Studies on Transitional Heat Transfer Characteristics Over Turbine Vane Surface Using a High Order LES Approach

Author(s):  
Debasish Biswas

The boundary layer developing on a turbo-machinery blade usually starts as a laminar layer but in most situations it inevitably becomes turbulent. The transition from laminar to turbulent in the boundary layer, which often causes a significant change in operational performance of the machinery, is generally influenced by the free-stream turbulence level, the pressure gradient, and surface curvature, etc. Therefore, boundary layer transition is an important phenomenon experienced by the flow through gas turbine engines. A substantial fraction of the boundary layer on both sides of a gas turbine airfoil may be transitional. The extended transition zone exist due to strong favorable pressure gradients, found on both near the leading edge portion of the suction side and the pressure side, which serve to stabilize the boundary layer and consequently delay the transition process, even under high free-stream turbulence intensity (FSTI) in practical gas turbine. It is very important to properly model and predict the high FSTI transition mechanism, since boundary layer transition leads to substantial increase in friction coefficients and heat transfer rate. Boundary layer separation, which is expected to be a significant problem on the suction side of some high pressure turbine airfoils due to shock-boundary layer interaction, also depends strongly on the state of boundary layer with respect to transition. Acceleration rates, Reynolds numbers and FSTI play very important role in controlling the boundary layer transition on the pressure side of gas turbine airfoils. The main objective of the present work is to study the performance of a high order LES turbulence model in predicting the transitional heat transfer characteristics over turbine vane surface under high pressure turbine flow conditions. In this regard the model is assessed to the precise experimental data where measurements were carried out in moderate temperature using three-vane cascades under steady state conditions. Two types of vane configurations were used in the experiment. The aerodynamic configurations of the two vanes were carefully selected to emphasize fundamental differences in the character of suction surface pressure distributions and the consequent effect on surface heat transfer distributions. In both the experiments and the computations, principle independent parameters (Mach number, Reynolds number, turbulence intensity, and wall-to-gas temperature ratio) were varied over ranges consistent with actual engine operation. The computed results explained measured data very satisfactorily and helped to have a very good understanding of basic mechanism involved in the complex flow behavior and transition from laminar to turbulent flow.

Author(s):  
Hongyang Li ◽  
Yun Zheng

For the purpose of researching the effect of surface roughness on boundary layer transition and heat transfer of turbine blade, a roughness modification approach for γ-Reθ transition model was proposed based on an in-house CFD code. Taking surface roughness effect into consideration, No. 5411 working condition of Mark II turbine vane was simulated and the results were analyzed in detail. Main conclusions are as follows: Surface roughness has little effect on heat transfer of laminar boundary layer, while has considerable effect on turbulent boundary layer. Compared with smooth surface, equivalent sand roughness of 100μm increases the temperature for about 28.4K on suction side, reaching an increase of 5%. Under low roughness degree, effect of shock wave dominants on boundary layer transition process on suction side, while above the critical degree, effect of surface roughness could abruptly change the transition point.


1985 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Rued ◽  
S. Wittig

Heat transfer and boundary layer measurements were derived from flows over a cooled flat plate with various free-stream turbulence intensities (Tu = 1.6–11 percent), favorable pressure gradients (k = νe/ue2•due/dx = 0÷6•10−6) and cooling intensities (Tw/Te = 1.0–0.53). Special interest is directed towards the effects of the dominant parameters, including the influence on laminar to turbulent boundary layer transition. It is shown, that free-stream turbulence and pressure gradients are of primary importance. The increase of heat transfer due to wall cooling can be explained primarily by property variations as transition, and the influence of free-stream parameters are not affected.


Author(s):  
Luis M. Seguí ◽  
L. Y. M. Gicquel ◽  
F. Duchaine ◽  
J. de Laborderie

In the context of smooth surfaces where no industrial process modifies the flow and where no roughness affects the boundary layer flow, there are configurations today where the correct heat flux prediction is still unattained for certain operating points. This is the case of the LS89 configuration that has shown to be of great difficulty to accurately simulate the thermal fields for high Reynolds number flows even when performing wall-resolved Large Eddy Simulations (LES). The physics of the studied operating point (MUR235) are especially complex due to the interaction of a transitioning boundary layer, shock waves and free-stream turbulence injected at the inlet. In this paper, free-stream turbulent specifications are seen to be important towards the capture of the heat transfer profile on most regions of the blade. The boundary layer is found to be transitional when either artificially raising the level of turbulence at the inlet or by using a highly refined mesh that induces the generation of turbulent spots that increase the heat transfer. The important refinement done improves the heat flux predictions to the point it is approaching the experimental data.


