Experimental Investigation of Effect of Tip Coolant Ejection on Internal Flow Characteristics Within a Realistic Blade Coolant Channel

Author(s):  
Jian Pu ◽  
Zhaoqing Ke ◽  
Jianhua Wang ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Hongde You

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the characteristics of the fluid flow within an entire coolant channel of a low pressure (LP) turbine blade. The serpentine channel, which keeps realistic blade geometry, consists of three passes connected by a 180° sharp bend and a semi-round bend, 2 tip exits and 25 trailing edge exits. The mean velocity fields within several typical cross sections were captured using a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. Pressure and flow rate at each exit were determined through the measurements of local static pressure and volume flow rate. To optimize the design of LP turbine blade coolant channels, the effect of tip ejection ratio (ER) from 180° sharp bend on the flow characteristics in the coolant channel were experimentally investigated at a series of inlet Reynolds numbers from 25,000 to 50,000. A complex flow pattern, which is different from the previous investigations conducted by a simplified square or rectangular two-pass U-channel, is exhibited from the PIV results. This experimental investigation indicated that: a) in the main flow direction, the regions of separation bubble and flow impingement increase in size with a decrease of the ER; b) the shape, intensity and position of the secondary vortices are changed by the ER; c) the mass flow ratio of each exit to inlet is not sensitive to the inlet Reynolds number; d) the increase of the ER reduces the mass flow ratio through each trailing edge exit to the extent of about 23–28% of the ER = 0 reference under the condition that the tip exit located at 180° bend is full open; e) the pressure drop through the entire coolant channel decreases with an increase in the ER and inlet Reynolds number, and a reduction about 35–40% of the non-dimensional pressure drop is observed at different inlet Reynolds numbers, under the condition that the tip exit located at 180° bend is full open.

1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Schulte ◽  
H. P. Hodson

The development of the unsteady suction side boundary layer of a highly loaded LP turbine blade has been investigated in a rectilinear cascade experiment. Upstream rotor wakes were simulated with a moving-bar wake generator. A variety of cases with different wake-passing frequencies, different wake strength, and different Reynolds numbers were tested. Boundary layer surveys have been obtained with a single hotwire probe. Wall shear stress has been investigated with surface-mounted hot-film gages. Losses have been measured. The suction surface boundary layer development of a modern highly loaded LP turbine blade is shown to be dominated by effects associated with unsteady wake-passing. Whereas without wakes the boundary layer features a large separation bubble at a typical cruise Reynolds number, the bubble was largely suppressed if subjected to unsteady wake-passing at a typical frequency and wake strength. Transitional patches and becalmed regions, induced by the wake, dominated the boundary layer development. The becalmed regions inhibited transition and separation and are shown to reduce the loss of the wake-affected boundary layer. An optimum wake-passing frequency exists at cruise Reynolds numbers. For a selected wake-passing frequency and wake strength, the profile loss is almost independent of Reynolds number. This demonstrates a potential to design highly loaded LP turbine profiles without suffering large losses at low Reynolds numbers.


Author(s):  
Volker Schulte ◽  
Howard P. Hodson

The development of the unsteady suction side boundary layer of a highly loaded LP turbine blade has been investigated in a rectilinear cascade experiment. Upstream rotor wakes were simulated with a moving-bar wake generator. A variety of cases with different wake-passing frequencies, different wake strength and different Reynolds-numbers were tested. Boundary layer surveys have been obtained with a single hot-wire probe. Wall shear stress has been investigated with surface-mounted hot-film gauges. Losses have been measured. The suction surface boundary layer development of a modern highly loaded LP turbine blade is shown to be dominated by effects associated with unsteady wake-passing. Whereas without wakes the boundary layer features a large separation bubble at a typical cruise Reynolds-number, the bubble was largely suppressed if subjected to unsteady wake-passing at a typical frequency and wake strength. Transitional patches and becalmed regions, induced by the wake, dominated the boundary layer development. The becalmed regions inhibited transition and separation and are shown to reduce the loss of the wake-affected boundary layer. An optimum wake-passing frequency exists at cruise Reynolds-numbers. For a selected wake-passing frequency and wake-strength, the profile loss is almost independent of Reynolds-number. This demonstrates a potential to design highly loaded LP turbine profiles without suffering large losses at low Reynolds-numbers.


