A Numerical Investigation over the Cavitating Flow Regime of a 2D-Hydrofoil

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Bonfiglio ◽  
Stefano Brizzolora

The advances in sailing boat races have been greatly proven in the recent America’s Cup competition. Sailing boats have reached speeds above 40 knots with a simple concept: the wetted surface of the hull is minimized and the required displacement is obtained through a lifting force produced by submerged hydrofoils working at very high speeds. This is a well-known concept in naval architecture that has been exploited since the beginning of the 20th Century. Hydrofoils used in sailing boat races are yet not designed for cavitating flow, but major changes in the design will be needed in case speed increases above 50 knots. When highspeed crafts (including fast sailing boats) operate significantly above the planing threshold speed, the convenience of completely or partially supporting their weight by lifting hydrofoils is evident (Du Cane (1964)). A very low pressure field induced by high in flow speed triggers water vaporization at ambient temperature: cavitation cannot be avoided and foil shape has to be designed with the goal of maintaining a stable flow regime eventually com-promising the lift. When craft speed arise above 50 knots, the de-sign philosophy for the basic section of the lifting hydrofoil has to radically change and turn to super-cavitating hydrofoils (Auslaender [1962]) being the final goal addressed towards the delay and stabilization of the cavity shape over the hydrofoil surface. In super-cavitating regimes the suction surface of the hydrofoil is fully enveloped in the cavity which (typically) detaches at the leading edge of the foil and closes in the wake well aft the trailing edge. The pressure side of the hydrofoil is the only responsible for lift generation thus the main design target is represented by the shape of the foil surface. Several simplified theories assuming steady state potential flow (mentioned later in this introduction) were developed in the past to deal with this essential design problem.

Author(s):  
Zhong Li ◽  
Minguan Yang ◽  
Can Kang ◽  
Bo Gao ◽  
Kai Ji

Based on the external characteristic test, the performance of designed axial-flow model pump was determined. The cavitation performance of model pump at the best efficiency point was confirmed through the cavitation test. The cavitating flows in impeller at different NPSH values were shot by the high speed digital camera. MiVnt image analysis software was utilized to process the shooting images, track the cavitation region and outline of cavitation bubbles cluster. The experimental results show that the incipient cavitation regions are located in the inlet of blade suction surface near the tip and the leading edge of tip airfoil. With the decrease of NPSH values, the cavitation region at tip airfoil moves gradually from leading edge to trailing edge and the type of cavitation is vortex cavitation, its rotation axis direction is the same as circumferential direction. The cavitation region at blade suction surface indicates the same moving trend as at tip airfoil. The emerging of cloudy cavitation at the middle of blade suction surface indicates the beginning of pump cavitation. With the further increase of volume proportion of cavitation bubbles in impeller channel, the pump performance decreases severally. The experimental results reveal the preliminary laws of cavitating flow and provide an effective reference for the cavitation region and development process in impeller of axial-flow pump.


Author(s):  
A. Rona ◽  
J. P. Gostelow

Flow visualization on a lengthy time-average basis on the suction surface of turbine blades showed robust and consistent streamwise streaks at subsonic and transonic speeds. The normal flow past a circular cylinder is a more canonical case and testing was undertaken at high speeds on a 37.23 mm diameter cylinder and at low speeds on a 152 mm diameter cylinder. The lateral spacing between streaks on cylinders had been predicted by Kestin and Wood and the present tests gave excellent agreement with their theory. Their work on unswept circular cylinders provides a good baseline model for understanding and predicting sweep effects on cylinders and turbomachinery blading. Experiments on a circular cylinder were performed over a range of sweep angles from zero to 61°, giving results for lateral spacing and angular orientation of the streaks. At high sweep angles, the results are consistent with those of Poll. Hot wire measurements away from the surface indicate a variable flow structure in the spanwise direction with a wavelength matching that of the surface traces. The streamwise disturbance was predominantly stationary in nature and resilient, often persisting from leading edge to trailing edge. Crossflow instability becomes more significant at high sweep angles. It grows aggressively and rapidly, being predominantly of a traveling nature. The observed streaks could be of particular concern for the thermal design of turbine blades.


