scholarly journals Effects of Unsteady Flow Interactions on the Performance of a Highly-Loaded Transonic Compressor Stage

Author(s):  
Chunill Hah

The primary focus of this paper is to investigate the loss sources in an advanced GE transonic compressor design with high reaction and high stage loading. This advanced compressor has been investigated both experimentally and analytically in the past. The measured compressor efficiency is significantly lower than the efficiency calculated with various existing tools based on RANS and URANS. The general understanding is that some important flow physics in this modern compressor design are not represented in the current tools. To pinpoint the source of the efficiency miss, an advanced test with detailed flow traverse was performed for the front one and a half stage at the NASA Glenn Research Center. In the present paper, a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is employed to determine whether a higher-fidelity simulation can pick up any additional flow physics that can explain past efficiency miss with RANS and URANS. The results from the Large Eddy Simulation were compared with the NASA test results and the GE interpretation of the test data. LES calculates lower total pressure and higher total temperature on the pressure side of the stator, resulting in large loss generation on the pressure side of the stator. On the other hand, existing tools based on the RANS and URANS do not calculate this high total temperature and low total pressure on the pressure side of the stator. The calculated loss through the stator from LES seems to match the measured data and the GE data interpretation. Detailed examination of the unsteady flow field from LES indicates that the accumulation of high loss near the pressure side of the stator is due to the interaction of the rotor wake with the stator blade. The strong rotor wake interacts quite differently with the pressure side of the stator than with the suction side of the stator blade. The concave curvature on the pressure side of the stator blade increases the mixing of the rotor wake with the pressure side boundary layer significantly. On the other hand, the convex curvature on the suction side of the stator blade decreases the mixing and the suction side blade boundary layer remains thin. The jet velocity in the rotor wake in the stator frame seems to magnify the curvature effect in addition to inviscid redistribution of wake fluid toward the pressure side of the blade.

Author(s):  
Daniel R. Soderquist ◽  
Steven E. Gorrell ◽  
Michael G. List

An important consideration for fan and compressor design is quantifying distortion transfer and generation blade row by blade row. Detailed information about the magnitude of distortion and the shape of the distortion profile and how it changes through blade rows increases the understanding of flow physics and helps predict aerodynamic performance. Using full annulus URANS simulations, this paper analyzes what happens to distortion as it passes through the rotor and stator blade rows at 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 90% span. Fourier distortion descriptors are used in this study to quantitatively describe distortion transfer and generation. With these descriptors, evidence of pressure-induced swirl is shown at the fan inlet. It is also shown that although there is very little distortion at the 10% span of the inlet, after passing through the rotor blade row the 10% span has the greatest amount of total pressure and total temperature distortion. This radial migration of distortion is attributed to the high hade angle of the hub. The total pressure and total temperature profiles have significant circumferential phase shifts after passing through the rotor and slight phase shifts after passing through the stator. In general, the calculated phase shifts are greatest at the 10% and 90% spans, the nearest locations to the hub and the tip clearance gap, respectively.


Author(s):  
Cengiz Camci ◽  
Debashis Dey ◽  
Levent Kavurmacioglu

This paper deals with an experimental investigation of aerodynamic characteristics of full and partial-length squealer rims in a turbine stage. Full and partial-length squealer rims are investigated separately on the pressure side and on the suction side in the “Axial Flow Turbine Research Facility” (AFTRF) of the Pennsylvania State University. The streamwise length of these “partial squealer tips” and their chordwise position are varied to find an optimal aerodynamic tip configuration. The optimal configuration in this cold turbine study is defined as the one that is minimizing the stage exit total pressure defect in the tip vortex dominated zone. A new “channel arrangement” diverting some of the leakage flow into the trailing edge zone is also studied. Current results indicate that the use of “partial squealer rims” in axial flow turbines can positively affect the local aerodynamic field by weakening the tip leakage vortex. Results also show that the suction side partial squealers are aerodynamically superior to the pressure side squealers and the channel arrangement. The suction side partial squealers are capable of reducing the stage exit total pressure defect associated with the tip leakage flow to a significant degree.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Kenji Miki ◽  
Ali Ameri

Abstract There is a need to improve predictions of losses resulting from large eddy simulations (LES) of low-pressure turbines (LPT) in gas turbines. This may be done by assessing the accuracy of predictions against validation data and understanding the source of any inaccuracies. LES is a promising approach for capturing the laminar/turbulent transition process in a LPT. In previous studies, the authors utilized LES to model the flow field over a Variable Speed Power Turbine (VSPT) blade and successfully captured characteristic features of separation/reattachment and transition on the suction side at both the cruise (positive incidence) and take-off conditions (negative incidence) and as well, simulated the effect of freestream turbulence (FST) on those phenomena. The predicted pressure loading profiles agreed well with the experimental data for both a high and a low FST case at a Reynolds number of Reex = 220,000. In this paper, we present wake profiles resulting from computations for a range of FST values. Although the predicted wake profiles for the lowest FST case (Tu = 0.5%) matched the experimental data, at higher FST (Tu = 10-15%,) the wake was wider than the experimentally measured wake and for both cases were displaced laterally when compared to the experimental measurements. In our investigation of the causes of the said discrepancies we have identified important effects which could strongly influence the predicted wake profile. Predicted losses were improved by assuring the validity of the flow solution.