2010 ◽  
Vol 160-162 ◽  
pp. 1622-1627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Yang Sun ◽  
Cai Fu Qian

In this paper, the flow characteristics of the whole-rounded enlarged-hole baffle heat exchangers are experimentally studied with the stress on the shell-side pressure drops. It is found that the shell-side pressure drops for the whole-rounded baffles with the enlarged holes are greatly decreased. Compared with the square layout, the enlarged-hole whole-rounded baffles in the case of triangle layout is even more effective in decreasing the pressure drop. The shell-side pressure drops for the heat exchangers with the enlarged-hole whole-rounded baffles are proportional to the square of the flow rate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe A. S. Silva ◽  
Luis Júnior ◽  
José Silva ◽  
Sandilya Kambampati ◽  
Leandro Salviano

AbstractSolar Water Heater (SWH) has low efficiency and the performance of this type of device needs to be improved to provide useful and ecological sources of energy. The passive techniques of augmentation heat transfer are an effective strategy to increase the convective heat transfer coefficient without external equipment. In this way, recent investigations have been done to study the potential applications of different inserts including wire coils, vortex generators, and twisted tapes for several solar thermal applications. However, few researchers have investigated inserts in SWH which is useful in many sectors where the working fluid operates at moderate temperatures. The longitudinal vortex generators (LVG) have been applied to promote heat transfer enhancement with a low/moderate pressure drop penalty. Therefore, the present work investigated optimal geometric parameters of LVG to enhance the heat transfer for a SWH at low Reynolds number and laminar flow, using a 3D periodical numerical simulation based on the Finite Volume Method coupled to the Genetic Algorithm optimization method (NSGA-II). The LVG was stamped over a flat plate inserted inside a smooth tube operating under a typical residential application corresponding to Reynolds numbers of 300, 600, and 900. The geometric parameters of LGV were submitted to the optimization procedure which can find traditional LVG such as rectangular-winglet and delta-winglet or a mix of them. The results showed that the application of LGVs to enhance heat transfer is an effective passive technique. The different optimal shapes of the LVG for all Reynolds numbers evaluated improved more than 50% of heat transfer. The highest augmentation heat transfer of 62% is found for the Reynolds number 900. However, the best thermo-hydraulic efficiency value is found for the Reynolds number of 600 in which the heat transfer intensification represents 55% of the pressure drop penalty.


Author(s):  
Nihad Dukhan ◽  
Angel Alvarez

Wind-tunnel pressure drop measurements for airflow through two samples of forty-pore-per-inch commercially available open-cell aluminum foam were undertaken. Each sample’s cross-sectional area perpendicular to the flow direction measured 10.16 cm by 24.13 cm. The thickness in the flow direction was 10.16 cm for one sample and 5.08 cm for the other. The flow rate ranged from 0.016 to 0.101 m3/s for the thick sample and from 0.025 to 0.134 m3/s for the other. The data were all in the fully turbulent regime. The pressure drop for both samples increased with increasing flow rate and followed a quadratic behavior. The permeability and the inertia coefficient showed some scatter with average values of 4.6 × 10−8 m2 and 2.9 × 10−8 m2, and 0.086 and 0.066 for the thick and the thin samples, respectively. The friction factor decayed with the Reynolds number and was weakly dependent on the Reynolds number for Reynolds number greater than 35.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrique Stel ◽  
Rigoberto E. M. Morales ◽  
Admilson T. Franco ◽  
Silvio L. M. Junqueira ◽  
Raul H. Erthal ◽  
...  

