Impact of the Secondary Air System Design Parameters on the Calculation of Turbine Discs Windage

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Maria Rey Villazón ◽  
Toni Wildow ◽  
Robert Benton ◽  
Moritz Göhler ◽  
Arnold Kühhorn
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Network Model ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Integral Model ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Flow Network ◽  
Aero Engine ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
The Impact

The rotating components in gas turbines are very highly stressed as a result of the centrifugal and thermal loads. One of the main functions of the secondary air system (SAS) is to ensure that the rotating components are surrounded by air that optimizes disc lifing and integrity. The SAS is also responsible for the blade cooling flow supply, preventing hot gas ingestion from the main annulus into the rotor-stator cavities, and for balancing the net axial load in the thrust bearings. Thus, the SAS design requires a multidisciplinary compromise to provide the above functions, while minimizing the penalty of the secondary flows on engine performance. The phenomenon known as rotor-stator drag or windage is defined as the power of the rotor moment acting on its environment. The power loss due to windage has a direct impact on the performance of the turbine and the overall efficiency of the engine. This paper describes a novel preliminary design approach to calculate the windage of the rotor-stator cavities in the front of a typical aero engine HP turbine. The new method is applied to investigate the impact of the SAS design parameters on the windage losses and on the properties of the cooling flows leading to the main annulus. Initially, a theoretical approach is followed to calculate the power losses of each part of the HPT front air feed system. Then, a 1D-network integral model of the cavities and flow passages of the HPT front is built and enhanced with detailed flow field correlations. The new 1D-flow network model offers higher fidelity regarding local effects. A result comparison between the theoretical calculation and the prediction of the enhanced flow network model puts forward the relevance of the local flow field effects in the design concept of the SAS. Using the enhanced 1D-flow network models, the SAS design parameters are varied to assess their influence on the windage and pumping power calculation. As a conclusion, the paper shows how the SAS design can have a significant influence on the HPT overall power and the air that is fed back into the turbine blade rows. Controlling these features is essential to bid a competitive technology in the aero engine industry.

Adaptive Preliminary-Design Workflow for Aero Engine Secondary Air System Cavities With an Application Case of Windage and Heat Transfer in a Rotor-Stator Cavity With Axial Through Flow

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Wildow ◽  
Hubert Dengg ◽  
Klaus Höschler ◽  
Jonathan Sommerfeld
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Preliminary Design ◽  
Geometry Model ◽  
Through Flow ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
The Impact

At the preliminary design stage of the engine design process, the behaviour and efficiency of different engine designs are investigated and evaluated in order to find a best matching design for a set of engine objectives and requirements. The prediction of critical part temperatures as well as the reduction of the uncertainty of these predictions is decisive to bid a competitive technology in aerospace technology. Automated workflows and Design of Experiments (DOE) are widely used to investigate large number of designs and to find an optimized solution. Nowadays, technological progress in computational power as well as new strategies for data handling and management enables the implementation of large DOEs and multi-objective optimizations in less time, which also allows the consideration of more detailed investigations in early design stages. This paper describes an approach for a preliminary-design workflow that implements adaptive modelling and evaluation methods for cavities in the secondary air system (SAS). The starting point for the workflow is a parametric geometry model defining the rotating and static components. The flow network within the SAS is automatically recognized and CFD and Thermal-FE models are automatically generated using a library of generic models. Adaptive evaluation algorithms are developed and used to predict values for structural, air system and thermal behaviour. Furthermore, these models and evaluation techniques can be implemented in a DOE to investigate the impact of design parameters on the predicted values. The findings from the automated studies can be used to enhance the boundary conditions of actual design models in later design stages. A design investigation on a rotor-stator cavity with axial through flow has been undertaken using the proposed workflow to extract windage, flow field and heat transfer information from adiabatic CFD calculations for use in thermal modelling. A DOE has been set up to conduct a sensitivity analysis of the flow field properties and to identify the impact of the design parameters. Additionally, impacts on the distribution of the flow field parameters along the rotating surface are recognized, which offers a better prediction for local effects in the thermal FE model.

