scholarly journals Investigation on the unsteady pressure fluctuation characteristic in the blade tip seal of steam turbine based on spectrum

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6 Part A) ◽  
pp. 3823-3834
Author(s):  
Pan Li ◽  
Lihua Cao ◽  
Heyong Si ◽  
Wenlong Wang

The paper presents the unsteady numerical simulation results of tip leakage flow in high pressure steam turbines, and also presents the influence analysis of leakage vortexes on pressure fluctuation characteristics of rotor cascade under different blade tip seal clearances. The numerical method for calculating is based on the large eddy simulation turbulence model and the pressure fluctuation of rotor cascade which induced by the unstable leakage vortexes is obtained by frequency spectrum analysis. The results show that the vortex frequencies in tip seal cavity contain both the wheel rotating frequency and the high frequency caused by the tip leakage flow breaking into small scale vortexes. The unsteady characteristics of tip leakage flow also induce steam exciting force which changes with the time.

Author(s):  
Dianliang Yang ◽  
Xiaobing Yu ◽  
Zhenping Feng

In this paper, numerical methods have been applied to the investigation of the effect of rotation on the blade tip leakage flow and heat transfer. Using the first stage rotor blade of GE-E3 engine high pressure turbine, both flat tip and squealer tip have been studied. The tip gap height is 1% of the blade height, and the groove depth of the squealer tip is 2% of the blade height. Heat transfer coefficient on tip surface obtained by using different turbulence models was compared with experimental results. And the grid independence study was carried out by using the Richardson extrapolation method. The effect of the blade rotation was studied in the following cases: 1) blade domain is rotating and shroud is stationary; 2) blade domain is stationary and shroud is rotating; and 3) both blade domain and shroud are stationary. In this approach, the effects of the relative motion of the endwall, the centrifugal force and the Coriolis force can be investigated respectively. By comparing the results of the three cases discussed, the effects of the blade rotation on tip leakage flow and heat transfer are revealed. It indicated that the main effect of the rotation on the tip leakage flow and heat transfer is resulted from the relative motion of the shroud, especially for the squealer tip blade.


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 075106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexej Pogorelov ◽  
Matthias Meinke ◽  
Wolfgang Schröder

Author(s):  
Young-Jin Jung ◽  
Tae-Gon Kim ◽  
Minsuk Choi

This paper addresses the effect of the recessed blade tip with and without a porous material on the performance of a transonic axial compressor. A commercial flow solver was employed to analyze the performance and the internal flow of the axial compressor with three different tip configurations: reference tip, recessed tip and recessed tip filled with a porous material. It was confirmed that the recessed blade tip is an effective method to increase the stall margin in an axial compressor. It was also found in the present study that the strong vortex formed in the recess cavity on the tip pushed the tip leakage flow backward and weakened the tip leakage flow itself, consequently increasing the stall margin without any penalty of the efficiency in comparison to the reference tip. The recessed blade tip filled with a porous material was suggested with hope to obtain the larger stall margin and the higher efficiency. However, it was found that a porous material in the recess cavity is unfavorable to the performance in both the stall margin and the efficiency. An attempt has been made to explain the effect of the recess cavity with and without a porous material on the flow in an axial compressor.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Corsini ◽  
Franco Rispoli ◽  
A. G. Sheard

This study assesses the effectiveness of modified blade-tip configurations in achieving passive noise control in industrial fans. The concepts developed here, which are based on the addition of end-plates at the fan-blade tip, are shown to have a beneficial effect on the fan aeroacoustic signature as a result of the changes they induce in tip-leakage-flow behavior. The aerodynamic merits of the proposed blade-tip concepts are investigated by experimental and computational studies in a fully ducted configuration. The flow mechanisms in the blade-tip region are correlated with the specific end-plate design features, and their role in the creation of overall acoustic emissions is clarified. The tip-leakage flows of the fans are analyzed in terms of vortex structure, chordwise leakage flow, and loading distribution. Rotor losses are also investigated. The modifications to blade-tip geometry are found to have marked effects on the multiple vortex behaviors of leakage flow as a result of changes in the near-wall fluid flow paths on both blade surfaces. The improvements in rotor efficiency are assessed and correlated with the control of tip-leakage flows produced by the modified tip end-plates.


Author(s):  
Takayuki Matsunuma ◽  
Takehiko Segawa

Tip leakage flow through the small gap between the blade tip of a turbine and the casing endwall reduces the aerodynamic performance. String-type dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators made of silicone printed-circuit board were used for the active control of the tip leakage flow of a linear turbine cascade. Sinusoidal voltage excitation with amplitude varying from 4 kV to 6 kV (peak-to-peak voltage: 8 kVp-p to 12 kVp-p) and fixed frequency of 10 kHz was applied to the plasma actuators. The two-dimensional velocity field in the blade passage was estimated by particle image velocimetry (PIV) under the very low Reynolds number conditions of Re = 7.1 × 103 and 1.42 × 104. The tip leakage flow was reduced by the flow control using plasma actuators. The high turbulence intensity region caused by the tip leakage flow was also reduced. For the quantitative comparisons, the displacement thickness of the absolute velocity distributions was examined. By the flow control of the plasma actuators, the displacement thickness at tip-side gradually decreased as the input voltage increased. Although three types of plasma actuators were used, with thin, thick, and flat electrodes and different ratios of discharge area, the differences in their effect were negligible. The reason for these very small differences in effect is the wide spread of the plasma discharge from the encapsulated electrode in the plasma actuator to the exposed electrode of the blade tip. At the relatively high Reynolds number condition of Re = 1.42 × 104, the effect of the plasma actuator was smaller than that at the lower Reynolds number condition of Re = 7.1 × 103.


