A CFD Approach to Fluid Dynamic Optimum Design of Steam Turbine Stages With Stator and Rotor Blades

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Yuan ◽  
Tadashi Tanuma ◽  
Xiaofeng Zhu ◽  
Zhirong Lin ◽  
Daisuke Nomura
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Steam Turbine ◽  
Optimum Design ◽  
Rotor Blade ◽  
Fluid Dynamic ◽  
Rotor Blades ◽  
Turbine Stage ◽  
Tip Leakage ◽  
Pressure Steam ◽  
End Wall

An advanced aerodynamic design optimization system for steam turbine stages considering rotor blade tip leakage and blade end-wall non-axis-symmetric contouring has been developed. Using this system, fluid dynamic optimizations were carried out for a steam turbine stage with stator and rotor blades. The system includes parametric modeling of blade and end-wall contouring, evaluation system with in-house or package CFD software and optimization strategy module. The designs of rotor blade and hub end-wall surface in a typical large-scale high-pressure steam turbine stage were optimized in order to know this design optimization impact on enhancing the stage efficiency. Results show that: from the current well designed high pressure steam turbine stage, the demonstrated efficiency enhancement with the present optimum design is around 0.2% under consideration of rotor tip leakage. Design cycle could be greatly shortened by parallel optimization algorithm and cluster PC, and especially four days could be sufficient for an optimization with one thousand iterations on 20 CPUs of 2.0G cluster PC.

Degradation of Aerodynamic Performance of an Intermediate-Pressure Steam Turbine Due to Erosion of Nozzle Guide Vanes and Rotor Blades

2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Koichi Yonezawa ◽  
Tomoki Kagayama ◽  
Masahiro Takayasu ◽  
Genki Nakai ◽  
Kazuyasu Sugiyama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulations ◽  
Steam Turbine ◽  
Rotor Blade ◽  
Rotor Blades ◽  
Flow Angle ◽  
Guide Vanes ◽  
Intermediate Pressure ◽  
Pressure Steam ◽  
Nozzle Guide ◽  
Nozzle Guide Vanes

Deteriorations of nozzle guide vanes (NGVs) and rotor blades of a steam turbine through a long-time operation usually decrease a thermal efficiency and a power output of the turbine. In this study, influences of blade deformations due to erosion are discussed. Experiments were carried out in order to validate numerical simulations using a commercial software ANSYS-cfx. The numerical results showed acceptable agreements with experimental results. Variation of flow characteristics in the first stage of the intermediate pressure steam turbine is examined using numerical simulations. Geometries of the NGVs and the rotor blades are measured using a 3D scanner during an overhaul. The old NGVs and the rotor blades, which were used in operation, were eroded through the operation. The erosion of the NGVs leaded to increase of the throat area of the nozzle. The numerical results showed that rotor inlet velocity through the old NGVs became smaller and the flow angle of attack to the rotor blade leading edge became smaller. Consequently, the rotor power decreased significantly. Influences of the flow angle of at the rotor inlet were examined by parametric calculations and results showed that the angle of attack was an important parameter to determine the rotor performance. In addition, the influence of the deformation of the rotor blade was examined. The results showed that the degradation of the rotor performance decreased in accordance with the decrease of blade surface area.

Optimization of a High-Pressure Steam Turbine Stage for a Wide Flow Coefficient Range

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juri Bellucci ◽  
Filippo Rubechini ◽  
Andrea Arnone ◽  
Lorenzo Arcangeli ◽  
Nicola Maceli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Steam Turbine ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Flow Coefficient ◽  
Low Flow ◽  
Turbine Stage ◽  
Aerodynamic Optimization ◽  
High Pressure Steam ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Pressure Steam

In this paper a multi-objective, aerodynamic optimization of a high-pressure steam turbine stage is presented. The overall optimization strategy relies on a neural-network-based approach, aimed at maximizing the stage’s efficiency, while at the same time increasing the stage loading. The stage under investigation is composed of prismatic blades, usually employed in a repeating stage environment and in a wide range of operating conditions. For this reason, two different optimizations are carried out, at high and low flow coefficients. The optimized geometries are chosen taking into account aerodynamic constraints, such as limitation of the pressure recovery in the uncovered part of the suction side, as well as mechanical constraints, such as root tensile stress and dynamic behavior. As a result, an optimum airfoil is selected and its performance are characterized over the whole range of operating conditions. Parallel to the numerical activity, both optimized and original geometries are tested in a linear cascade, and experimental results are available for comparison purposes in terms of loading distributions and loss coefficients. Comparisons between measurements and calculations are presented and discussed for a number of incidence angles and expansion ratios.

Using CFD to Enhance the Preliminary Design of High-Pressure Steam Turbines

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juri Bellucci ◽  
Federica Sazzini ◽  
Filippo Rubechini ◽  
Andrea Arnone ◽  
Lorenzo Arcangeli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Steam Turbine ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Tip Clearance ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Preliminary Design ◽  
Steam Turbines ◽  
High Pressure Steam ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Pressure Steam

This paper focuses on the use of the CFD for improving a steam turbine preliminary design tool. Three-dimensional RANS analyses were carried out in order to independently investigate the effects of profile, secondary flow and tip clearance losses, on the efficiency of two high-pressure steam turbine stages. The parametric study included geometrical features such as stagger angle, aspect ratio and radius ratio, and was conducted for a wide range of flow coefficients to cover the whole operating envelope. The results are reported in terms of stage performance curves, enthalpy loss coefficients and span-wise distribution of the blade-to-blade exit angles. A detailed discussion of these results is provided in order to highlight the different aerodynamic behavior of the two geometries. Once the analysis was concluded, the tuning of a preliminary steam turbine design tool was carried out, based on a correlative approach. Due to the lack of a large set of experimental data, the information obtained from the post-processing of the CFD computations were applied to update the current correlations, in order to improve the accuracy of the efficiency evaluation for both stages. Finally, the predictions of the tuned preliminary design tool were compared with the results of the CFD computations, in terms of stage efficiency, in a broad range of flow coefficients and in different real machine layouts.