Virtual Gas Turbines Part Ii: an Automated Whole-engine Secondary Air System Model Generation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davendu Kulkarni ◽  
Luca di Mare
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Network Model ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Model Generation ◽  
Time Cost ◽  
Flow Network ◽  
Turbine Engine ◽  
Geometry Model ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air

Abstract The design and analysis of the secondary air system (SAS) of gas turbine engine is a complex and time-consuming process because of the complicated topology and iterative nature of SAS design. The conventional SAS design-analysis model generation process is quite tedious and inefficient. It is still largely dependent on human expertise and thus incurs high time-cost. This paper presents an automated, whole-engine SAS flow network model generation methodology. This method accesses a pre-built feature-based whole-engine geometry model and transforms the geometry features into the features suitable for SAS flow network analysis. The proposed method extracts both the geometric and non-geometric information from the engine geometry model such as, rotational frames, materials and boundary conditions etc. Apart from ensuring geometric consistency, this methodology also establishes a bi-directional information exchange protocol between the engine geometry model and the SAS flow network model, which enables to make engine geometry modifications based on SAS analysis results. The application of this feature mapping methodology is demonstrated by generating the secondary air system (SAS) flow network model of a modern three-shaft gas turbine engine. This flow network model is generated within a few minutes, without any human intervention, which significantly reduces the SAS design-analysis time-cost. The proposed methodology seamlessly links the geometry and the air system modellers of Virtual Gas Turbines simulation framework and thus allows performing a large number of whole-engine SAS simulations, design optimisations and fast re-design activities.

Virtual Gas Turbines Part II: an Automated Whole-Engine Secondary Air System Model Generation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davendu Y. Kulkarni ◽  
Luca di Mare
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Network Model ◽  
Design Analysis ◽  
Model Generation ◽  
Time Cost ◽  
Flow Network ◽  
Turbine Engine ◽  
Geometry Model ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air

Abstract The design and analysis of the secondary air system (SAS) of gas turbine engine is a complex and time-consuming process because of its complicated geometry topology. The conventional SAS design-analysis model generation process is quite tedious, time consuming. It is still heavily dependent on human expertise and thus incurs high time-cost. This paper presents an automated, whole-engine SAS flow network model generation methodology. During the SAS preprocessing step, the method accesses a pre-built whole-engine geometry model created using a novel, in-house, feature-based geometry modelling environment. It then transforms the engine geometry features into the features suitable for SAS flow network analysis. The proposed method not only extracts the geometric information from the computational geometry but also retrieves additional non-geometric attributes such as, rotational frames, boundary types, materials and boundary conditions etc. Apart from ensuring geometric consistency, this methodology also establishes a bi-directional information exchange protocol between engine geometry model and SAS flow network model, which enables making engine geometry modifications based on SAS analysis results. The application of this feature mapping methodology is demonstrated by generating the secondary air system (SAS) flow network model of a modern three-shaft gas turbine engine. This capability is particularly useful for the integration of geometry modeler with the simulation framework. The present SAS model is generated within a few minutes, without any human intervention, which significantly reduces the SAS design-analysis time-cost. The proposed method allows performing a large number of whole-engine SAS simulations, design optimisations and fast re-design activities.

Process Automation for Aero Engine Secondary Air System Seal Design

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adele Nasti
Keyword(s):  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
System Level ◽  
Process Automation ◽  
Seal Design ◽  
Aero Engine ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Secondary air system seals are crucial in aero engine design as they have a direct impact on specific fuel consumption. Their behavior is affected by several aspects of the physics of the system: the air system, the engine thermal physics, the effect of flight loads and several other effects. As a consequence, their design is a complex and iterative process, which is highly dependent on the location of the seal in the engine, on the system requirements and on the system behavior. This paper describes a methodology for multi-disciplinary assessment of secondary air system seals within an engine environment and supports standard seal design, trade-off studies on novel concepts and system-level optimization. Defining the seal design intent for a specific engine location in the form of objectives, it is possible to embed process automation into traditionally manual multi-disciplinary design processes. This allows transforming modelling and simulation tools, which typically provide predictions for a specific seal design over reference cycles, into design and optimization tools, which can provide the optimum seal design for a specific set of requirements. This approach provides predictive models of both seal performance and performance degradation and is capable of taking into account all sources of variation, for instance manufacturing variations or engine operating conditions, delivering a robust design, specific to the engine location. The methodology enables a holistic approach to system and sub-system design and provides a deeper understanding of the impact of the seal onto system and of the system onto the seal, allowing optimization of the overall solution and informing the business case for introduction of different sealing strategies. Examples of the application of this methodology are provided for both labyrinth seals and leaf seals.