Author(s):  
Bo Wang ◽  
Yanhui Wu ◽  
Kai Liu

Driven by the need to control flow separations in highly loaded compressors, a numerical investigation is carried out to study the control effect of wavy blades in a linear compressor cascade. Two types of wavy blades are studied with wavy blade-A having a sinusoidal leading edge, while wavy blade-B having pitchwise sinusoidal variation in the stacking line. The influence of wavy blades on the cascade performance is evaluated at incidences from −1° to +9°. For the wavy blade-A with suitable waviness parameters, the cascade diffusion capacity is enhanced accompanied by the loss reduction under high incidence conditions where 2D separation is the dominant flow structure on the suction surface of the unmodified blade. For well-designed wavy blade-B, the improvement of cascade performance is achieved under low incidence conditions where 3D corner separation is the dominant flow structure on the suction surface of the baseline blade. The influence of waviness parameters on the control effect is also discussed by comparing the performance of cascades with different wavy blade configurations. Detailed analysis of the predicted flow field shows that both the wavy blade-A and wavy blade-B have capacity to control flow separation in the cascade but their control mechanism are different. For wavy blade-A, the wavy leading edge results in the formation of counter-rotating streamwise vortices downstream of trough. These streamwise vortices can not only enhance momentum exchange between the outer flow and blade boundary layer, but also act as the suction surface fence to hamper the upwash of low momentum fluid driven by cross flow. For wavy blade-B, the wavy surface on the blade leads to a reduction of the cross flow upwash by influencing the spanwise distribution of the suction surface static pressure and guiding the upwash flow.


Author(s):  
Huishe Wang ◽  
Qingjun Zhao ◽  
Xiaolu Zhao ◽  
Jianzhong Xu

A detailed unsteady numerical simulation has been carried out to investigate the shock systems in the high pressure (HP) turbine rotor and unsteady shock-wake interaction between coupled blade rows in a 1+1/2 counter-rotating turbine (VCRT). For the VCRT HP rotor, due to the convergent-divergent nozzle design, along almost all the span, fishtail shock systems appear after the trailing edge, where the pitch averaged relative Mach number is exceeding the value of 1.4 and up to 1.5 approximately (except the both endwalls). A group of pressure waves create from the suction surface after about 60% axial chord in the VCRT HP rotor, and those waves interact with the inner-extending shock (IES). IES first impinges on the next HP rotor suction surface and its echo wave is strong enough and cannot be neglected, then the echo wave interacts with the HP rotor wake. Strongly influenced by the HP rotor wake and LP rotor, the HP rotor outer-extending shock (OES) varies periodically when moving from one LP rotor leading edge to the next. In VCRT, the relative Mach numbers in front of IES and OES are not equal, and in front of IES, the maximum relative Mach number is more than 2.0, but in front of OES, the maximum relative Mach number is less than 1.9. Moreover, behind IES and OES, the flow is supersonic. Though the shocks are intensified in VCRT, the loss resulted in by the shocks is acceptable, and the HP rotor using convergent-divergent nozzle design can obtain major benefits.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. T. Hsu ◽  
A. M. Wo

This paper demonstrates reduction of stator unsteady loading due to forced response in a large-scale, low-speed, rotor/stator/rotor axial compressor rig by clocking the downstream rotor. Data from the rotor/stator configuration showed that the stator response due to the upstream vortical disturbance reaches a maximum when the wake impinges against the suction surface immediately downstream of the leading edge. Results from the stator/rotor configuration revealed that the stator response due to the downstream potential disturbance reaches a minimum with a slight time delay after the rotor sweeps pass the stator trailing edge. For the rotor/stator/rotor configuration, with Gap1 = 10 percent chord and Gap2 = 30 percent chord, results showed a 60 percent reduction in the stator force amplitude by clocking the downstream rotor so that the time occurrence of the maximum force due to the upstream vortical disturbance coincides with that of the minimum force due to the downstream potential disturbance. This is the first time, the authors believe, that beneficial use of flow unsteadiness is definitively demonstrated to reduce the blade unsteady loading.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 2682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang-Hui Ding ◽  
Bing-He Ma ◽  
Jin-Jun Deng ◽  
Wei-Zheng Yuan ◽  
Kang Liu

A micro-floating element wall shear stress sensor with backside connections has been developed for accurate measurements of wall shear stress under the turbulent boundary layer. The micro-sensor was designed and fabricated on a 10.16 cm SOI (Silicon on Insulator) wafer by MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) processing technology. Then, it was calibrated by a wind tunnel setup over a range of 0 Pa to 65 Pa. The measurements of wall shear stress on a smooth plate were carried out in a 0.6 m × 0.6 m transonic wind tunnel. Flow speed ranges from 0.4 Ma to 0.8 Ma, with a corresponding Reynold number of 1.05 × 106~1.55 × 106 at the micro-sensor location. Wall shear stress measured by the micro-sensor has a range of about 34 Pa to 93 Pa, which is consistent with theoretical values. For comparisons, a Preston tube was also used to measure wall shear stress at the same time. The results show that wall shear stress obtained by three methods (the micro-sensor, a Preston tube, and theoretical results) are well agreed with each other.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin N. Goodhand ◽  
Robert J. Miller ◽  
Hang W. Lung

