Influence of the Blade-Spoke Connection Point on the Aerodynamic Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbines

The assessment of robust CFD techniques is casting new light on the aerodynamics of airfoils rotating around an axis orthogonal to flow direction, with particular reference to flow curvature effects and stall mechanisms. In particular, Darrieus wind turbines’ designers are taking profit from these new discovers to improve the aerodynamic design of the rotors, in view of an increase of the overall efficiency and a reduction of the structural stresses on the blades. A controversial design parameter for Darrieus turbines, especially in case of small-size rotors, is represented by the location of the blade-spoke connection along the chord. The most common solution is indeed to place the connection at approximately airfoil’s quarter chord, i.e. where the pressure center is commonly located for low incidence angles. In some cases, however, the blade is connected at middle chord due to symmetry or aesthetic reasons. In some small turbines, innovative designs have even disregarded this parameter. Even if one can argue that the blade connection point is about to have some aerodynamic effects on the turbine’s performance, the real impact of this important design parameter is often not fully understood. The present study makes use of extensive CFD simulations on a literature case study, using a NACA 0021 airfoil, to assess the influence of the blade-spoke connection point. In particular, the differences in terms of power coefficient curve of the turbine, optimal tip-speed ratio, torque profiles and stresses on the connection are analyzed and discussed. Detailed flow analyses are also shown for azimuthal positions of particular interest. Results on the selected case study showed that the middle-chord blade-spoke connection point seems to guarantee a higher performance of the rotor, even if additional solicitation is applied to the connection itself. It is further shown that the same performance can indeed be obtained with the airfoil attached at quarter chord and properly pitched. By doing so, the stresses are contained and the performance is maximized.

A Transient 3D CFD Model of a Progressive Cavity Pump

A progressive cavity pump (PCP) is a positive displacement pump and has been used as an artificial lift method in the oil and gas industry for pumping fluid with solid content and high viscosity. In a PCP, a single-lobe rotor rotates inside a double-lobe stator. Articles on computational works for flows through a PCP are limited because of transient behavior of flow, complex geometry and moving boundaries. In this paper, a 3D CFD model has been developed to predict the flow variables at different operating conditions. The flow is considered as incompressible, single phase, transient, and turbulent. The dynamic mesh model in Ansys-Fluent for the rotor mesh movement is used, and a user defined function (UDF) written in C language defines the rotor’s hypocycloid path. The mesh deformation is done with spring based smoothing and local remeshing technique. The computational results are compared with the experiment results available in the literature. Thepump gives maximum flowrate at zero differential pressure.

Experimental Evaluation of Compressor Blade Fouling

Fouling of compressor blades is an important mechanism leading to performance deterioration in gas turbines over time. Experimental and simulation data are available for the impact of specified amounts of fouling on performance, as well as the amount of foulants entering the engine for defined air filtration systems and ambient conditions. This study provides experimental data on the amount of foulants in the air that actually stick to a blade surface for different conditions of the blade surface. Quantitative results both indicate the amount of dust as well as the distribution of dust on the airfoil, for a dry airfoil, as well as airfoils that were wet from ingested water, as well as different types of oil. The retention patterns are correlated with the boundary layer shear stress. The tests show the higher dust retention from wet surfaces compared to dry surfaces. They also provide information about the behavior of the particles after they impact on the blade surface, showing that for a certain amount of wet film thickness, the shear forces actually wash the dust downstream, and off the airfoil. Further, the effect of particle agglomeration of particles to form larger clusters was observed, which would explain the disproportional impact of very small particles on boundary layer losses.

Performance Analysis and Comparison Study of Transcritical Power Cycles Using CO2-Based Mixtures as Working Fluids

CO2 in a transcritical CO2 cycle can not easily be condensed due to its low critical temperature (304.15K). In order to increase the critical temperature of working fluid, an effective method is to blend CO2 with other refrigerants to achieve a higher critical temperature. In this study, a transcritical power cycle using CO2-based mixtures which blend CO2 with other refrigerants as working fluids is investigated under heat source. Mathematical models are established to simulate the transcritical power cycle using different CO2-based mixtures under MATLAB® software environment. A parametric analysis is conducted under steady-state conditions for different CO2-based mixtures. In addition, a parametric optimization is carried out to obtain the optimal design parameters, and the comparisons of the transcritical power cycle using different CO2-based mixtures and pure CO2 are conducted. The results show that a raise in critical temperature can be achieved by using CO2-based mixtures, and CO2-based mixtures with R32 and R22 can also obtain better thermodynamic performance than pure CO2 in transcritical power cycle. What’s more, the condenser area needed by CO2-based mixture is smaller than pure CO2.

A Preliminary Study of the Blade Erosion for a Wind Turbine Operating in a Dusty Environment

The process of surface erosion due to particle collision has been the focus of a number of investigations with regards to gas turbine engines, aircraft, reentry missiles, pipelines carrying coal slurry, etc. Recently, increased interest in wind energy by countries in the Saharan regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) brings about some concern about leading edge erosion of wind turbines operating under such dusty conditions. Leading edge erosion can have a detrimental impact on the extracted energy as it changes the blade surface roughness causing premature/unpredictable separation. Though erosion may not be easily avoided; it may be mitigated via using airfoil families characterized by low roughness sensitivity. In this paper, a model of an airfoil erosion subjected to sand blasting is developed using the discrete phase modeling capability in ANSYS-FLUENT along with the DNV erosion model. The effect of various flow parameters, such as angle of attack, and particle size, on the extent of erosion is investigated for a number of airfoil designs. The developed model is used as a predictive tool to assess the power deterioration of eroded wind blades.