Author(s):  
Heinz-Adolf Schreiber ◽  
Wolfgang Steinert ◽  
Bernhard Küsters

An experimental and analytical study has been performed on the effect of Reynolds number and free-stream turbulence on boundary layer transition location on the suction surface of a controlled diffusion airfoil (CDA). The experiments were conducted in a rectilinear cascade facility at Reynolds numbers between 0.7 and 3.0×106 and turbulence intensities from about 0.7 to 4%. An oil streak technique and liquid crystal coatings were used to visualize the boundary layer state. For small turbulence levels and all Reynolds numbers tested the accelerated front portion of the blade is laminar and transition occurs within a laminar separation bubble shortly after the maximum velocity near 35–40% of chord. For high turbulence levels (Tu > 3%) and high Reynolds numbers transition propagates upstream into the accelerated front portion of the CDA blade. For those conditions, the sensitivity to surface roughness increases considerably and at Tu = 4% bypass transition is observed near 7–10% of chord. Experimental results are compared to theoretical predictions using the transition model which is implemented in the MISES code of Youngren and Drela. Overall the results indicate that early bypass transition at high turbulence levels must alter the profile velocity distribution for compressor blades that are designed and optimized for high Reynolds numbers.


Author(s):  
Michael P. Schultz ◽  
Ralph J. Volino

An experimental investigation has been carried out on a transitional boundary layer subject to high (initially 9%) free-stream turbulence, strong acceleration K=ν/Uw2dUw/dxas high as9×10-6, and strong concave curvature (boundary layer thickness between 2% and 5% of the wall radius of curvature). Mean and fluctuating velocity as well as turbulent shear stress are documented and compared to results from equivalent cases on a flat wall and a wall with milder concave curvature. The data show that curvature does have a significant effect, moving the transition location upstream, increasing turbulent transport, and causing skin friction to rise by as much as 40%. Conditional sampling results are presented which show that the curvature effect is present in both the turbulent and non-turbulent zones of the transitional flow.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Volino ◽  
T. W. Simon

Measurements from heated boundary layers along a concave-curved test wall subject to high (initially 8 percent) free-stream turbulence intensity and strong (K = (ν/U∞2) dU∞/dx) as high as 9 × 10−6) acceleration are presented and discussed. Conditions for the experiments were chosen to roughly simulate those present on the downstream half of the pressure side of a gas turbine airfoil. Mean velocity and temperature profiles as well as skin friction and heat transfer coefficients are presented. The transition zone is of extended length in spite of the high free-stream turbulence level. Transitional values of skin friction coefficients and Stanton numbers drop below flat-plate, low-free-stream-turbulence, turbulent flow correlations, but remain well above laminar flow values. The mean velocity and temperature profiles exhibit clear changes in shape as the flow passes through transition. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first detailed documentation of a high-free-stream-turbulence boundary layer flow in such a strong acceleration field.


Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Watmuff

Experiments are described in which well-defined FSN (Free Stream Nonuniformity) distributions are introduced by placing fine wires upstream of the leading edge of a flat plate. Large amplitude spanwise thickness variations are present in the downstream boundary layer resulting from the interaction of the laminar wakes with the leading edge. Regions of elevated background unsteadiness appear on either side of the peak layer thickness, which share many of the characteristics of Klebanoff modes, observed at elevated Free Stream Turbulence (FST) levels. However, for the low background disturbance level of the free stream, the layer remains laminar to the end of the test section (Rx ≈ l.4×106) and there is no evidence of bursting or other phenomena associated with breakdown to turbulence. A vibrating ribbon apparatus is used to demonstrate that the deformation of the mean flow is responsible for substantial phase and amplitude distortion of Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) waves. Pseudo-flow visualization of hot-wire data shows that the breakdown of the distorted waves is more complex and occurs at a lower Reynolds number than the breakdown of the K-type secondary instability observed when the FSN is not present.


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