Analysis of a LPT Rotor Blade for a Geared Engine: Part II — Characterization of the Time-Varying Flow Field in a Single Stage Research Turbine

Author(s):  
Daniele Infantino ◽  
Francesca Satta ◽  
Daniele Simoni ◽  
Marina Ubaldi ◽  
Pietro Zunino ◽  
...  

The present paper is the second part of a two-part paper focused on the design and the analysis of an optimized rotor blade for a geared open rotor engine. This part is focused on the experimental investigation of the three-dimensional unsteady flow field at the exit plane of a rotor row installed in a large scale single-stage low speed research turbine. The investigation is aimed at in depth characterizing the wake-boundary layer and the vortex-vortex interaction processes induced by the rotor-stator relative motion. Measurements have been carried out at a typical aeroengine cruise condition Reynolds number. The rotor blade aerodynamic loadings at different blade spans have been measured. A five-hole probe has been used to assess the row efficiency and detailed hot-wire phase-locked ensemble-averaged data have been analyzed to characterize the three-dimensional time-dependent flow field at the rotor exit plane. Results clearly highlight a significant distortion of the rotor blade wake and tip vortex during the migration of the high turbulence regions (wake and secondary flows) associated with the upstream stator. The unsteady interaction between the stator secondary flows and the rotor passage vortex provokes a time dependent movement of the low momentum area at the hub surface, sensibly modifying the penetration of the rotor secondary flows in an incoming stator wake passage period. The comparison of deterministic and random velocity fluctuations also allows the distinction between the structures generated by the stator and those due to the rotor.

Author(s):  
A. S. Witkowski ◽  
T. J. Chmielniak ◽  
M. D. Strozik

Detailed measurements have been performed in a low pressure axial flow compressor stage to investigate the structure of the secondary flow field and the three-dimensional wake decay at different axial locations before and behind the rotor. The three dimensional flow field upstream and downstream of the rotor and on the centerline of the stator blade passage have been sampled periodically using a straight and a 90 degree triple-split fiber probe. Radial measurements at 39 radial stations were carried out at chosen axial positions in order to get the span-wise characteristics of the unsteady flow. Taking the experimental values of the unsteady flow velocities and turbulence properties, the effects of the rotor blade wake decay and secondary flow on the blade row spacing and stator passage flow at different operating conditions are discussed. For the normal operating point, the component of radial turbulent intensities in the leakage-flow mixing region is found to be much higher than the corresponding axial and tangential components. But for a higher value of the flow coefficient the relations are different.The results of the experiments show that triple-split fiber probes, straight and 90 degree measurements, combined with the ensemble average technique are a very useful method for the analysis of rotor flow in turbomachinery. Tip clearance vortex, secondary flow near the hub and radial flow in the wake, turbulent intensity and Reynolds stresses and also the decay of the rotor wakes can be obtained by this method.


Author(s):  
A. Perdichizzi ◽  
V. Dossena

This paper describes the results of an experimental investigation of the three-dimensional flow downstream of a linear turbine cascade at off-design conditions. The tests have been carried out for five incidence angles from −60 to +35 degrees, and for three pitch-chord ratios: s/c = 0.58,0.73,0.87. Data include blade pressure distributions, oil flow visualizations, and pressure probe measurements. The secondary flow field has been obtained by traversing a miniature five hole probe in a plane located at 50% of an axial chord downstream of the trailing edge. The distributions of local energy loss coefficients, together with vorticity and secondary velocity plots show in detail how much the secondary flow field is modified both by incidence and cascade solidity variations. The level of secondary vorticity and the intensity of the crossflow at the endwall have been found to be strictly related to the blade loading occurring in the blade entrance region. Heavy changes occur in the spanwise distributions of the pitch averaged loss and of the deviation angle, when incidence or pitch-chord ratio is varied.


