Effect of Initial Surface Roughness on Water Erosion Resistance of Last Stage Blade Substrate of Steam Turbine

In order to study the effect of initial surface roughness on water droplet erosion resistance of last stage blade substrate of steam turbine, eight 17-4PH samples were grounded and velvet polished by different mesh metallographic sandpaper to establish sample with different initial surface roughness. The water droplet erosion experiments were carried out in the highspeed jet water erosion experiment system, and the mass and micro-morphology of each sample were measured by using precision electronic balance and ultra-depth of field microscope respectively at each experimental stage, and the measurement of water erosion trace width and maximum water erosion depth were also completed at the same time. On the basis of experiments, LS-DYNA was used for numerical simulation to verify the reliability of experimental results again. Results show that the smoother the initial surface of sample, then the smaller the mass loss, the stronger its water erosion resistance. On the contrary, the rougher the initial surface of sample, the more severe the surface irregularity, the more times the water droplets concentrated at the lowest point of pit when water droplets flow laterally after impact is completed, thus accelerating the formation of initial crack and lateral expansion, the poorer the water erosion resistance of sample. At same water erosion time, the smoother the sample surface, the later the complete erosion trace appear, the narrower the water erosion trace width. However, the maximum water erosion depth of sample is not affected by the initial surface roughness. The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Structural Analysis of a Gas Turbine Axial Compressor Blade Eroded by Online Water Washing

The Gas Turbine (GT) Axial Compressor (AXCO) can absorb up to the 30% of the power produced by the GT, being the component with the largest impact over the performances. The axial compressor blades might undergo the fouling phenomena as a consequence of the unwanted material locally accumulating during the machine operations. The presence of such polluting substances reduces the aerodynamic efficiency as well as the air intake causing the drop of performances and the increase of the fuel consumption. To address the above-mentioned critical issues, several washing strategies have been implemented so far, among the most promising ones, High Flow On-Line Water Washing (HFOLWW) is worth to mention. Exploiting this technique, the performance levels are preserved, whereas the stops for maintenance should be reduced. Nevertheless, this comes at the cost of a long-term erosion exposure caused by the impact of water washing droplets. Hence, it was deemed necessary to carry out a finite element method (FEM) structural analysis of the first rotor stage of the compressor of an aeroderivative GT, integrated into the HFOLWW scheme, in order to evaluate the fatigue strength of the component subjected to the erosion; possibly along with its acceptability limits. The first step requires the determination of the blade areas affected by erosion, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, followed by the creation and the 3D modelling of the damaged geometry. The final step consists in the evaluation of the static stress and the dynamic agents, to perform a fatigue analysis through the Goodman relation and carrying out a simulation of damage propagation exploiting the theory of fracture mechanics. This procedure has been extended to the damage-free baseline component to set-up a model suitable for comparison. The structural analysis confirms the design of the blade, moreover dynamic and static evaluation of the eroded profiles haven’t outlined any working, nor mechanical, issue. This entitles the structural choice of HFOLWW as a system which guarantees full performance levels of the compressor.

Numerical Simulation Model of Electrothermal De-Icing Process on Composite Substrate

A numerical simulation model of electrothermal de-icing process on carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite is conducted to study the effect of thermal properties of the substrate on the ice melting process. A novel melting model which is based on the enthalpy-porosity method is applied to study the transient ice melting process and heat transfer of the de-icing sys-tem. Multi-layered electrothermal de-icing systems including composites with different fiber orientation are used to analyze the effects of orthotropic heat conductivity of the CFRP composite on the ice melting process and heat transfer. Movement of the ice-water interface, the melted zone thickness and the melted zone area on CFRP composite are investigated on the three-dimensional electrothermal de-icing unit. The effects of thermal properties of substrate on the temperature distribution of the ice-airfoil interface are analyzed. The computational results show that the thermal properties of substrates affect the temperature on the ice-airfoil interface, the temperature distribution in the substrate, ice melting area, ice melting rate and ice melting volume significantly. The time that ice starts to melt on the CFRP composite substrate is earlier than that on the metal substrate. However, it takes more time for the ice to melt completely on the ice-CFRP interface than that on the ice-metal inter-face. The orthotropic heat conductivity of CFRP composite results in strong directivity of the melting area on the ice-CFRP in-terface. A ratio parameter is defined to represent the matching degree of substrate materials and geometry model of de-icing system. The simulation model can be applied to study electrothermal de-icing system of nacelle inlet and airfoil made of composite. The results in present work is also helpful to predict the change of temperature during de-icing process and provide guidelines for the optimizing the electrothermal de-icing system to reduce power consumption according to the fiber structure of composite.