CFD Investigation on the Rotordynamic Characteristics of Shroud Leakage Flow in High Pressure Steam Turbine

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriyo Nishijima ◽  
Akira Endo ◽  
Kazuyuki Yamaguchi
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Steam Turbine ◽  
Mass Flow ◽  
Guide Vane ◽  
Flow Distribution ◽  
Labyrinth Seal ◽  
High Pressure Steam ◽  
Cfd Models ◽  
Pressure Steam ◽  
The Difference

We conducted a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study to investigate the rotordynamic characteristics of the shroud labyrinth seal of a high-pressure steam turbine. Four different CFD models were constructed to investigate the appropriate modeling approach for evaluating the seal force of an actual steam turbine because shroud seals are generally short with fewer fins and the effect of surrounding flow field is thought to be large. The four models are a full model consisting of a 1-stage stator/rotor cascade and a labyrinth seal over the rotor shroud, a guide-vane model to simulate the condition similar to seal element experiments, and two other simplified models. The calculated stiffness coefficients of the four models did not agree and fell into two groups. Through careful investigations of flow fields, it was found that the difference could be explained by the circumferential mass flow distribution at the seal inlet and the mass flow bias rate is an important factor in evaluating the seal force of a turbine shroud. The results also indicate that the rotordynamic characteristics obtained from seal element experiments may differ from those of actual turbines, especially in short seals.

Effects of Tip Clearance on Unsteady Flow Characteristics in an Axial Turbine Stage

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Sun ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Zhenping Feng
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Unsteady Flow ◽  
Rotor Blade ◽  
Suction Side ◽  
Tip Clearance ◽  
Leakage Flow ◽  
Turbine Stage ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Tip Leakage ◽  
Blade Tip

The clearance between the rotor blade tip and casing wall in turbomachinery passages induces leakage flow loss and thus degrades aerodynamic performance of the machine. The flow field in turbomachinery is significantly influenced by the rotor blade tip clearance size. To investigate the effects of tip clearance size on the rotor-stator interaction, the turbine stage profile from Matsunuma’s experimental tests was adopted, and the unsteady flow fields with two tip clearance sizes of 0.67% and 2.00% of blade span was numerical simulated based on Harmonic method using NUMECA software. By comparing with the domain scaling method, the accuracy of the harmonic method was verified. The interaction mechanism between the stator wake and the leakage flow was investigated. It is found that the recirculation induced by the stator wake is separated by a significant “interaction line” from the flow field close to the suction side in the clearance region. The trend of the pressure fluctuation is contrary on both sides of the line. When the stator wakes pass by the suction side, the pressure field fluctuates and the intensity of the tip leakage flow varies. With the clearance size increasing, the “interaction line” is more far away from the suction side and the intensity of tip leakage flow also fluctuates more strongly.

Three Dimensional Heat Transfer Analysis of High Pressure Turbine Blade

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sipatov ◽  
L. Gomzikov ◽  
V. Latyshev ◽  
N. Gladysheva
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Experimental Data ◽  
High Pressure ◽  
Rotor Blade ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Heat Transfer Analysis ◽  
Aircraft Engines ◽  
Turbine Stage ◽  
High Pressure Turbine

The present tendency of creating new aircraft engines with a higher level of fuel efficiency leads to the necessity to increase gas temperature at a high pressure turbine (HPT) inlet. To design such type of engines, the improvement of accuracy of the computational analysis is required. According to this the numerical analysis methods are constantly developing worldwide. The leading firms in designing aircraft engines carry out investigations in this field. However, this problem has not been resolved completely yet because there are many different factors affecting HPT blade heat conditions. In addition in some cases the numerical methods and approaches require tuning (for example to predict laminar-turbulent transition region or to describe the interaction of boundary layer and shock wave). In this work our advanced approach of blade heat condition numerical estimation based on the three-dimensional computational analysis is presented. The object of investigation is an advanced aircraft engine HPT first stage blade. The given analysis consists of two interrelated parts. The first part is a stator-rotor interaction modeling of the investigated turbine stage (unsteady approach). Solving this task we devoted much attention to modeling unsteady effects of stator-rotor interaction and to describing an influence of applied inlet boundary conditions on the blade heat conditions. In particular, to determine the total pressure, flow angle and total temperature distributions at the stage inlet we performed a numerical modeling of the combustor chamber of the investigated engine. The second part is a flow modeling in the turbine stage using flow parameters averaging on the stator-rotor interface (steady approach). Here we used sufficiently finer grid discretization to model all perforation holes on the stator vane and rotor blade, endwalls films in detail and to apply conjugate heat transfer approach for the rotor blade. Final results were obtained applying the results of steady and unsteady approaches. Experimental data of the investigated blade heat conditions are presented in the paper. These data were obtained during full size experimental testing the core of the engine and were collected using two different type of experimental equipment: thermocouples and thermo-crystals. The comparison of experimental data and final results meets the requirements of our investigation.

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