This article describes a numerical and experimental investigation of turbulent flow in pipes with periodic “d-type” corrugations. Four geometric configurations of d-type corrugated surfaces with different groove heights and lengths are evaluated, and calculations for Reynolds numbers ranging from 5000 to 100,000 are performed. The numerical analysis is carried out using computational fluid dynamics, and two turbulence models are considered: the two-equation, low-Reynolds-number Chen–Kim k-ε turbulence model, for which several flow properties such as friction factor, Reynolds stress, and turbulence kinetic energy are computed, and the algebraic LVEL model, used only to compute the friction factors and a velocity magnitude profile for comparison. An experimental loop is designed to perform pressure-drop measurements of turbulent water flow in corrugated pipes for the different geometric configurations. Pressure-drop values are correlated with the friction factor to validate the numerical results. These show that, in general, the magnitudes of all the flow quantities analyzed increase near the corrugated wall and that this increase tends to be more significant for higher Reynolds numbers as well as for larger grooves. According to previous studies, these results may be related to enhanced momentum transfer between the groove and core flow as the Reynolds number and groove length increase. Numerical friction factors for both the Chen–Kim k-ε and LVEL turbulence models show good agreement with the experimental measurements.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Greiner ◽  
Paul F. Fischer ◽  
Henry Tufo

Abstract The effect of flow rate modulation on low Reynolds number heat transfer enhancement in a transversely grooved passage was numerically simulated using a two-dimensional spectral element technique. Simulations were performed at subcritical Reynolds numbers of Rem = 133 and 267, with 20% and 40% flow rate oscillations. The net pumping power required to modulate the flow was minimized as the forcing frequency approached the predicted natural frequency. However, mixing and heat transfer levels both increased as the natural frequency was approached. Oscillatory forcing in a grooved passage requires two orders of magnitude less pumping power than flat passage systems for the same heat transfer level. Hydrodynamic resonance appears to be an effective method of increasing heat transfer in low Reynolds number systems where pumping power is at a premium, such as micro heat transfer applications.


Author(s):  
Sam Ghazi-Hesami ◽  
Dylan Wise ◽  
Keith Taylor ◽  
Peter Ireland ◽  
Étienne Robert

Abstract Turbulators are a promising avenue to enhance heat transfer in a wide variety of applications. An experimental and numerical investigation of heat transfer and pressure drop of a broken V (chevron) turbulator is presented at Reynolds numbers ranging from approximately 300,000 to 900,000 in a rectangular channel with an aspect ratio (width/height) of 1.29. The rib height is 3% of the channel hydraulic diameter while the rib spacing to rib height ratio is fixed at 10. Heat transfer measurements are performed on the flat surface between ribs using transient liquid crystal thermography. The experimental results reveal a significant increase of the heat transfer and friction factor of the ribbed surface compared to a smooth channel. Both parameters increase with Reynolds number, with a heat transfer enhancement ratio of up to 2.15 (relative to a smooth channel) and a friction factor ratio of up to 6.32 over the investigated Reynolds number range. Complementary CFD RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) simulations are performed with the κ-ω SST turbulence model in ANSYS Fluent® 17.1, and the numerical estimates are compared against the experimental data. The results reveal that the discrepancy between the experimentally measured area averaged Nusselt number and the numerical estimates increases from approximately 3% to 13% with increasing Reynolds number from 339,000 to 917,000. The numerical estimates indicate turbulators enhance heat transfer by interrupting the boundary layer as well as increasing near surface turbulent kinetic energy and mixing.


1999 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. G. Murawski ◽  
K. Vafai

An experimental study was conducted in a two-dimensional linear cascade, focusing on the suction surface of a low pressure turbine blade. Flow Reynolds numbers, based on exit velocity and suction length, have been varied from 50,000 to 300,000. The freestream turbulence intensity was varied from 1.1 to 8.1 percent. Separation was observed at all test Reynolds numbers. Increasing the flow Reynolds number, without changing freestream turbulence, resulted in a rearward movement of the onset of separation and shrinkage of the separation zone. Increasing the freestream turbulence intensity, without changing Reynolds number, resulted in shrinkage of the separation region on the suction surface. The influences on the blade’s wake from altering freestream turbulence and Reynolds number are also documented. It is shown that width of the wake and velocity defect rise with a decrease in either turbulence level or chord Reynolds number. [S0098-2202(00)00202-9]


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document