An important question for a designer is how, in the design process, to deal with the small geometric variations which result from either the manufacture process or in-service deterioration. For some blade designs geometric variations will have little or no effect on the performance of a row of blades, while in others their effects can be significant. This paper shows that blade designs which are most sensitive are those which are susceptible to a distinct switch in the fluid mechanisms responsible for limiting blade performance. To demonstrate this principle, the sensitivity of compressor 2D incidence range to manufacture variations is considered. Only one switch in mechanisms was observed, the onset of flow separation at the leading edge. This switch is only sensitive to geometric variations around the leading edge, 0–3% of the suction surface. The consequence for these manufacture variations was a 10% reduction in the blade's positive incidence range. For this switch, the boundary in the design space is best defined in terms of the blade pressure distribution. Blade designs where the acceleration exceeds a critical value just downstream of the leading edge are shown to be robust to geometric variation. Two historic designs, supercritical blades and blades with sharp leading edges, though superior in design intent, are shown to sit outside this robust region and thus, in practice, perform worse. The improved understanding of the robust, region of the design space is then used to design a blade capable of a robust, 5% increase in operating incidence range.


Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Hua Ouyang ◽  
Zhao-hui Du

To give insight into the clocking effect and its influence on the wake transportation and its interaction, the unsteady three-dimensional flow through a 1.5-stage axial low pressure turbine is simulated numerically using a density-correction based, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations commercial CFD code. The 2nd stator clocking is applied over ten equal tangential positions. The results show that the harmonic blade number ratio is an important factor affecting the clocking effect. The clocking effect has a very small influence on the turbine efficiency in this investigation. The efficiency difference between the maximum and minimum configuration is nearly 0.1%. The maximum efficiency can be achieved when the 1st stator wake enters the 2nd stator passage near blade suction surface and its adjacent wake passes through the 2nd stator passage close to blade pressure surface. The minimum efficiency appears if the 1st stator wake impinges upon the leading edge of the 2nd stator and its adjacent wake of the 1st stator passed through the mid-channel in the 2nd stator.


Author(s):  
William D. York ◽  
James H. Leylek

A new film-cooling scheme for the suction surface of a gas turbine vane in a transonic cascade is studied numerically. The concept of the present design is to inject a substantial amount of coolant at a very small angle, approaching a “wall-jet,” through a single row of relatively few, large holes near the vane leading edge. The near-match of the coolant stream and mainstream momentums, coupled with the low coolant trajectory, theoretically results in low aerodynamic losses due to mixing. A minimal effect of the film cooling on the vane loading is also important to realize, as well as good coolant coverage and high adiabatic effectiveness. A systematic computational methodology, developed in the Advanced Computational Research Laboratory (ACRL) and tested numerous times on film-cooling applications, is applied in the present work. For validation purposes, predictions from two previous turbine airfoil film-cooling studies, both employing this same numerical method, are presented and compared to experimental data. Simulations of the new film-cooling configuration are performed for two blowing ratios, M=0.90 and M=1.04, and the density ratio of the coolant to the mainstream flow is unity in both cases. A solid vane with no film cooling is also studied as a reference case in the evaluation of losses. The unstructured numerical mesh contains about 5.5 million finite-volumes, after solution-based adaption. Grid resolution is such that the full boundary layer and all passage shocks are resolved. The Renormalization Group (RNG) k-ε turbulence model is used to close the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Predictions indicate that the new film-cooling scheme meets design intent and has negligible impact on the total pressure losses through the vane cascade. Additionally, excellent coolant coverage is observed all the way to the trailing edge, resulting in high far-field effectiveness. Keeping the design environment in mind, this work represents the power of validated computational methods to provide a rapid and reasonably cost-effective analysis of innovative turbine airfoil cooling.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Verma ◽  
Bastav Borah ◽  
Vinayak Kulkarni

Abstract The fluid flow analysis over a cambered airfoil having three different cavity locations on the suction surface is reported in this paper. The Elliptical cavity is created at LE, MC, and TE along chordwise locations from the leading to trailing edge. In this regard, the steady simulation is carried out in the Fluent at Reynolds number of 105 based on their chord length. The lift and drag characteristics for clean and cavities airfoil are investigated at different angles of attack. For the clean airfoil, the stall point is observed at 18°. The presence of a cavity improves the stall and aerodynamic characteristics of airfoil. It has been seen that the lift and drag coefficients for pre-stalled or lower angles are nearly similar to clean and cavity at MC or TE positions. For the post-stall point, the improvement in the aerodynamic performance is seen for the cavity at MC or TE. The cavity placed at LE produces lower lift and higher drag characteristics against other configuration models. The overall cavity effect for the flow around the airfoil is that it creates vortices, thereby re-energizes the slower moving boundary layer and delays the flow separation in the downstream direction. The outcomes of this analysis are suggested that the cavity at a position before the mid chord from the leading edge does not improve the performance of the airfoil. Though vortex is formed in the confined spaces but it is unable to reattach the flow towards the downstream direction of an airfoil.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document