Effects of Wet Compression on the Flow Behavior of a Centrifugal Compressor: A CFD Analysis

Wet compression has been emerging as a prominent method for augmenting net power output from land based gas turbine engine. It is proven more effective than the conventional inlet cooling methods. In this method, fine water droplets are injected just upstream of the compressor impeller. These water droplets absorb the latent heat of evaporation during the compression process of gas-water droplet two-phase flow, consequently reducing the temperature rise. Many gas turbine engineers have performed the feasibility and usefulness studies on this wet compression, but physical understanding on the wet compression process is highly lacking, and related compression flow mechanism remains ambiguous. In the present study, a computational fluid dynamics method has been applied to investigate the wet compression effects on a low speed centrifugal compressor. A Langrangian particle tracking method was employed to simulate the air-water droplet two-phase flow. The power saving achieved with different injection ratio of water droplets has been calculated and it is found that significant saving can be obtained with a water droplet injection ratio of above 3%. The vapor mass fraction varies linearly along the streamwise direction, making the assumption for a constant evaporation rate is valid. With the increase in the injection ratio the polytropic index for compression is coming down. The diffuser pressure recovery has been improved significantly with the wet compression; while the total pressure ratio across the impeller does not improve much. Contrary to the expectation, the evaporation rate is found to be coming down with the increase in the compressor mass flow rate. It is observed that the operating point, at which the peak pressure ratio occurs, shift towards higher mass flow rate during wet compression due to the local recirculation region within the vaneless space between the impeller and diffuser.

Extensive Experimental Study of Circumferential Single Groove in an Axial Flow Compressor

Circumferential single-groove casing treatment becomes an interesting topic in recent few years, because it is a good tool to explore the interaction between the groove and the flow in blade tip region. The stall margin improvement (SMI) as a function of the axial groove location has been found for some compressors, such a trend cannot be predicted by steady high-fidelity CFD simulations. Recent efforts show that to catch such a trend, multi-passage, unsteady flow simulations are needed as the stalling mechanism itself involves cross-passage flows and unsteady dynamics. This indicates a need to validate unsteady numerical simulation results. In this paper, an extensive experimental study of a total of fifteen single casing grooves in a low-speed axial compressor rotor is presented, the groove location varies from 0.4% to 98.3% of axial tip chord are tested. The unsteady pressure data both at casing and at the blade wake with different groove locations are measured and processed, including the movement of trajectory of tip leakage flow, the evolution of unsteadiness of tip leakage flow (UTLF), the unsteady spectrum signature during the stall process, and the outlet unsteady flow characteristic along the span. These data provide a case study for validation of the unsteady CFD results, and may be helpful for further interpretation on the stalling mechanism affected by circumferential casing grooves.

Investigation of Unsteady Flow Field in a Low-Speed One and a Half Stage Axial Compressor: Effects of Tip Gap Size on the Tip Clearance Flow Structure at Near Stall Operation

The primary focus of this paper is to investigate the effect of rotor tip gap size on how the rotor unsteady tip clearance flow structure changes in a low speed one and half stage axial compressor at near stall operation (for example, where maximum pressure rise is obtained). A Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is applied to calculate the unsteady flow field at this flow condition with both a small and a large tip gaps. The numerically obtained flow fields at the small clearance matches fairly well with the available initial measurements obtained at the Johns Hopkins University with 3-D unsteady PIV in an index-matched test facility which renders the compressor blades and casing optically transparent. With this setup, the unsteady velocity field in the entire flow domain, including the flow inside the tip gap, can be measured. The numerical results are also compared with previously published measurements in a low speed single stage compressor (Maerz et al. [2002]). The current study shows that, with the smaller rotor tip gap, the tip clearance vortex moves to the leading edge plane at near stall operating condition, creating a nearly circumferentially aligned vortex that persists around the entire rotor. On the other hand, with a large tip gap, the clearance vortex stays inside the blade passage at near stall operation. With the large tip gap, flow instability and related large pressure fluctuation at the leading edge are observed in this one and a half stage compressor. Detailed examination of the unsteady flow structure in this compressor stage reveals that the flow instability is due to shed vortices near the leading edge, and not due to a three-dimensional separation vortex originating from the suction side of the blade, which is commonly referred to during a spike-type stall inception. The entire tip clearance flow is highly unsteady. Many vortex structures in the tip clearance flow, including the sheet vortex system near the casing, interact with each other. The core tip clearance vortex, which is formed with the rotor tip gap flows near the leading edge, is also highly unsteady or intermittent due to pressure oscillations near the leading edge and varies from passage to passage. For the current compressor stage, the evidence does not seem to support that a classical vortex breakup occurs in any organized way, even with the large tip gap. Although wakes from the IGV influence the tip clearance flow in the rotor, the major characteristics of rotor tip clearance flows in isolated or single stage rotors are observed in this one and a half stage axial compressor.