Uncertainty Analysis of Inflow Conditions on an HPT Gas Turbine Nozzle: Effect on Particle Deposition

Gas turbines (GT) are often forced to operate in harsh environmental conditions. Therefore, the presence of particles in their flow-path is expected. With this regard, deposition is a problem that severely affects gas turbine operation. Components’ lifetime and performance can dramatically vary as a consequence of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, the operating conditions of the machine can vary in a wide range, and they cannot be treated as deterministic. Their stochastic variations greatly affect the forecasting of life and performance of the components. In this work, the main parameters considered affected by the uncertainty are the circumferential hot core location and the turbulence level at the inlet of the domain. A stochastic analysis is used to predict the degradation of a high-pressure-turbine (HPT) nozzle due to particulate ingestion. The GT’s component analyzed as a reference is the HPT nozzle of the Energy-Efficient Engine (E3). The uncertainty quantification technique used is the probabilistic collocation method (PCM). This work shows the impact of the operating conditions uncertainties on the performance and lifetime reduction due to deposition. Sobol indices are used to identify the most important parameter and its contribution to life. The present analysis enables to build confidence intervals on the deposit profile and on the residual creep-life of the vane.

Effects of Shock Wave Development on Secondary Flow Behavior in Linear Turbine Cascade at Transonic Condition

Gas turbines widely applied to power generation and aerospace propulsion systems are continuously enhanced in efficiency for the reduction of environmental load. The energy recovery efficiency from working fluid in a turbine component constituting gas turbines can be enhanced by the increase of turbine blade loading. However, the increase of turbine blade loading inevitably intensifies the secondary flows, and consequently increases the associated loss generation. The development of the passage vortex is strongly influenced by the pitchwise pressure gradient on the endwall in the cascade passage. In addition, a practical high pressure turbine stage is generally driven under transonic flow conditions where the shock wave strongly influences the pressure distribution on the endwall. Therefore, it becomes very important to clarify the effects of the shock wave formation on the secondary flow behavior in order to increase the turbine blade loading without the deterioration of efficiency. In this study, the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional transonic flows in the HS1A linear turbine cascade at the design incidence angle were analyzed numerically by using the commercial CFD code with the assumption of steady compressible flow. The isentropic exit Mach number was varied from the subsonic to the supersonic conditions in order to examine the effects of development of shock wave caused by the increase of exit Mach number on the secondary flow behavior. The increase of exit Mach number induced the shock across the passage and increased its obliqueness. The increase of obliqueness reduced the cross flow on the endwall by moving the local minimum point of static pressure along the suction surface toward the trailing edge. As a consequence, the increase of exit Mach number attenuated the passage vortex.

Turbine Nozzle Insert Clogging With Seeded Medium Size Particles

Gas turbine nozzle cooling often uses inserts to intentionally distribute cool air through impingement holes to hot spots, especially at leading edge regions of stage-1 nozzles. Owing to the variations of engine operation environment, inlet air filtration systems, upstream component surface coating layers, and oil/air sealing material choices, solid particles could enter the engine from outside or be generated inside from rotor rubbing, seal debris, peeled off coating layers or rusty surfaces, etc. These particles and their agglomerates can be carried by airflow to enter nozzle inserts and clog impingement holes, which may reduce cooling air significantly, resulting in severe engine failures. To reduce the risk of insert clogging, particle separation devices and filtration mesh screens have been implemented in front of nozzle inlets to prevent larger particles from entering. Therefore, designing appropriate nozzle insert hole sizes becomes very critical to let smaller particles pass through and exhaust from the nozzle exit. This experimental study focuses on finding a correlation between the impingement hole sizes of a nozzle insert and their clogged areas caused by seeded fine and medium size particles of Fe2O3 under specific pressure ratios. A nozzle insert was first chosen, and a single row of cylindrical impingement holes was machined at the leading edge of the insert. Measurements were conducted in a pressurized vessel at Reynolds numbers from 7,000 to 62,000 and pressure ratios from 1.01 to 1.10. Results indicate that insert clogging is a strong function of the hole size, particle size, and pressure ratio. The tested particles showed a bimodal distribution of fine and medium sizes, and the medium size particles played a major role in clogging holes. A clogging diagram with 3 zones (fully clogged zone, partially clogged zone, and no clogging zone) is generated from the test data, which can provide important design criteria for sizing the insert leading edge impingement holes to reduce the risk of clogging.

Effects of Circumferential Nonuniform Tip Clearance on Flow Field and Performance of a Transonic Turbine

The numerical study is performed by means of an in-house CFD code to investigate the effect of circumferential nonuniform tip clearance due to the casing ovalization on flow field and performance of a turbine stage. A method called fast-moving mesh is used to synchronize the non-circular computational domain with the rotation of the rotor row. Four different layouts of the circumferential nonuniform clearance are calculated and evaluated in this paper. The results show that, the circumferential nonuniform clearance could reduce the aerodynamic performance of the turbine. When the circumferential nonuniformity δ reaches 0.4, the aerodynamic efficiency decreases by 0.58 percentage points. Through the analysis of the flow field, it is found that the casing ovalization leads to the difference of the size of the tip clearance in the circumferential direction, and the aerodynamic loss of the position of large tip clearance is greater than that of small tip clearance, which is related to the scale of leakage vortex. In addition, the flow field will become nonuniform in the circumferential direction, especially at the rotor exit, which will adversely affect the downstream flow field.