2011 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Peters ◽  
Zoltán S. Spakovszky

Due to their inherent noise challenge and potential for significant reductions in fuel burn, counter-rotating propfans (CRPs) are currently being investigated as potential alternatives to high-bypass turbofan engines. This paper introduces an integrated noise and performance assessment methodology for advanced propfan powered aircraft configurations. The approach is based on first principles and combines a coupled aircraft and propulsion system mission and performance analysis tool with 3D unsteady, full-wheel CRP computational fluid dynamics computations and aeroacoustic simulations. Special emphasis is put on computing CRP noise due to interaction tones. The method is capable of dealing with parametric studies and exploring noise reduction technologies. An aircraft performance, weight and balance, and mission analysis was first conducted on a candidate CRP powered aircraft configuration. Guided by data available in the literature, a detailed aerodynamic design of a pusher CRP was carried out. Full-wheel unsteady 3D Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations were then used to determine the time varying blade surface pressures and unsteady flow features necessary to define the acoustic source terms. A frequency domain approach based on Goldstein’s formulation of the acoustic analogy for moving media and Hanson’s single rotor noise method was extended to counter-rotating configurations. The far field noise predictions were compared to measured data of a similar CRP configuration and demonstrated good agreement between the computed and measured interaction tones. The underlying noise mechanisms have previously been described in literature but, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the individual contributions of front-rotor wake interaction, aft-rotor upstream influence, hub-endwall secondary flows, and front-rotor tip-vortices to interaction tone noise are dissected and quantified. Based on this investigation, the CRP was redesigned for reduced noise incorporating a clipped rear-rotor and increased rotor-rotor spacing to reduce upstream influence, tip-vortex, and wake interaction effects. Maintaining the thrust and propulsive efficiency at takeoff conditions, the noise was calculated for both designs. At the interaction tone frequencies, the redesigned CRP demonstrated an average reduction of 7.25 dB in mean sound pressure level computed over the forward and aft polar angle arcs. On the engine/aircraft system level, the redesigned CRP demonstrated a reduction of 9.2 dB in effective perceived noise (EPNdB) and 8.6 EPNdB at the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) 36 flyover and sideline observer locations, respectively. The results suggest that advanced open rotor designs can possibly meet Stage 4 noise requirements.


Author(s):  
S. Friedrichs ◽  
H. P. Hodson ◽  
W. N. Dawes

The endwall film-cooling cooling configuration investigated by Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997) had in principle sufficient cooling flow for the endwall, but in practice, the redistribution of this coolant by secondary flows left large endwall areas uncooled. This paper describes the attempt to improve upon this datum cooling configuration by redistributing the available coolant to provide a better coolant coverage on the endwall surface, whilst keeping the associated aerodynamic losses small. The design of the new, improved cooling configuration was based on the understanding of endwall film-cooling described by Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997). Computational fluid dynamics were used to predict the basic flow and pressure field without coolant ejection. Using this as a basis, the above described understanding was used to place cooling holes so that they would provide the necessary cooling coverage at minimal aerodynamic penalty. The simple analytical modelling developed in Friedrichs et al. (1997) was then used to check that the coolant consumption and the increase in aerodynamic loss lay within the limits of the design goal. The improved cooling configuration was tested experimentally in a large scale, low speed linear cascade. An analysis of the results shows that the redesign of the cooling configuration has been successful in achieving an improved coolant coverage with lower aerodynamic losses, whilst using the same amount of coolant as in the datum cooling configuration. The improved cooling configuration has reconfirmed conclusions from Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997); firstly, coolant ejection downstream of the three-dimensional separation lines on the endwall does not change the secondary flow structures; secondly, placement of holes in regions of high static pressure helps reduce the aerodynamic penalties of platform coolant ejection; finally, taking account of secondary flow can improve the design of endwall film-cooling configurations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 132 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Schennach ◽  
J. Woisetschläger ◽  
B. Paradiso ◽  
G. Persico ◽  
P. Gaetani

