scholarly journals Experimental and Numerical Assessment of the Impact of an Integrated Active Pre-Swirl Generator on Turbocharger Compressor Performance and Operating Range

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3537
Author(s):  
Charles Stuart ◽  
Stephen Spence ◽  
Sönke Teichel ◽  
Andre Starke

The implementation of increasingly stringent emissions and efficiency targets has seen engine downsizing and other complementary technologies increase in prevalence throughout the automotive sector. In order to facilitate ongoing improvements associated with the use of these strategies, delivering enhancements to the performance and stability of the turbocharger compressor when operating at low mass flow rates is of paramount importance. In spite of this, a few concepts (either active or passive) targeting such aims have successfully transitioned into use in automotive turbochargers, due primarily to the requirement for a very wide compressor-operating range. In order to overcome the operational limitations associated with existing pre-swirl generation devices such as inlet guide vanes, this study developed a concept comprising of an electrically driven axial fan mounted upstream of a standard automotive turbocharger centrifugal compressor. Rather than targeting a direct contribution to compressor boost pressure, the fan was designed to act as a variable pre-swirl generation device capable of being operated completely independently of the centrifugal impeller. It was envisioned that this architecture would allow efficient generation of the large pre-swirl angles needed for compressor surge margin extension and efficiency enhancement at low mass flow rate-operating points, while also facilitating the delivery of zero pre-swirl at higher mass flow rates to ensure no detrimental impact on performance at the rated power point of the engine. Having progressed through 1-D and 3-D aerodynamic modelling phases to understand the potential of the system, detailed component design and hardware manufacture were completed to enable an extensive experimental test campaign to be conducted. The experimental results were scrutinized to validate the numerical findings and to test the surge margin extension potential of the device. Compressor efficiency improvements of up to 3.0% pts were witnessed at the target-operating conditions.

Author(s):  
E. Benichou ◽  
I. Trébinjac

The flow structure in the radial diffuser of a centrifugal compressor is analyzed from steady and unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations performed at one rotation speed for which two stable operating ranges separated by an unstable zone have been experimentally experienced. Below a given mass flow rate, close to the peak efficiency point, phase-lagged single-passage simulations do not converge properly anymore. A low frequency appears in the CFD, which cannot be associated with any physical phenomenon. The computational domain is then extended, so that several passages of both the impeller and the diffuser are taken into account. At intermediate mass flow rates, an unstable operating range exists and simulations cannot converge properly either. Nevertheless, if the compressor is further throttled, another stable operating range is obtained at low mass flow rates. The flow structure in that stable operating range is rather unusual: an internal periodicity emerges inside the radial diffuser, involving a two-channel flow pattern. This two-channel flow pattern is found to be stable and fixed in time. Moreover, the phase shift between two adjacent channel pairs happens to be constant. This indicates that a new space – time periodicity is established at low mass flow rates, which involves groups of two passages in the radial diffuser. It is confirmed thanks to a new phase-lagged simulation including one impeller passage and two diffuser passages which shows a good convergence and which gives the same results, both in terms of performance and flow physics.


Author(s):  
Susheel Singh ◽  
Sumanta Acharya ◽  
Forrest Ames

Flow and heat transfer in a low aspect ratio pin-finned channel, representative of an internally cooled turbine airfoil, is investigated using Large Eddy Simulations (LES). To achieve greater control of surface cooling distribution, a novel approach has been recently proposed in which coolant is injected incrementally through a series of holes located immediately behind a specially designed cutout region downstream of the pin-fins. Sheltering the coolant injection behind the pin-fins avoids the impact of the cross-flow buildup that deflects the impingement jet and isolates the surface from cooling. The longitudinal and transverse spacing of the pin-fins, arranged in a staggered fashion, is X/D = 1.046 and S/D = 1.625, respectively. The aspect ratio (H/D) of pin-fin channel is 0.5. Due to the presence of the sequential jets in the configuration, the local cooling rates can be controlled by controlling the jet-hole diameter which impacts the jet mass flow rate. Hence, four different hole diameters, denoted as Large (L), Medium (M) , Small (S), Petite (P) are tested for impingement holes, and their effects are studied. Several patterns of the hole-size distributions are studied. It is shown that the peak Nusselt number in the stagnation region below the jet correlates directly with the jet-velocity, while downstream the Nusselt numbers correlate with the total mass flow rates or the average channel velocity. The local cooling parameter defined as (Nu/Nu0)(1-ε) correlates with the jet/channel mass flow rates.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Anna Avramenko ◽  
Alexey Frolov ◽  
Jari Hämäläinen