Author(s):  
J. Luo ◽  
B. Lakshminarayana

The 3-D viscous flowfield in the rotor passage of a single-stage turbine, including the tip-leakage flow, is computed using a Navier-Stokes procedure. A grid-generation code has been developed to obtain embedded H grids inside the rotor tip gap. The blade tip geometry is accurately modeled without any “pinching”. Chien’s low-Reynolds-number k-ε model is employed for turbulence closure. Both the mean-flow and turbulence transport equations are integrated in time using a four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme. The computational results for the entire turbine rotor flow, particularly the tip-leakage flow and the secondary flows, are interpreted and compared with available data. The predictions for major features of the flowfield are found to be in good agreement with the data. Complicated interactions between the tip-clearance flows and the secondary flows are examined in detail. The effects of endwall rotation on the development and interaction of secondary and tip-leakage vortices are also analyzed.


Entropy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Li ◽  
Xinrong Su ◽  
Xin Yuan

In unshrouded turbine rotors, the tip leakage vortices develop and interact with the passage vortices. Such complex leakage flow causes the major loss in the turbine stage. Due to the complex turbulence characteristics of the tip leakage flow, the widely used Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approach may fail to accurately predict the multi-scale turbulent flow and the related loss. In order to effectively improve the turbine efficiency, more insights into the loss mechanism are required. In this work, a Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (DDES) study is conducted to simulate the flow inside a high pressure turbine blade, with emphasis on the tip region. DDES results are in good agreement with the experiment, and the comparison with RANS results verifies the advantages of DDES in resolving detailed flow structures of leakage flow, and also in capturing the complex turbulence characteristics. The snapshot Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) method is used to extract the dominant flow features. The flow structures and the distribution of turbulent kinetic energy reveal the development of leakage flow and its interaction with the secondary flow. Meanwhile, it is found that the separation bubble (SB) is formed in tip clearance. The strong interactions between tip leakage vortex (TLV) and the up passage vortex (UPV) are the main source of unsteady effects which significantly enhance the turbulence intensity. Based on the DDES results, loss analysis of tip leakage flow is conducted based on entropy generation rates. It is found that the viscous dissipation loss is much stronger than heat transfer loss. The largest local loss occurs in the tip clearance, and the interaction between the leakage vortex and up passage vortex promotes the loss generation. The tip leakage flow vortex weakens the strength of up passage vortex, and loss of up passage flow is reduced. Comparing steady and unsteady effects to flow field, we found that unsteady effects of tip leakage flow have a large influence on flow loss distribution which cannot be ignored. To sum up, the current DDES study about the tip leakage flow provides helpful information about the loss generation mechanism and may guide the design of low-loss blade tip.


2004 ◽  
Vol 128 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Key ◽  
Tony Arts

The tip leakage flow characteristics for flat and squealer turbine tip geometries are studied in the von Karman Institute Isentropic Light Piston Compression Tube facility, CT-2, at different Reynolds and Mach number conditions for a fixed value of the tip gap in a nonrotating, linear cascade arrangement. To the best knowledge of the authors, these are among the very few high-speed tip flow data for the flat tip and squealer tip geometries. Oil flow visualizations and static pressure measurements on the blade tip, blade surface, and corresponding endwall provide insight to the structure of the two different tip flows. Aerodynamic losses are measured for the different tip arrangements, also. The squealer tip provides a significant decrease in velocity through the tip gap with respect to the flat tip blade. For the flat tip, an increase in Reynolds number causes an increase in tip velocity levels, but the squealer tip is relatively insensitive to changes in Reynolds number.


AIAA Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (8) ◽  
pp. 3332-3336
Author(s):  
Jérôme Boudet ◽  
Marc C. Jacob ◽  
Joëlle Caro ◽  
Emmanuel Jondeau ◽  
Bo Li

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergen Sakaoglu ◽  
Harika S. Kahveci

Abstract The pressure difference between suction and pressure sides of a turbine blade leads to tip leakage flow, which adversely affects the first-stage high-pressure (HP) turbine blade tip aerodynamics. In modern gas turbines, HP turbine blade tips are exposed to extreme thermal conditions requiring cooling. If the coolant jet directed into the blade tip gap cannot counter the leakage flow, it will simply add up to the pressure losses due to leakage. Therefore, the compromise between the aerodynamic loss and the gain in tip-cooling effectiveness must be optimized. In this paper, the effect of tip-cooling configuration on the turbine blade tip is investigated numerically from both aerodynamics and thermal aspects to determine the optimum configuration. Computations are performed using the tip cross section of GE-E3 HP turbine first-stage blade for squealer and flat tips, where the number, location, and diameter of holes are varied. The study presents a discussion on the overall loss coefficient, total pressure loss across the tip clearance, and variation in heat transfer on the blade tip. Increasing the coolant mass flow rate using more holes or by increasing the hole diameter results in a decrease in the area-averaged Nusselt number on the tip floor. Both aerodynamic and thermal response of squealer tips to the implementation of cooling holes is superior to their flat counterparts. Among the studied configurations, the squealer tip with a larger number of cooling holes located toward the pressure side is highlighted to have the best cooling performance.


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