Modelling Conjugate Heat Transfer Within a Gas Turbine Secondary Air System Using 1D and 2-3D Solid Models in Thermo-Fluid System Simulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hunt ◽  
Youming Yuan ◽  
Ian Gardner

Abstract This paper presents an implicit conjugate heat transfer (CHT) model designed for 1D systems of both solids and fluids. It demonstrates that this approach can be extended to include 2D and 3D elements being co-solved in a 2D or 3D thermal product. The approach is applied to a simple analytical problem and then to a Secondary Air Cavity within a Gas Turbine to illustrate the potential of this technique to be applied to more complex thermo-fluid simulations. Such simulations are important in trade off studies to balance minimizing engine bleed whilst ensuring sufficient cooling. The benefits of this CHT model are presented by comparison with the traditional approach of explicit co-simulation in which the temperature from the fluid domain is applied as a boundary condition to the thermal simulation and heat flux from the thermal simulation is applied as a boundary condition to the fluid domain (or vice versa). The ability to replace 1D elements with 2D or 3D elements allows model continuity from conceptual to detailed design and the reverse process potentially offers a route for model reduction later in lifecycle to support operation and maintenance through the use of an executable digital twin.

Author(s):  
David Hunt ◽  
Youming Yuan

Abstract This paper presents a novel approach that couples system modelling of both the thermo-fluid system and the thermal solid system by modelling conjugate heat transfer within a single 1D system analysis solver and applies it to the Secondary Air System of a Gas Turbine. The Secondary Air System design has to balance minimizing engine bleed whilst ensuring sufficient cooling. To achieve this, designers model both the secondary air flow and the temperature distribution in solid components. System CFD tools like Simcenter Flomaster may be used to solve flow, pressure and temperature distributions and a 3D thermal solver used to perform the thermal analysis of the blade and disc solids. The thermal interaction between the secondary flow system and the solid components is a key part of the model and is known as conjugate heat transfer analysis (CHT). This approach is problematic early in the design cycle when detailed or stable geometry information may not be available for the 3D thermal tool. An approach that couples the modelling of both the thermo-fluid system and the thermal solid system within a single 1D/system analysis tool offers the advantage of faster modelling and consistent model accuracy of both fluid and solid components, especially in the early concept design stage. This 1D-CHT approach has been implemented within Simcenter Flomaster and validated using an idealized analytical solution. It is shown that the model can be applied to the analysis of gas turbine secondary air systems including cavity flows and thermal analysis of the rotor and stator discs that form the thermal boundary of these cavities using Simcenter Flomaster alone.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2096
Author(s):  
Joon Ahn ◽  
Jeong Chul Song ◽  
Joon Sik Lee

Large eddy simulations are performed to analyze the conjugate heat transfer of turbulent flow in a ribbed channel with a heat-conducting solid wall. An immersed boundary method (IBM) is used to determine the effect of heat transfer in the solid region on that in the fluid region in a unitary computational domain. To satisfy the continuity of the heat flux at the solid–fluid interface, effective conductivity is introduced. By applying the IBM, it is possible to fully couple the convection on the fluid side and the conduction inside the solid and use a dynamic subgrid scale model in a Cartesian grid. The blockage ratio (e/H) is set at 0.1, which is typical for gas turbine blades. Through conjugate heat transfer analysis, it is confirmed that the heat transfer peak in front of the rib occurs because of the impinging of the reattached flow and not the influence of the thermal boundary condition. When the rib turbulator acts as a fin, its efficiency and effectiveness are predicted to be 98.9% and 8.32, respectively. When considering conjugate heat transfer, the total heat transfer rate is reduced by 3% compared with that of the isothermal wall. The typical Biot number at the internal cooling passage of a gas turbine is <0.1, and the use of the rib height as the characteristic length better represents the heat transfer of the rib.


Author(s):  
Christoph Starke ◽  
Erik Janke ◽  
Toma´sˇ Hofer ◽  
Davide Lengani

Recent development in commercial CFD codes offers possibilities to include the solid body in order to perform conjugate heat transfer computations for complex geometries. The current paper aims to analyse the differences between a conjugate heat transfer computation and conventional uncoupled approaches where a heat transfer coefficient is first derived from a flow solution and then taken as boundary condition for a thermal conduction analysis of the solid part. Whereas the thermal analyses are done with a Rolls-Royce in-house finite element code, the CFD as well as the conjugate heat transfer computation are done using the new version 8 of the commercial code Fine Turbo from Numeca International. The analysed geometry is a turbine cascade that was tested by VKI in Brussels within the European FP6 project AITEB 2. First, the paper presents the aerodynamic results. The pure flow solutions are validated against pressure measurements of the cascade test. Then, the heat transfer from flow computations with wall temperature boundary conditions is compared to the measured heat transfer. Once validated, the heat transfer coefficients are used as boundary condition for three uncoupled thermal analyses of the blade to predict its surface temperatures in a steady state. The results are then compared to a conjugate heat transfer method. Therefore, a mesh of the solid blade was added to the validated flow computation. The paper will present and compare the results of conventional uncoupled thermal analyses with different strategies for the wall boundary condition to results of a conjugate heat transfer computation. As it turns out, the global results are similar but especially the over-tip region with its complex geometry and flow structure and where effective cooling is crucial shows remarkable differences because the conjugate heat transfer solution predicts lower blade tip temperatures. This will be explained by the missing coupling between the fluid and the solid domain.


