation and Air Entrainment in Pump Sump for Wet Pit Pumping Stations

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raja Abou Ackl ◽  
Andreas Swienty ◽  
Flemming Lykholt-Ustrup ◽  
Paul Uwe Thamsen
Keyword(s):  
Physical Model ◽  
Air Entrainment ◽  
Flow Patterns ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Design Criteria ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Pumping Station ◽  
Pumping Stations ◽  
Pump Sump ◽  
Pump Stations

In many places lifting systems represent central components of wastewater systems. Pumping stations with a circular wet-pit design are characterized by their relatively small footprint for a given sump volume as well as their relatively simple construction technique [1]. This kind of pumping stations is equipped with submersible pumps. These are located in this case directly in the wastewater collection pit. The waste water passes through the pump station untreated and loaded with all kind of solids. Thus, the role of the pump sump is to provide an optimal operating environment for the pumps in addition to the transportation of sewage solids. Understanding the effects of design criteria on pumping station performance is important to fulfil the wastewater transportation as maintenance-free and energy efficient as possible. The design of the pit may affect the overall performance of the station in terms of poor flow conditions inside the pit, non-uniform und disturbed inflow at the pump inlet, as well as air entrainment to the pump. The scope of this paper is to evaluate the impact of various design criteria and the operating conditions on the performance of pump stations concerning the air entrainment to the pump as well as the sedimentation inside the pit. This is done to provide documentation and recommendations of the design and operating of the station. The investigated criteria are: the inflow direction, and the operating submergence. In this context experiments were conducted on a physical model of duplex circular wet pit wastewater pumping station. Furthermore the same experiments were reproduced by numerical simulations. The physical model made of acrylic allowed to visualize the flow patterns inside the sump at various operating conditions. This model is equipped with five different inflow directions, two of them are tangential to the pit and the remaining three are radial in various positions relative to the pumps centerline. Particles were used to enable the investigation of the flow patterns inside the pit to determine the zones of high sedimentation risk. The air entrainment was evaluated on the model test rig by measuring the depth, the width and the length of the aerated region caused by the plunging water jet and by observing the air bubbles entering the pumps. The starting sump geometry called baseline geometry is simply a flat floor. The tests were done at all the possible combinations of inflow directions, submergence, working pump and operating flow. The ability of the numerical simulation to give a reliable prediction of air entrainment was assessed to be used in the future as a tool in scale series to define the scale effect as well as to analyze the flow conditions inside the sump and to understand the air entrainment phenomenon. These simulations were conducted using the geometries of the test setup after generating the mesh with tetrahedral elements. The VOF multiphase model was applied to simulate the interaction of the liquid water phase and the gaseous air phase. On the basis of the results constructive suggestions are derived for the design of the pit, as well as the operating conditions of the pumping station. At the end recommendations for the design and operating conditions are provided.

scholarly journals Towards the Hydrogen Economy—A Review of the Parameters That Influence the Efficiency of Alkaline Water Electrolyzers

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3193
Author(s):  
Ana L. Santos ◽  
Maria-João Cebola ◽  
Diogo M. F. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Energy Content ◽  
Water Electrolysis ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Alkaline Water Electrolysis ◽  
Alkaline Water ◽  
New Energy ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Cell Components

Environmental issues make the quest for better and cleaner energy sources a priority. Worldwide, researchers and companies are continuously working on this matter, taking one of two approaches: either finding new energy sources or improving the efficiency of existing ones. Hydrogen is a well-known energy carrier due to its high energy content, but a somewhat elusive one for being a gas with low molecular weight. This review examines the current electrolysis processes for obtaining hydrogen, with an emphasis on alkaline water electrolysis. This process is far from being new, but research shows that there is still plenty of room for improvement. The efficiency of an electrolyzer mainly relates to the overpotential and resistances in the cell. This work shows that the path to better electrolyzer efficiency is through the optimization of the cell components and operating conditions. Following a brief introduction to the thermodynamics and kinetics of water electrolysis, the most recent developments on several parameters (e.g., electrocatalysts, electrolyte composition, separator, interelectrode distance) are highlighted.

Numerical Investigation of the Solidity Effect on Linear Compressor Cascades

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Sans ◽  
M. Resmini ◽  
J.-F. Brouckaert ◽  
S. Hiernaux
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Investigation ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Compressor Cascade ◽  
Minimum Loss ◽  
Low Speed ◽  
High Mach ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Impact