Author(s):  
Mael Harnieh ◽  
Nicolas Odier ◽  
Jérôme Dombard ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Laurent Gicquel

Abstract The use of numerical simulations to design and optimize turbine vane cooling requires precise prediction of the fluid mechanics and film cooling effectiveness. This results in the need to numerically identify and assess the various origins of the losses taking place in such systems and if possible in engine representative conditions. Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) has shown recently its ability to predict turbomachinery flows in well mastered academic cases such as compressor or turbine cascades. When it comes to industrial representative configurations, the geometrical complexities, high Reynolds and Mach numbers as well as boundary condition setup lead to an important increase of CPU cost of the simulations. To evaluate the capacity of LES to predict film cooling effectiveness as well as to investigate the loss generation mechanisms in a turbine vane in engine representative conditions, a wall-modeled LES of the FACTOR film-cooled nozzle is performed. After the comparison of integrated values to validate the operating point of the vanes, the mean flow structure is investigated. In the coolant film, a strong turbulent mixing process between coolant and hot flows is observed. As a result, the spatial distribution of time-averaged vane surface temperature is highly heterogeneous. Comparisons with the experiment show that the LES prediction fairly reproduces the spatial distribution of the adiabatic film effectiveness. The loss generation in the configuration is then investigated. To do so, two methodologies, i.e, performing balance of total pressure in the vanes wakes as mainly used in the literature and Second Law Analysis (SLA) are evaluated. Balance of total pressure without the contribution of thermal effects only highlights the losses generated by the wakes and secondary flows. To overcome this limitation, SLA is adopted by investigating loss maps. Thanks to this approach, mixing losses are shown to dominate in the coolant film while aerodynamic losses dominate in the coolant pipe region.


Author(s):  
Joseph W. Nichols ◽  
Sanjiva K. Lele ◽  
Frank E. Ham ◽  
Steve Martens ◽  
John T. Spyropoulos

Crackle noise from heated supersonic jets is characterized by the presence of strong positive pressure impulses resulting in a strongly skewed far-field pressure signal. These strong positive pressure impulses are associated with N-shaped waveforms involving a shocklike compression and, thus, is very annoying to observers when it occurs. Unlike broadband shock-associated noise which dominates at upstream angles, crackle reaches a maximum at downstream angles associated with the peak jet noise directivity. Recent experiments (Martens et al., 2011, “The Effect of Chevrons on Crackle—Engine and Scale Model Results,” Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo, Paper No. GT2011-46417) have shown that the addition of chevrons to the nozzle lip can significantly reduce crackle, especially in full-scale high-power tests. Because of these observations, it was conjectured that crackle is associated with coherent large scale flow structures produced by the baseline nozzle and that the formation of these structures are interrupted by the presence of the chevrons, which leads to noise reduction. In particular, shocklets attached to large eddies are postulated as a possible aerodynamic mechanism for the formation of crackle. In this paper, we test this hypothesis through a high-fidelity large-eddy simulation (LES) of a hot supersonic jet of Mach number 1.56 and a total temperature ratio of 3.65. We use the LES solver CHARLES developed by Cascade Technologies, Inc., to capture the turbulent jet plume on fully-unstructured meshes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 614-615 ◽  
pp. 592-595
Author(s):  
Ling Zhang ◽  
Hai Rui Dong ◽  
Guo Liang Wen

The technology of film cooling is one of the most effective means of protecting the turbine blades. In this paper, flow structures of the turbine stator blade with six hole-rows at different blowing ratio(M=0.5, 1.0 and 1.5)and setting angles(β=40°, 50°, 60°, 70°, 80° and 90°) was measured by PIV in piston flow type of low-speed wind tunnel laboratory. Velocity was analyzed. Results show that: velocity gradient of suction side was much higher than pressure side and increased with setting angle reduction; Adherence of film is influenced by setting angle and blowing ratio, when M=1.0 and β=70° anchorage dependent is best and suction side is greater than pressure side.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yousef Kanani ◽  
Sumanta Acharya ◽  
Forrest Ames