The presented research demonstrates the results of a series of numerical simulations of gas flow through a single-stage centrifugal compressor with a vaneless diffuser. Numerical results were validated with experiments consisting of eight regimes with different mass flow rates. The steady-state and unsteady simulations were done in ANSYS FLUENT 13.0 and NUMECA FINE/TURBO 8.9.1 for one-period geometry due to periodicity of the problem. First-order discretization is insufficient due to strong dissipation effects. Results obtained with second-order discretization agree with the experiments for the steady-state case in the region of high mass flow rates. In the area of low mass flow rates, nonstationary effects significantly influence the flow leading stationary model to poor prediction. Therefore, the unsteady simulations were performed in the region of low mass flow rates. Results of calculation were compared with experimental data. The numerical simulation method in this paper can be used to predict compressor performance.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hooman Rezaei ◽  
Abraham Engeda ◽  
Paul Haley

Abstract The objective of this work was to perform numerical analysis of the flow inside a modified single stage CVHF 1280 Trane centrifugal compressor’s vaneless diffuser and volute. Gambit was utilized to read the casing geometry and generating the vaneless diffuser. An unstructured mesh was generated for the path from vaneless diffuser inlet to conic diffuser outlet. At the same time a meanline analysis was performed corresponding to speeds and mass flow rates of the experimental data in order to obtain the absolute velocity and flow angle leaving the impeller for those operating conditions. These values and experimental data were used as inlet and outlet boundary conditions for the simulations. Simulations were performed in Fluent 5.0 for three speeds of 2000, 3000 and 3497 RPM and mass flow rates of minimum, medium and maximum. Results are in good agreement with the experimental ones and present the flow structures inside the vaneless diffuser and volute.


1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. T. Lund ◽  
Paul E. Sojka ◽  
Arthur H. Lefebvre ◽  
P. G. Gosselin

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (20) ◽  
pp. 6543
Author(s):  
Mieczysław Dzierzgowski

Laboratory measurements and analyses conducted in a wide range of changes of water temperature and mass flow rate for different types of radiators allowed to provides limitations and assessment of the current radiators heat transfer model according to EN 442. The inaccuracy to determinate the radiator heat output according to EN 442, in case of low water mass flow rates may achieve up to 22.3% A revised New Extended Heat Transfer Model in Radiators NEHTMiRmd is general and suitable for different types of radiators both new radiators and radiators existing after a certain period of operation is presented. The NEHTMiRmd with very high accuracy describes the heat transfer processes not only in the nominal conditions—in which the radiators are designed, but what is particularly important also in operating conditions when the radiators water mass flow differ significantly from the nominal value and at the same time the supply temperature changes in the whole range radiators operating during the heating season. In order to prove that the presented new model NEHTMiRmd is general, the article presents numerous calculation examples for various types of radiators currently used. Achieved the high compatibility of the results of the simulation calculations with the measurement results for different types of radiators: iron elements (not ribbed), plate radiators (medium degree ribbed), convectors (high degree ribbed) in a very wide range of changes in the water mass flow rates and the supply temperature indicates that a verified NEHTMiRmd can also be used in designing and simulating calculations of the central heating installations, for the rational conversion of existing installations and district heating systems into low temperature energy efficient systems as well as to directly determine the actual energy efficiency, also to improve the indications of the heat cost allocators. In addition, it may form the basis for the future modification of the European Standards for radiator testing.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Ahmed Rezk ◽  
Sidharath Sharma ◽  
S.M. Barrans ◽  
Abul Kalam Hossain ◽  
P. Samuel Lee ◽  
...  