Solidity in compressors is defined as the ratio of the aerodynamic chord over the peripheral distance between two adjacent blades, the pitch. This parameter is simply the inverse of the pitch-to-chord ratio generally used in turbines. Solidity must be selected at the earliest design phase, i.e. at the level of the meridional design and represents a crucial step in the whole design process. Most of the existing studies on this topic rely on low-speed compressor cascade correlations from Carter or Lieblein. The aim of this work is to update those correlations for state-of-the-art controlled diffusion blades, and extend their application to high Mach number flow regimes more typical of modern compressors. Another objective is also to improve the physical understanding of the solidity effect on compressor performance and stability. A numerical investigation has been performed using the commercial software FINE/Turbo. Two different blade profiles were selected and investigated in the compressible flow regime as an extension to the low-speed data on which the correlations are based. The first cascade uses a standard double circular arc profile, extensively referenced in the literature, while the second configuration uses a state-of-the-art CDB, representative of low pressure compressor stator mid-span profile. Both profiles have been designed with the same inlet and outlet metal angles and the same maximum thickness but the camber and thickness distributions, the stagger angle and the leading edge geometry of the CDB have been optimized. The determination of minimum loss, optimum incidence and deviation is addressed and compared with existing correlations for both configurations and various Mach numbers that have been selected in order to match typical booster stall and choke operating conditions. The emphasis is set on the minimum loss performance at mid-span. The impact of the solidity on the operating range and the stability of the cascade are also studied.

Numerical Investigation on the Leakage and Static Stability Characteristics of Pocket Damper Seals at High Eccentricity Ratios

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhigang Li ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Zhenping Feng
Keyword(s):  
Static Stability ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Eccentricity Ratio ◽  
Static Stiffness ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Experiment Data ◽  
High Eccentricity ◽  
Stiffness Coefficients ◽  
Direct Stiffness ◽  
Gas Seals

Annular gas seals for compressors and turbines are designed to operate in a nominally centered position in which the rotor and stator are at concentric condition, but due to the rotor–stator misalignment or flexible rotor deflection, many seals usually are suffering from high eccentricity. The centering force (represented by static stiffness) of an annular gas seal at eccentricity plays a pronounced effect on the rotordynamic and static stability behavior of rotating machines. The paper deals with the leakage and static stability behavior of a fully partitioned pocket damper seal (FPDS) at high eccentricity ratios. The present work introduces a novel mesh generation method for the full 360 deg mesh of annular gas seals with eccentric rotor, based on the mesh deformation technique. The leakage flow rates, static fluid-induced response forces, and static stiffness coefficients were solved for the FPDS at high eccentricity ratios, using the steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solution approach. The calculations were performed at typical operating conditions including seven rotor eccentricity ratios up to 0.9 for four rotational speeds (0 rpm, 7000 rpm, 11,000 rpm, and 15,000 rpm) including the nonrotating condition, three pressure ratios (0.17, 0.35, and 0.50) including the choked exit flow condition, two inlet preswirl velocities (0 m/s, 60 m/s). The numerical method was validated by comparisons to the experiment data of static stiffness coefficients at choked exit flow conditions. The static direct and cross-coupling stiffness coefficients are in reasonable agreement with the experiment data. An interesting observation stemming from these numerical results is that the FPDS has a positive direct stiffness as long as it operates at subsonic exit flow conditions; no matter the eccentricity ratio and rotational speed are high or low. For the choked exit condition, the FPDS shows negative direct stiffness at low eccentricity ratio and then crosses over to positive value at the crossover eccentricity ratio (0.5–0.7) following a trend indicative of a parabola. Therefore, the negative static direct stiffness is limited to the specific operating conditions: choked exit flow condition and low eccentricity ratio less than the crossover eccentricity ratio, where the pocket damper seal (PDS) would be statically unstable.

Prediction of the Flow and Force Characteristics of Safety Relief Valves

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Dempster ◽  
C. K. Lee ◽  
J. Deans
Keyword(s):  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Cfd Analysis ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Relief Valve ◽  
Good Correspondence ◽  
Geometry Modeling ◽  
Valve Opening ◽  
Satisfactory Prediction ◽  
Force Characteristics

The design of safety relief valves depends on knowledge of the expected force-lift and flow-lift characteristics at the desired operating conditions of the valve. During valve opening the flow conditions change from seal-leakage type flows to combinations of sub-sonic and supersonic flows It is these highly compressible flow conditions that control the force and flow lift characteristics. This paper reports the use of computational fluid dynamics techniques to investigate the valve characteristics for a conventional spring operated 1/4” safety relief valve designed for gases operating between 10 and 30 bar. The force and flow magnitudes are highly dependent on the lift and geometry of the valve and these characteristics are explained with the aid of the detailed information available from the CFD analysis. Experimental determination of the force and flow lift conditions has also been carried out and a comparison indicates good correspondence between the predictions and the experiment. However, attention requires to be paid to specific aspects of the geometry modeling including corner radii and edge chamfers to ensure satisfactory prediction.