Author(s):  
Zhenfeng Wang ◽  
Peigang Yan ◽  
Hongyan Huang ◽  
Wanjin Han

The ANSYS-CFX software is used to simulate NASA-Mark II high pressure air-cooled gas turbine. The work condition is Run 5411 which have transition flow characteristics. The different turbulence models are adopted to solve conjugate heat transfer problem of this three-dimensional turbine blade. Comparing to the experimental results, k-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model results are more accurate and can simulate accurately the flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbine with transition flow characteristics. But k-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model overestimates the turbulence kinetic energy of blade local region and makes the heat transfer coefficient higher. It causes that local region temperature of suction side is higher. In this paper, the compiled code adopts the B-L algebra model and simulates the same computation model. The results show that the results of B-L model are accurate besides it has 4% temperature error in the suction side transition region. In addition, different turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages are given and K-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model is adopted in order to obtain the effect of turbulence characteristic boundary conditions for the conjugate heat transfer computation results. The results show that the turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages have a great effect on the conjugate heat transfer results of high pressure gas turbine. ANSYS is applied to analysis the thermal stress of Mark II blade which has ten radial cooled passages and the results of Von Mises stress show that the temperature gradient results have a great effect on the results of blade thermal stress.


Author(s):  
Carol E. Bryant ◽  
James L. Rutledge

Abstract Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) show promise as higher temperature capable alternatives to traditional metallic components in gas turbine engine hot gas paths. However, CMC components will still require both internal and external cooling, such as film cooling. The overall cooling effectiveness is determined not only by the design of coolant flow, but also by the conduction through the materiel itself. CMCs have anisotropic thermal conductivity, giving rise to heat flow that differs somewhat relative to what we have come to expect from experience with traditional metallic components. Conjugate heat transfer computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed in order to isolate the effect anisotropic thermal conductivity has on a cooling architecture consisting of both internal and external cooling. Results show the specific locations and unique effects of anisotropic thermal conduction on overall effectiveness. Thermal conductivity anisotropy is shown to have a significant effect on the resulting overall effectiveness. As CMCs begin to make their way into gas turbine engines, care must be taken to ensure that anisotropy is characterized properly and considered in the thermal analysis.


Author(s):  
Jong-Shang Liu ◽  
Mark C. Morris ◽  
Malak F. Malak ◽  
Randall M. Mathison ◽  
Michael G. Dunn

In order to have higher power to weight ratio and higher efficiency gas turbine engines, turbine inlet temperatures continue to rise. State-of-the-art turbine inlet temperatures now exceed the turbine rotor material capability. Accordingly, one of the best methods to protect turbine airfoil surfaces is to use film cooling on the airfoil external surfaces. In general, sizable amounts of expensive cooling flow delivered from the core compressor are used to cool the high temperature surfaces. That sizable cooling flow, on the order of 20% of the compressor core flow, adversely impacts the overall engine performance and hence the engine power density. With better understanding of the cooling flow and accurate prediction of the heat transfer distribution on airfoil surfaces, heat transfer designers can have a more efficient design to reduce the cooling flow needed for high temperature components and improve turbine efficiency. This in turn lowers the overall specific fuel consumption (SFC) for the engine. Accurate prediction of rotor metal temperature is also critical for calculations of cyclic thermal stress, oxidation, and component life. The utilization of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3D CFD) codes for turbomachinery aerodynamic design and analysis is now a routine practice in the gas turbine industry. The accurate heat-transfer and metal-temperature prediction capability of any CFD code, however, remains challenging. This difficulty is primarily due to the complex flow environment of the high-pressure turbine, which features high speed rotating flow, coupling of internal and external unsteady flows, and film-cooled, heat transfer enhancement schemes. In this study, conjugate heat transfer (CHT) simulations are performed on a high-pressure cooled turbine stage, and the heat flux results at mid span are compared to experimental data obtained at The Ohio State University Gas Turbine Laboratory (OSUGTL). Due to the large difference in time scales between fluid and solid, the fluid domain is simulated as steady state while the solid domain is simulated as transient in CHT simulation. This paper compares the unsteady and transient results of the heat flux on a high-pressure cooled turbine rotor with measurements obtained at OSUGTL.