Abstract Radial flow turbines are extensively used in turbocharging technology due to their unique capability of handling a wide range of exhaust gas flow. The pulsating flow nature of the internal combustion engine exhaust gases causes unsteady operation of the turbine stage. This paper presents the impact of the pulsating flow of various characteristics on the performance of a radial flow turbine. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic model was coupled with a one-dimensional engine model to study the realistic pulsating flow. Applying square wave pulsating flow showed the highest degree of unsteadiness corresponding to 92.6% maximum mass flow accumulation due to the consecutive sudden changes of the mass flow rates over the entire pulse. Although saw-tooth showed a maximum mass flow accumulation value of 88.9%, the mass flow rates entailed gradual change resulted in the least overall mass flow accumulation over the entire pulse. These two extremes constrained the anticipated performance of the radial flow turbine operates under realistic pulsating flow. Such constraints could develop an operating envelop to predict the performance and optimize radial flow turbines' power extraction under pulsating flow conditions.


2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saad A. Ahmed

The operation of centrifugal compressor systems is limited at low-mass flow rates by fluid flow instabilities leading to rotating stall or surge. These instabilities limit the flow range in which the compressor can operate. They also lower the performance and efficiency of the compressor. Experiments were conducted to investigate a model of radial vaneless diffuser at stall as well as stall-free operating conditions. The speed of the impeller was kept constant at 2000 RPM, while the mass flow rate was reduced gradually to scan the steady and unsteady operating conditions of the compressor. The flow rate through the compressor was gradually decreased until flow instability is initiated at the diffuser. The flow rate was further reduced to study the characteristics of rotating stall. These measurements were reported for diffuser diameter ratios, Do/Di, of 2.0 with diffuser width ratio, b/Di, of 0.055. At lower flow rates than the critical, the rotating stall pattern with one stall cell was dominant over the pattern with two cells. In addition, the instability in the diffuser was successfully delayed to a lower flow coefficient when rough surfaces were attached to one or both sides of the diffuser with the lowest values achieved by attaching the rough surface to the shroud. Results show that the roughness has no significant effect on stall cell characteristics.


Author(s):  
Dhinagaran Ramachandran ◽  
Srinivasa Rao Billa ◽  
Balamurugan Mayandi ◽  
Perumal Balappan ◽  
Shyamaprasad Kanthila ◽  
...  

Abstract The scope of this study is to develop a turbocharger turbine wheel with improved aerodynamic performance at low mass flow rates and with reduced inertia for better transient response. The contrasting effect of geometrical shape and size parameters on the objectives of aerodynamic performance and transient response gives rise to the need to explore the design space for the best design having good trade-off between the multi-objective requirements. The search for an optimum aerodynamic design is a challenge due to structural requirements as well. A turbine wheel that is best suited for the current application is selected from the library as a baseline and this wheel is further optimized to meet the targets. Preliminary screening allowed the identification of parameters having major impact on the objectives and these results have been used to train a Response Surface (RS). Further, in the interest of reducing computational cost, a virtual optimization algorithm based on the RS has been employed to predict optimum design within the design constraints. The optimum designs thus obtained are validated with Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations for flow performance and Finite Element solver for satisfying structural requirements. This approach has allowed for application-based design of turbine wheel for instance, by changing key parameters like blade angle distribution, number of blades, axial length, blade height and width. An inertia reduction up to 10% has been obtained while retaining the performance at low mass flow rates.


Author(s):  
Arash Nemati Hayati ◽  
Seyed Mohammad Hashemi ◽  
Mehrzad Shams

In this study, the performance of a typical bubbly water ramjet was investigated by the application of computational fluid dynamics method at different vessel velocities up to 80 knots for a range of air mass flow rates up to 0.9 kg/s. For this purpose, the validity of presented method was preliminarily examined for a converging–diverging nozzle. Then, a designed ramjet with discrete injection configuration was studied at different operating conditions. It was proved that the injection process significantly increases the amount of generated thrust up to 10 times more than the thrust of a single-phase water ramjet. The results suggest that for optimum operation of the ramjet, specific values should be assigned for both inlet and mixing chamber diameters with respect to outlet diameter. Furthermore, it seems that the modification of mixing chamber profile can effectively improve the performance, as the generated thrust of model with throat-like chamber surpasses that for conventional model up to more than two times. Finally, in order to rectify the contradiction of results obtained in previous literatures on the dependency of thrust on vessel velocity, a meaningful relation was derived between the generated thrust of the ramjet with the advance velocity at different air mass flow rates.


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