Loss Prediction for Rotating Passages in Secondary Air Systems

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Reichert ◽  
D. Brillert ◽  
H. Simon
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Detailed Calculation ◽  
Rotating Disks ◽  
Developing Flow ◽  
Air System ◽  
Loss Prediction ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
Calculation System ◽  
Cooling Air

Modern heavy duty gas turbines operate with high turbine inlet temperatures, and thus require a complex secondary air system to ensure that the blades and vanes are supplied with the required amount of cooling air. Gas turbines with high thermal efficiency and with low emissions require minimum amounts of cooling and sealing air which means that the design of the secondary air system must be extremely accurate. A previous paper introduced the secondary air system for the new Siemens Vx4.3A gas turbines and the calculation method used for its design. This paper deals with the detailed calculation of flow field losses in cooling air passages in rotating disks (rotating passages). The paper starts with a brief review of the work on this topic described in the literature and then presents a consistent model for the prediction of the flow field losses in rotating passages of different lengths and with varying upstream swirl. Particularly short passages with developing flow at the passage exit can he calculated using this model. The calculation system is completed by matching the correlations to experimental data.

scholarly journals Comprehensive Thermodynamic Analysis of the Humphrey Cycle for Gas Turbines with Pressure Gain Combustion

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Stathopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Combustion Process ◽  
Ideal Gas ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Pressure Gain Combustion ◽  
Combustion Technology ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Impact

Conventional gas turbines are approaching their efficiency limits and performance gains are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. Pressure Gain Combustion (PGC) has emerged as a very promising technology in this respect, due to the higher thermal efficiency of the respective ideal gas turbine thermodynamic cycles. Up to date, only very simplified models of open cycle gas turbines with pressure gain combustion have been considered. However, the integration of a fundamentally different combustion technology will be inherently connected with additional losses. Entropy generation in the combustion process, combustor inlet pressure loss (a central issue for pressure gain combustors), and the impact of PGC on the secondary air system (especially blade cooling) are all very important parameters that have been neglected. The current work uses the Humphrey cycle in an attempt to address all these issues in order to provide gas turbine component designers with benchmark efficiency values for individual components of gas turbines with PGC. The analysis concludes with some recommendations for the best strategy to integrate turbine expanders with PGC combustors. This is done from a purely thermodynamic point of view, again with the goal to deliver design benchmark values for a more realistic interpretation of the cycle.

scholarly journals Feasibility Study on Oil Droplet Flow Investigations Inside Aero Engine Bearing Chambers: PDPA Techniques in Combination With Numerical Approaches

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Glahn ◽  
M. Kurreck ◽  
M. Willmann ◽  
S. Wittig
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Methods ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Flow Analysis ◽  
Field Analysis ◽  
Oil Droplet ◽  
Droplet Flow ◽  
Aero Engine ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
Numerical Approaches ◽  
Engine Bearing

The present paper deals with oil droplet now phenomena in aero engine bearing chambers. An experimental investigation of droplet sizes and velocities utilizing a Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) has been performed for the first time in bearing chamber atmospheres under real engine conditions. Influences of high rotational speeds are discussed for individual droplet size classes. Although this is an important contribution to a better understanding of the droplet flow impact on secondary air/oil system performance, an analysis of the droplet flow behaviour requires an incorporation of numerical methods because detailed measurements as performed here suffer from both strong spatial limitations with respect to the optical accessibility in real engine applications and constraints due to the extremely time consuming nature of an experimental flow field analysis. Therefore, further analysis is based on numerical methods. Droplets characterized within the experiments are exposed to the flow field of the gaseous phase predicted by use of our well-known CFD code EPOS. The droplet trajectories and velocities are calculated within a Lagrangian frame of reference by forward numerical integration of the particle momentum equation. This paper has been initiated rather to show a successful method of bearing chamber droplet flow analysis by a combination of droplet sizing techniques and numerical approaches than to present field values as a function of all operating parameters. However, a first insight into the complex droplet flow phenomena is given and specific problems in bearing chamber heat transfer are related to the droplet flow.