Vane pressure side heat transfer is studied numerically using large eddy simulation (LES) on an aft-loaded vane with a large leading edge over a range of turbulence conditions. Numerical simulations are performed in a linear cascade at exit chord Reynolds number of Re = 5.1 × 105 at low (Tu ≈ 0.7%), moderate (Tu ≈ 7.9%), and high (Tu ≈ 12.4%) freestream turbulence with varying length scales as prescribed by the experimental measurements of Varty and Ames (2016, “Experimental Heat Transfer Distributions Over an Aft Loaded Vane With a Large Leading Edge at Very High Turbulence Levels,” ASME Paper No. IMECE2016-67029). Heat transfer predictions on the vane pressure side are in a very good agreement with the experimental measurements and the heat transfer augmentation due to the freestream turbulence is well captured. At Tu ≈ 12.4%, freestream turbulence enhances the Stanton number on the pressure surface without boundary layer transition to turbulence by a maximum of about 50% relative to the low freestream turbulence case. Higher freestream turbulence generates elongated structures and high-velocity streaks wrapped around the leading edge that contain significant energy. Amplification of the velocity streaks is observed further downstream with max rms of 0.3 near the trailing edge but no transition to turbulence or formation of turbulence spots is observed on the pressure side. The heat transfer augmentation at the higher freestream turbulence is primarily due to the initial amplification of the low-frequency velocity perturbations inside the boundary layer that persist along the entire chord of the airfoil. Stanton numbers appear to scale with the streamwise velocity fluctuations inside the boundary layer.


Author(s):  
K. Tomikawa ◽  
H. Horie ◽  
M. Iida ◽  
C. Arakawa ◽  
Y. Ooba

In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was applied to predict the boundary layer development within unsteady wake induced linear turbine cascade of Low Pressure turbine (LPT) blades. In the calculation, unsteady wake was simulated by moving cylindrical bars upstream of the blade. The Multiblock method with a parallel computational algorithm was introduced to use the large computational domain with necessary grid refinement. It was demonstrated that the results were good agreement with experiments, and confirmed that a separation bubble of suction side was suppressed by the incoming wakes. Under the condition of significant effect of compressibility, separation point and reattachment point moved to the rear of the blade. In addition, under the condition of low Reynolds number, loss coefficient showed a tendency depending on Strouhal number.


Author(s):  
Zhihua Zhou ◽  
Shaowen Chen ◽  
Songtao Wang

Tip clearance flow between rotating blades and the stationary casing in high-pressure turbines is very complex and is one of the most important factors influencing turbine performance. The rotor with a winglet-cavity tip is often used as an effective method to improve the loss resulting from the tip clearance flow. In this study, an aerodynamic geometric optimisation of a winglet-cavity tip was carried out in a linear unshrouded high-pressure axial turbine cascade. For the purpose of shaping the efficient winglet geometry of the rotor tip, a novel parameterisation method has been introduced in the optimisation procedure based on the computational fluid dynamics simulation and analysis. The reliability of a commercial computational fluid dynamics code with different turbulence models was first validated by contrasting with the experimental results, and the numerical total pressure loss and flow angle using the Baseline k-omega Model (BSL κ-ω model) shows a better agreement with the test data. Geometric parameterisation of blade tips along the pressure side and suction side was adopted to optimise the tip clearance flow, and an optimal winglet-cavity tip was proven to achieve lower tip leakage mass flow rate and total pressure loss than the flat tip and cavity tip. Compared to the numerical results of flat tip and cavity tip, the optimised winglet-cavity design, with the winglet along the pressure side and suction side, had lower tip leakage mass flow rate and total pressure loss. It offered a 35.7% reduction in the change ratio [Formula: see text]. In addition, the optimised winglet along pressure side and suction side, respectively, by using the parameterisation method was studied for investigating the individual effect of the pressure-side winglet and suction-side winglet on the tip clearance flow. It was found that the suction-side extension of the optimal winglet resulted in a greater reduction of aerodynamic loss and leakage mass flow than the pressure-side extension of the optimal winglet. Moreover, with the analysis based on the tip flow pattern, the numerical results show that the pressure-side winglet reduced the contraction coefficient, and the suction-side winglet reduced the aerodynamic loss effectively by decreasing the driving pressure difference near the blade tips, the leakage flow velocity, and the interaction between the leakage flow and the main flow. Overall, a better aerodynamic performance can be obtained by adopting the pressure-side and suction-side winglet-cavity simultaneously.


Author(s):  
Fabio Bigoni ◽  
Stefano Vagnoli ◽  
Tony Arts ◽  
Tom Verstraete

The scope of this work is to obtain a deep insight of the occurrence, development and evolution of the laminar separation bubble which occurs on the suction side of the high-lift T106-C low pressure turbine blade operated at correct engine Mach and Reynolds numbers. The commercial codes Numeca FINE/Turbo and FINE/Open were used for the numerical investigation of a set of three different Reynolds numbers. Two different CFD approaches, characterized by a progressively increasing level of complexity and detail in the solution, have been employed, starting from a steady state RANS analysis and ending with a Large Eddy Simulation. Particular attention was paid to the study of the open separation occurring at the lowest Reynolds number, for which a Large Eddy Simulation was performed in order to try to correctly capture the involved phenomena and their characteristic frequencies. In addition, the potentialities of the codes employed for the analysis have been assessed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document