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the flow field in a high-pressure transonic turbine with a downstream vane row (1.5 stage machine) concerning the airfoil indexing. The objective is a detailed analysis of the three-dimensional aerodynamics of the second vane for different clocking positions. To give an overview of the time-averaged flow field, five-hole probe measurements were performed upstream and downstream of the second stator. Furthermore in these planes additional unsteady measurements were carried out with laser Doppler velocimetry in order to record rotor phase-resolved velocity, flow angle, and turbulence distributions at two different clocking positions. In the planes upstream of the second vane, the time-resolved pressure field has been measured by means of a fast response aerodynamic pressure probe. This paper shows that the secondary flows of the second vane are significantly modified by the different clocking positions, in connection with the first vane modulation of the rotor secondary flows. An analysis of the performance of the second vane is also carried out, and a 0.6% variation in the second vane loss coefficient has been recorded among the different clocking positions.


2001 ◽  
Vol 432 ◽  
pp. 219-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. BRIASSULIS ◽  
J. H. AGUI ◽  
Y. ANDREOPOULOS

A decaying compressible nearly homogeneous and nearly isotropic grid-generated turbulent flow has been set up in a large scale shock tube research facility. Experiments have been performed using instrumentation with spatial resolution of the order of 7 to 26 Kolmogorov viscous length scales. A variety of turbulence-generating grids provided a wide range of turbulence scales with bulk flow Mach numbers ranging from 0.3 to 0.6 and turbulent Reynolds numbers up to 700. The decay of Mach number fluctuations was found to follow a power law similar to that describing the decay of incompressible isotropic turbulence. It was also found that the decay coefficient and the decay exponent decrease with increasing Mach number while the virtual origin increases with increasing Mach number. A possible mechanism responsible for these effects appears to be the inherently low growth rate of compressible shear layers emanating from the cylindrical rods of the grid. Measurements of the time-dependent, three dimensional vorticity vectors were attempted for the first time with a 12-wire miniature probe. This also allowed estimates of dilatation, compressible dissipation and dilatational stretching to be obtained. It was found that the fluctuations of these quantities increase with increasing mean Mach number of the flow. The time-dependent signals of enstrophy, vortex stretching/tilting vector and dilatational stretching vector were found to exhibit a rather strong intermittent behaviour which is characterized by high-amplitude bursts with values up to 8 times their r.m.s. within periods of less violent and longer lived events. Several of these bursts are evident in all the signals, suggesting the existence of a dynamical flow phenomenon as a common cause.


Author(s):  
Huimin Tang ◽  
Shuaiqiang Liu ◽  
Hualing Luo

Profiled endwall is an effective method to improve aerodynamic performance of turbine. This approach has been widely studied in the past decade on many engines. When automatic design optimisation is considered, most of the researches are usually based on the assumption of a simplified simulation model without considering cooling and rim seal flows. However, many researchers find out that some of the benefits achieved by optimization procedure are lost when applying the high-fidelity geometry configuration. Previously, an optimization procedure has been implemented by integrating the in-house geometry manipulator, a commercial three-dimensional CFD flow solver and the optimization driver, IsightTM. This optimization procedure has been executed [12] to design profiled endwalls for a turbine cascade and a one-and-half stage axial turbine. Improvements of the turbine performance have been achieved. As the profiled endwall is applied to a high pressure turbine, the problems of cooling and rim seal flows should be addressed. In this work, the effects of rim seal flow and cooling on the flow field of two-stage high pressure turbine have been presented. Three optimization runs are performed to design the profiled endwall of Rotor-One with different optimization model to consider the effects of rim flow and cooling separately. It is found that the rim seal flow has a significant impact on the flow field. The cooling is able to change the operation condition greatly, but barely affects the secondary flow in the turbine. The influences of the profiled endwalls on the flow field in turbine and cavities have been analyzed in detail. A significant reduction of secondary flows and corresponding increase of performance are achieved when taking account of the rim flows into the optimization. The traditional optimization mechanism of profiled endwall is to reduce the cross passage gradient, which has great influence on the strength of the secondary flow. However, with considering the rim seal flows, the profiled endwall improves the turbine performance mainly by controlling the path of rim seal flow. Then the optimization procedure with consideration of rim seal flow has also been applied to the design of the profiled endwall for Stator Two.