Impact of Operating Conditions and Design Parameters on Gas Turbine Hot Section Creep Life

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Eshati ◽  
M. F. Abdul Ghafir ◽  
P. Laskaridis ◽  
Y. G. Li
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Performance Model ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Creep Model ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Gas Temperature ◽  
Creep Life ◽  
Cooling Effectiveness ◽  
Radial Temperature ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the relationship between design parameters and creep life consumption of stationary gas turbines using a physics based life model. A representative thermodynamic performance model is used to simulate engine performance. The output from the performance model is used as an input to the physics based model. The model consists of blade sizing model which sizes the HPT blade using the constant nozzle method, mechanical stress model which performs the stress analysis, thermal model which performs thermal analysis by considering the radial distribution of gas temperature, and creep model which using the Larson-miller parameter to calculate the lowest blade creep life. The effect of different parameters including radial temperature distortion factor (RTDF), material properties, cooling effectiveness and turbine entry temperatures (TET) is investigated. The results show that different design parameter combined with a change in operating conditions can significantly affect the creep life of the HPT blade and the location along the span of the blade where the failure could occur. Using lower RTDF the lowest creep life is located at the lower section of the span, whereas at higher RTDF the lowest creep life is located at the upper side of the span. It also shows that at different cooling effectiveness and TET for both materials the lowest blade creep life is located between the mid and the tip of the span. The physics based model was found to be simple and useful tool to investigate the impact of the above parameters on creep life.

Exergy Analysis for the Performance Evaluation of Different Setups of the Secondary Air System of Aircraft Gas Turbines

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp W. Zeller ◽  
Stephan Staudacher
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Exergy Analysis ◽  
Entropy Increase ◽  
Engine Efficiency ◽  
Specific Entropy ◽  
Air System ◽  
Exergy Method ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
Careful Design

Secondary Air System related losses in aircraft gas turbines cannot be directly assessed and quantified as possible for other sub-systems of the engine. If a particular setup is to be evaluated and compared to other, competing designs, it is required to have a distinct understanding of the loss mechanisms and the way these losses appear in the cycle. The relevant loss phenomena are therefore discussed in detail and are quantified with regard to the respective specific entropy increase. The exergy method is found to be the method of choice, since it holds some important advantages compared to other loss accounting methods like gas horsepower or thrust work potential. An exergy analysis is carried out for a high TET, two shaft engine of the medium thrust range. A comparison of setups with different compressor offtake positions is performed. It is found that the contribution of Air System related losses to overall engine efficiency deficits is significant, but may be reduced by careful design.

Analysis of Gas Turbine Rotating Cavities by an One-Dimensional Model

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Da Soghe ◽  
Bruno Facchini ◽  
Luca Innocenti ◽  
Mirko Micio
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
Gas Turbines ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Outer Flow ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Air System ◽  
Secondary Air ◽  
Radial Outflow

Reliable design of secondary air system is one of the main tasks for the safety, unfailing and performance of gas turbine engines. To meet the increasing demands of gas turbines design, improved tools in prediction of the secondary air system behavior over a wide range of operating conditions are needed. A real gas turbine secondary air system includes several components, therefore its analysis is not carried out through a complete CFD approach. Usually, that predictions are performed using codes, based on simplified approach which allows to evaluate the flow characteristics in each branch of the air system requiring very poor computational resources and few calculation time. Generally the available simplified commercial packages allow to correctly solve only some of the components of a real air system and often the elements with a more complex flow structure cannot be studied; among such elements, the analysis of rotating cavities is very hard. This paper deals with a design-tool developed at the University of Florence for the simulation of rotating cavities. This simplified in-house code solves the governing equations for steady one-dimensional axysimmetric flow using experimental correlations both to incorporate flow phenomena caused by multidimensional effects, like heat transfer and flow field losses, and to evaluate the circumferential component of velocity. Although this calculation approach does not enable a correct modeling of the turbulent flow within a wheel space cavity, the authors tried to create an accurate model taking into account the effects of inner and outer flow extraction, rotor and stator drag, leakages, injection momentum and, finally, the shroud/rim seal effects on cavity ingestion. The simplified calculation tool was designed to simulate the flow in a rotating cavity with radial outflow both with a Batchelor and/or Stewartson flow structures. A primary 1D-code testing campaign is available in the literature [1]. In the present paper the authors develop, using CFD tools, reliable correlations for both stator and rotor friction coefficients and provide a full 1D-code validation comparing, due to lack of experimental data, the in house design-code predictions with those evaluated by CFD.

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