Author(s):  
Andreas Jeromin ◽  
Christian Eichler ◽  
Berthold Noll ◽  
Manfred Aigner

Numerical predictions of conjugate heat transfer on an effusion cooled flat plate were performed and compared to detailed experimental data. The commercial package CFX® is used as flow solver. The effusion holes in the referenced experiment had an inclination angle of 17 degrees and were distributed in a staggered array of 7 rows. The geometry and boundary conditions in the experiments were derived from modern gas turbine combustors. The computational domain contains a plenum chamber for coolant supply, a solid wall and the main flow duct. Conjugate heat transfer conditions are applied in order to couple the heat fluxes between the fluid region and the solid wall. The fluid domain contains 2.4 million nodes, the solid domain 300,000 nodes. Turbulence modeling is provided by the SST turbulence model which allows the resolution of the laminar sublayer without wall functions. The numerical predictions of velocity and temperature distributions at certain locations show significant differences to the experimental data in velocity and temperature profiles. It is assumed that this behavior is due to inappropriate modeling of turbulence especially in the effusion hole. Nonetheless, the numerically predicted heat transfer coefficients are in good agreement with the experimental data at low blowing ratios.


Author(s):  
Zhenfeng Wang ◽  
Peigang Yan ◽  
Hongfei Tang ◽  
Hongyan Huang ◽  
Wanjin Han

The different turbulence models are adopted to simulate NASA-MarkII high pressure air-cooled gas turbine. The experimental work condition is Run 5411. The paper researches that the effect of different turbulence models for the flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbine. The turbulence models include: the laminar turbulence model, high Reynolds number k-ε turbulence model, low Reynolds number turbulence model (k-ω standard format, k-ω-SST and k-ω-SST-γ-θ) and B-L algebra turbulence model which is adopted by the compiled code. The results show that the different turbulence models can give good flow characteristics results of turbine, but the heat transfer characteristics results are different. Comparing to the experimental results, k-ω-SST-θ-γ turbulence model results are more accurate and can simulate accurately the flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbine with transition flow characteristics. But k-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model overestimates the turbulence kinetic energy of blade local region and makes the heat transfer coefficient higher. It causes that local region temperature is higher. The results of B-L algebra turbulence model show that the results of B-L model are accurate besides it has 4% temperature error in the transition region. As to the other turbulence models, the results show that all turbulence models can simulate the temperature distribution on the blade pressure surface except the laminar turbulence model underestimates the heat transfer coefficient of turbulence flow region. On the blade suction surface with transition flow characteristics, high Reynolds number k-ε turbulence model overestimates the heat transfer coefficient and causes the blade surface temperature is high about 90K than the experimental result. Low Reynolds number k-ω standard format and k-ω-SST turbulence models also overestimate the blade surface temperature value. So it can draw a conclusion that the unreasonable choice of turbulence models can cause biggish errors for conjugate heat transfer problem of turbine. The combination of k-ω-SST-γ-θ model and B-L algebra model can get more accurate turbine thermal environment results. In addition, in order to obtain the affect of different turbulence models for gas turbine conjugate heat transfer problem. The different turbulence models are adopted to simulate the different computation mesh domains (First case and Second case). As to each cooling passages, the first case gives the wall heat transfer coefficient of each cooling passages and the second case considers the conjugate heat transfer course between the cooling passages and blade. It can draw a conclusion that the application of heat transfer coefficient on the wall of each cooling passages avoids the accumulative error. So, for the turbine vane geometry models with complex cooling passages or holes, the choice of turbulence models and the analysis of different mesh domains are important. At last, different turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages are given and K-ω-SST-γ-θ turbulence model is adopted in order to obtain the effect of turbulence characteristic boundary conditions for the conjugate heat transfer computation results. The results show that the turbulence characteristic boundary conditions of turbine inner-cooling passages have a great effect on the conjugate heat transfer results of high pressure gas turbine.


Author(s):  
Kuo-San Ho ◽  
Christopher Urwiller ◽  
S. Murthy Konan ◽  
Jong S. Liu ◽  
Bruno Aguilar

This paper explores the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) numerical simulation approach to calculate the metal temperature for the gas turbine cooled stator. ANSYS CFX12.1 code was selected to be the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) tool to perform the CHT simulation. The 2-equation RNG k-ε turbulence model with scalable modified wall function was employed. A full engine test with thermocouple measurement was performed and used to validate the CHT results. Metal temperatures calculated with the CHT model were compared to engine test data. The results demonstrated good agreement between test data and airfoil metal temperatures and cooling flow temperatures using the CHT model. However, the CHT calculations in the outer end wall had a discrepancy compared to the measured temperatures, which was due to the fact that the CHT model assumed an adiabatic wall as a boundary condition. This paper presents a process to calculate convection heat transfer coefficient (HTC) for cooling passages and airfoil surfaces using CHT results. This process is possible because local wall heat flux and fluid temperatures are known. This approach assists in calibrating an in-house conduction thermal model for steady state and transient thermal analyses.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document