Author(s):  
C. Poensgen ◽  
H. E. Gallus

A measuring technique based on multisensor hot-wire anemometry has been developed to determine the unsteady three-dimensional velocity vector and the structure of turbulent flows. It then has been applied to the passage and the exit flow of an annular compressor cascade, which is periodically disturbed by the wakes of a cylinder rotor, located about 50 percent of blade chord upstream. In part I of this paper the decay of the rotor wakes will be described first without stator and secondly through a stator passage. The time-dependent turbulent flow field downstream of this stator is discussed in Part II. The rotor wakes have a major influence on the development of three-dimensional separated regions inside the compressor cascade, and this interaction will be addressed in both parts of this paper.


Micromachines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyi Nan ◽  
Zhongyan Hu ◽  
Wei Zhao ◽  
Kaige Wang ◽  
Jintao Bai ◽  
...  

In the present work, we studied the three-dimensional (3D) mean flow field in a micro electrokinetic (μEK) turbulence based micromixer by micro particle imaging velocimetry (μPIV) with stereoscopic method. A large-scale solenoid-type 3D mean flow field has been observed. The extraordinarily fast mixing process of the μEK turbulent mixer can be primarily attributed to two steps. First, under the strong velocity fluctuations generated by μEK mechanism, the two fluids with different conductivity are highly mixed near the entrance, primarily at the low electric conductivity sides and bias to the bottom wall. Then, the well-mixed fluid in the local region convects to the rest regions of the micromixer by the large-scale solenoid-type 3D mean flow. The mechanism of the large-scale 3D mean flow could be attributed to the unbalanced electroosmotic flows (EOFs) due to the high and low electric conductivity on both the bottom and top surface.


2003 ◽  
Vol 285 (5) ◽  
pp. H1956-H1965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ares Pasipoularides ◽  
Ming Shu ◽  
Ashish Shah ◽  
Alessandro Tucconi ◽  
Donald D. Glower

Intraventricular diastolic right ventricular (RV) flow field dynamics were studied by functional imaging using three-dimensional (3D) real-time echocardiography with sonomicrometry and computational fluid dynamics in seven awake dogs at control with normal wall motion (NWM) and RV volume overload with diastolic paradoxical septal motion. Burgeoning flow cross section between inflow anulus and chamber walls induces a convective pressure rise, which represents a “convective deceleration load” (CDL). High spatiotemporal resolution dynamic pressure and velocity distributions of the intraventricular RV flow field revealed time-dependent, subtle interactions between intraventricular local acceleration and convective pressure gradients. During the E-wave upstroke, the total pressure gradient along intraventricular flow is the algebraic sum of a pressure decrease contributed by local acceleration and a pressure rise contributed by a convective deceleration that partially counterbalances the local acceleration gradient. This underlies the smallness of early diastolic intraventricular gradients. At peak volumetric inflow, local acceleration vanishes and the total adverse intraventricular gradient is convective. During the E-wave downstroke, the strongly adverse gradient embodies the streamwise pressure augmentations from both local and convective decelerations. It induces flow separation and large-scale vortical motions, stronger in NWM. Their dynamic corollaries on intraventricular pressure and velocity distributions were ascertained. In the NWM pattern, the strong ring-like vortex surrounding the central core encroaches on the area available for flow toward the apex. This results in higher linear velocities later in the downstroke of the E wave than at peak inflow rate. The augmentation of CDL by ventriculoannular disproportion may contribute to E wave and E-to-A ratio depression with chamber dilatation.


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