S-CO2 Turbine Design for Decay Heat Removal System of Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor

A Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) has receiving attention as one of the promising next generation nuclear reactors because it can recycle the spent nuclear fuel produced from the current commercial nuclear reactors and accomplish higher thermal efficiency than the current commercial nuclear reactors. However, after shutdown of the nuclear reactor core, the accumulated fission products of the SFR also decay and release heat via radiation within the reactor. To remove this residual heat, a decay heat removal system (DHRS) with supercritical CO2 (S-CO2) as the working fluid is suggested with a turbocharger system which achieves passive operational capability. However, for designing this system an improved S-CO2 turbine design methodology should be suggested because the existing methodology for designing the S-CO2 Brayton cycle has focused only on the compressor design near the critical point. To develop a S-CO2 turbine design methodology, the non-dimensional number based design and the 1D mean line design method were modified and suggested. The design methodology was implemented into the developed code and the code results were compared with existing turbine experimental data. The data were collected under air and S-CO2 environment. The developed code in this research showed a reasonable agreement with the experimental data. Finally using the design code, the turbocharger design for the suggested DHRS and prediction of the off design performance were carried out. As further works, more effort will be put it to expand the S-CO2 turbine test data for validating the design code and methodology.

Effects of Airfoil’s Polar Data in the Stall Region on the Estimation of Darrieus Wind Turbine Performance

Interest in vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) is experiencing a renaissance after most major research projects came to a standstill in the mid 90’s, in favour of conventional horizontal-axis turbines (HAWTs). Nowadays, the inherent advantages of the VAWT concept, especially in the Darrieus configuration, may outweigh their disadvantages in specific applications, like the urban context or floating platforms. To enable these concepts further, efficient, accurate, and robust aerodynamic prediction tools and design guidelines are needed for VAWTs, for which low-order simulation methods have not reached yet a maturity comparable to that of the Blade Element Momentum Theory for HAWTs’ applications. The two computationally efficient methods that are presently capable of capturing the unsteady aerodynamics of Darrieus turbines are the Double Multiple Streamtubes (DMS) Theory, based on momentum balances, and the Lifting Line Theory (LLT) coupled to a free vortex wake model. Both methods make use of tabulated lift and drag coefficients to compute the blade forces. Since the incidence angles range experienced by a VAWT blade is much wider than that of a HAWT blade, the accuracy of polars in describing the stall region and the transition towards the “thin plate like” behaviour has a large effect on simulation results. This paper will demonstrate the importance of stall and post-stall data handling in the performance estimation of Darrieus VAWTs. Using validated CFD simulations as a baseline, comparisons are provided for a blade in VAWT-like motion based on a DMS and a LLT code employing three sets of post-stall data obtained from a wind tunnel campaign, XFoil predictions extrapolated with the Viterna-Corrigan model and a combination of them. The polar extrapolation influence on quasi-steady operating conditions is shown and azimuthal variations of thrust and torque are compared for exemplary tip-speed ratios (TSRs). In addition, the major relevance of a proper dynamic stall model into both simulation methods is highlighted and discussed.

Numerical Method for Simulating Flows of Supercritical CO2 Compressor With Nonequilibrium Condensation

We recently proposed a numerical method for simulating flows of supercritical CO2 based on a preconditioning method and the thermophysical models programed in a program package for thermophysical properties of fluids (PROPATH). In this study, this method is applied to the investigation of cascade channel. Numerical results obtained by assuming supercritical pressure conditions indicate that the normal shock generated in the cascade channel deeply depends on the pressure condition. In particular, the speed of sound varying with the pressure variation at the supercritical state is a key thermophysical property which changes the flow field in the cascade channel. In addition, we also simulate those flows with nonequilibrium condensation in which the inlet pressure and temperature approaching to those of the critical point are specified. Then a nonequilibrium condensation model developed by our group is further applied to the numerical method. CO2 condensation observed in a case indicates that condensation occurs at a local region near the leading edge due to the flow expansion; the droplets soon grow at the local region and streams downward with keeping almost the same mass fraction.

Wet Compression: Performance Test of a 3D Impeller and Validation of Predictive Model

In the last few years wet compression has received special attention from the oil and gas industry. Here, the development and implementation of new subsea solutions are important focus areas to increase production and recovery from existing fields. This new technology will contribute to exploitation of small and remote fields and access in very deep water. In this regard liquid tolerance represents a viable option to reduce the cost of a subsea compression station bringing considerable simplification to the subsea process itself. However, the industry may experience some drawbacks: the various levels of liquid presence may create operational risk for traditional compressors; the liquid may cause mechanical damage because of erosion and corrosion of the internal units and the compressor performance might be affected too. The experimental investigation conducted in the study considers dry and wet conditions in a laboratory setup to understand how the presence of liquid influences the stage performance. The test campaign has been carried out at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, in Trondheim, to assess the performance and operating range of a tridimensional impeller when processing a mixture of gas and liquid phases. Experimental results allowed validating the OEM internal prediction code for compressors’ performance in wet conditions. Finally, the effect of liquid on machine operability has been assessed through a left-limit investigation by means of dynamic pressure probes readings in order to evaluate the stall/surge behaviour for different values of liquid mass fraction.