Ice Crystal Icing Investigation on a Honeywell Uncertified Research Engine in an Altitude Simulation Icing Facility

A Honeywell Uncertified Research Engine was exposed to various ice crystal conditions in the NASA Glenn Propulsion Systems Laboratory. Simulations using NASA’s 1D Icing Risk Analysis tool were used to determine potential inlet conditions that could lead to ice crystal accretion along the inlet of the core flowpath and into the high pressure compressor. These conditions were simulated in the facility to develop baseline conditions. Parameters were then varied to move or change accretion characteristics. Data were acquired at altitudes varying from 5 kft to 45 kft, at nominal ice particle Median Volumetric Diameters from 20 μm to 100 μm, and total water contents of 1 g/m3 to 12 g/m3. Engine and flight parameters such as fan speed, Mach number, and inlet temperature were also varied. The engine was instrumented with total temperature and pressure probes. Static pressure taps were installed at the leading edge of the fan stator, front frame hub, the shroud of the inlet guide vane, and first two rotors. Metal temperatures were acquired for the inlet guide vane and vane stators 1–2. In-situ measurements of the particle size distribution were acquired three meters upstream of the engine forward fan flange and one meter downstream of the fan in the bypass in order to study particle break-up behavior. Cameras were installed in the engine to capture ice accretions at the leading edge of the fan stator, splitter lip, and inlet guide vane. Additional measurements acquired but not discussed in this paper include: high speed pressure transducers installed at the trailing edge of the first stage rotor and light extinction probes used to acquire particle concentrations at the fan exit stator plane and at the inlet to the core and bypass. The goal of this study was to understand the key parameters of accretion, acquire particle break-up data aft of the fan, and generate a unique icing dataset for model and tool development. The work described in this paper focuses on the effect of particle break-up. It was found that there was significant particle break-up downstream of the fan in the bypass, especially with larger initial particle sizes. The metal temperatures on the inlet guide vanes and stators show a temperature increase with increasing particle size. Accretion behavior observed was very similar at the fan stator and splitter lip across all test cases. However at the inlet guide vanes, the accretion decreased with increasing particle size.

The Effects of Inlet Boundary Layer Condition and Periodically Incoming Wakes on Secondary Flow in a Low Pressure Turbine Cascade

A particular turbine cascade design is presented with the goal of providing a basis for high quality investigations of endwall flow at high-speed flow conditions and unsteady inflow. The key feature of the design is an integrated two-part flat plate serving as a cascade endwall at part-span, which enables a variation of the inlet endwall boundary layer conditions. The new design is applied to the T106A low pressure turbine cascade for endwall flow investigations in the High-Speed Cascade Wind Tunnel of the Institute of Jet Propulsion at the Bundeswehr University Munich. Measurements are conducted at realistic flow conditions (M2th = 0.59, Re2th = 2·105) in three cases of different endwall boundary layer conditions with and without periodically incoming wakes. The endwall boundary layer is characterized by 1D-CTA measurements upstream of the blade passage. Secondary flow is evaluated by Five-hole-probe measurements in the turbine exit flow. A strong similarity is found between the time-averaged effects of unsteady inflow conditions and the effects of changing inlet endwall boundary layer conditions regarding the attenuation of secondary flow. Furthermore, the experimental investigations show, that all design goals for the improved T106A cascade are met.

Optimization of Supersonic Axial Turbine Blades Based on Surrogate Models

Due to the transition of the energy system to more decentralized sector-coupled technologies, the demand on small, highly efficient and compact turbines is steadily growing. Therefore, supersonic impulse turbines have been subject of academic research for many years because of their compact and low-cost conditions. However, specific loss models for this type of turbine are still missing. In this paper, a CFD-simulation-based surrogate model for the velocity coefficient, unique incidence as well as outflow deviation of the blade, is introduced. This surrogate model forms the basis for an exemplary efficiency optimization of the “Colclough cascade”. In a first step, an automatic and robust blade design methodology for constant-channel blades based on the supersonic turbine blade design of Stratford and Sansome is shown. The blade flow is fully described by seven geometrical and three aerodynamic design parameters. After that, an automated numerical flow simulation (CFD) workflow for supersonic turbine blades is developed. The validation of the CFD setup with a published supersonic axial turbine blade (Colclough design) shows a high consistency in the shock waves, separation zones and boundary layers as well as velocity coefficients. A design of experiments (DOE) with latin hypercube sampling and 1300 sample points is calculated. This CFD data forms the basis for a highly accurate surrogate model of supersonic turbine blade flow suitable for Mach numbers between 1.1 and 1.6. The throat-based Reynolds number is varied between 1*104 and 4*105. Additionally, an optimization is introduced, based on the surrogate model for the Reynolds number and Mach number of Colclough and no degree of reaction (equal inlet and outlet static pressure). The velocity coefficient is improved by up to 3 %.