Prediction of Threshold Sand Rates from Acoustic Monitors Using Artificial Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Vieira ◽  
Bohan Xu ◽  
Asad Nadeem ◽  
Ahmed Nadeem ◽  
Siamack A. Shirazi
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Noise Level ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Pipe Wall ◽  
Flow Patterns ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Flow Conditions ◽  
Background Noise Level ◽  
Input Parameters

Abstract Solids production from oil and gas wells can cause excessive damage resulting in safety hazards and expensive repairs. To prevent the problems associated with sand influx, ultrasonic devices can be used to provide a warning when sand is being produced in pipelines. One of the most used methods for sand detection is utilizing commercially available acoustic sand monitors that clamp to the outside of pipe wall and measures the acoustic energy generated by sand grain impacts on the inner side of a pipe wall. Although the transducer used by acoustic monitors is especially sensitive to acoustic emissions due to particle impact, it also reacts to flow induced noise as well (background noise). The acoustic monitor output does not exceed the background noise level until a sufficient sand rate is entrained in the flow that causes a signal output that is higher than the background noise level. This sand rate is referred to as the threshold sand rate or TSR. A significant amount of data has been compiled over the years for TSR at the Tulsa University Sand Management Projects (TUSMP) for various flow conditions with stainless steel pipe material. However, to use this data to develop a model for different flow patterns, fluid properties, pipe, and sand sizes is challenging. The purpose of this work is to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) methodology using machine learning (ML) models to determine TSR for a broad range of operating conditions. More than 250 cases from previous literature as well as ongoing research have been used to train and test the ML models. The data utilized in this work has been generated mostly in a large-scale multiphase flow loop for sand sizes ranging from 25 to 300 μm varying sand concentrations and pipe diameters from 25.4 mm to 101.6 mm ID in vertical and horizontal directions downstream of elbows. The ML algorithms including elastic net, random forest, support vector machine and gradient boosting, are optimized using nested cross-validation and the model performance is evaluated by R-squared score. The machine learning models were used to predict TSR for various velocity combinations under different flow patterns with sand. The sensitivity to changes of input parameters on predicted TSR was also investigated. The method for TSR prediction based on ML algorithms trained on lab data is also validated on actual field conditions available in the literature. The AI method results reveal a good training performance and prediction for a variety of flow conditions and pipe sizes not tested before. This work provides a framework describing a novel methodology with an expanded database to utilize Artificial Intelligence to correlate the TSR with the most common production input parameters.

Biodiesel Effects on Influencing Parameters of Brake Fuel Conversion Efficiency in a Medium Duty Diesel Engine

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Bittle ◽  
Jesse K. Younger ◽  
Timothy J. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Conversion Efficiency ◽  
Energy Content ◽  
Combustion Efficiency ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Biodiesel Fuel ◽  
Mass Energy ◽  
Fuel Conversion ◽  
Heating Value ◽  
Lower Heating Value ◽  
Lower Heating

Biodiesel remains an alternative fuel of interest for use in diesel engines. A common characteristic of biodiesel, relative to petroleum diesel, is a lowered heating value (or per mass energy content of the fuel). For same torque engine comparisons, the lower heating value translates into a higher brake specific fuel consumption (amount of fuel consumed per unit of power produced). The efficiency at which fuel energy converts into work energy, however, may remain unchanged. In this experimental study, evaluating nine unique engine operating conditions, the brake fuel conversion efficiency (an assessor of fuel energy to work energy efficiency) remains unchanged between 100% petroleum diesel fuel and 100% biodiesel fuel (palm olein) at all conditions, except for high load conditions. Several parameters may affect the brake fuel conversion efficiency, including heat loss, mixture properties, pumping work, friction, combustion efficiency, and combustion timing. This article describes a study that evaluates how the aforementioned parameters may change with the use of biodiesel and petroleum diesel, and how these parameters may result in differences in the brake fuel conversion efficiency.

A State-of-the-Art CFD Setup for Axial Compressors: Details and Validation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Cozzi ◽  
Filippo Rubechini ◽  
Andrea Arnone ◽  
Savino Depalo ◽  
Pio Astrua ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Secondary Flows ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Tip Clearance ◽  
Cfd Modelling ◽  
Axial Compressors ◽  
Surge Margin ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract The overall fraction of the power produced by renewable sources in the energy market has significantly increased in recent years. The power output of most of these clean sources is intrinsically variable. At present day and most likely in the upcoming future, due to the lack of inexpensive and reliable large energy storage systems, conventional power plants burning fossil fuels will still be part of the energy horizon. In particular, power generators able to promptly support the grid stability, such as gas turbines, will retain a strategic role. This new energy scenario is pushing gas turbine producers to improve the flexibility of their turbomachines, increasing the need for reliable numerical tools adopted to design and validate the new products also in operating conditions far from the nominal one. Especially when dealing with axial compressors, i.e. machines experiencing intense adverse pressure gradients, complex flow structures and severe secondary flows, CFD modelling of offdesign operation can be a real challenge. In this work, a state-of-the art CFD framework for RANS analysis of axial compressors is presented. The various aspects involved in the whole setup are discussed, including boundary conditions, meshing strategies, mixing planes modelling, tip clearance treatment, shroud leakages and turbulence modelling. Some experiences about the choice of these aspects are provided, derived from a long-date practice on this kind of turbomachines. Numerical results are reported for different full-scale compressors of the Ansaldo Energia fleet, covering a wide range of operating conditions. Furthermore, details about the capability of the setup to predict compressor performance and surge-margin have been added to the work. In particular, the setup surge-margin prediction has been evaluated in an operating condition in which the turbomachine experiences experimental stall. Finally, thanks to several on-field data available at different corrected speeds for operating conditions ranging from minimum to full load, a comprehensive validation of the presented numerical framework is also included in the paper.

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