Compressible Direct Numerical Simulation of Low-Pressure Turbines: Part I — Methodology

Modern low pressure turbines (LPT) feature high pressure ratios and moderate Mach and Reynolds numbers, increasing the possibility of laminar boundary-layer separation on the blades. Upstream disturbances including background turbulence and incoming wakes have a profound effect on the behavior of separation bubbles and the type/location of laminar-turbulent transition and therefore need to be considered in LPT design. URANS are often found inadequate to resolve the complex wake dynamics and impact of these environmental parameters on the boundary layers and may not drive the design to the best aerodynamic efficiency. LES can partly improve the accuracy, but has difficulties in predicting boundary layer transition and capturing the delay of laminar separation with varying inlet turbulence levels. Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) is able to overcome these limitations but has to date been considered too computationally expensive. Here a novel compressible DNS code is presented and validated, promising to make DNS practical for LPT studies. Also, the sensitivity of wake loss coefficient with respect to freestream turbulence levels below 1% is discussed.

Some Guidelines for the Experimental Characterization of Vaneless Diffuser Rotating Stall in Stages of Industrial Centrifugal Compressors

An accurate estimation of rotating stall is one of the key technologies for high-pressure centrifugal compressors, as it is often connected with the onset of detrimental subsynchronous vibrations which can prevent the machine from operating beyond this limit. With particular reference to the vaneless diffuser stall, much research has been directed at investigating the physics of the phenomenon, the influence of the main design parameters and the prediction of the stall inception. Few of them, however, focused attention on the evaluation of the aerodynamic unbalance due to the induced pressure field in the diffuser, which, however, could provide a valuable contribution to both the identification of the actual operating conditions and the enhancement of the compressor operating range by a suitable choice of the control strategy. Although advanced experimental techniques have been successfully applied to the recognition of the stall pattern in a vaneless diffuser, the most suitable solution for a wider application in industrial test-models is based on dynamic pressure measurements by means of a reduced number of probes. Within this context, a procedure to transpose pressure measurements into the spatial pressure distribution was developed and validated on a wide set of industrial test-models. In this work, the main guidelines of the procedure are presented and discussed, with particular reference to signals analysis and manipulation as well as sensors positioning. Moreover, the prospects of using a higher number of sensors is analyzed and compared to standard solutions using a limited probes number.

Large Eddy Simulation on the Interactions of Wake and Film-Cooling Near a Leading Edge

The unsteady flow physics due to interactions between a separated shear layer and film cooling jet apart from excitation of periodic passing wake are studied using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). An aerofoil of constant thickness with rounded leading edge induced flow separation, while film cooling jets were injected normal to the crossflow a short distance downstream of the blend point. Wake data extracted from precursor LES of flow past a cylinder are used to replicate a moving bar that generates wakes in front of a cascade (in this case, an infinite row of the model aerofoils). This setup is a simplified representation of rotor-stator interaction in a film cooled gas turbine. The results of numerical simulation are presented to elucidate the formation, convection and breakdown of flow structures associated with the highly anisotropic flow involved in film cooling perturbed by convective wakes. The various vortical structures namely, horseshoe vortex, roller vortex, upright wake vortex, counter rotating vortex pair and DSSN vortex associated with film cooling are resolved. The effects of wake on the evolution of these structures are then discussed.

Numerical Investigation of Impeller Tip Tailoring and its Impact on Aerodynamic Design of a Centrifugal Compressor’s Impeller

The current research focuses on the aerodynamic design of a centrifugal compressor and the effect of tip tailoring on the aerodynamic impeller efficiency. To this extent a high-fidelity multi-point design optimization process has been developed and exploited on a high pressure ratio transonic impeller. By manipulating the shape of the impeller blades and endwalls and by including advanced geometrical features such as winglets on the impeller blades, the behavior of the impeller flow has been investigated. Here, the results of three-dimensional RANS simulations with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model on a structured multi-block mesh is used for the evaluation of the flow characteristics. In the context of radial machines, the results of the aerodynamic design optimization show an important improvement of the impeller isentropic efficiency compared to the reference impeller, with a significant contribution from the presence of the impeller tip winglets. Furthermore, the integration of the impeller winglet has encouraged this study to provide a detailed analysis on the impeller flow structures in order to have a better understanding of the effects of tip tailoring on impeller performance.

3D Unsteady Multi-Stage CFD Analysis of Combustor-Turbine Hot Streak Migration

With gas temperatures far exceeding the melting point of nickel-base alloys, advanced cooling schemes are essential to meet the desired mission life of turbine airfoils. Naturally, combustion systems produce gas-temperature non-uniformity in the exiting flowfield. Downstream turbine components must be tolerant to the maximum anticipated gas temperatures. On the other hand, excessive use of cooling air reduces engine efficiency and compromises combustor durability. Throughout gas turbine design history it has been the desire of Turbine Aerodynamicists to be able to compute combustor hot streak migration and mixing through multiple turbine airfoil stages. Typically, hot streak migration studies have been performed using (a) mixing-plane models between rotating and stationery domains or (b) unsteady simulations in which the flowpath annulus is represented by a segment containing airfoil counts that are integer multiples in each blade row or (c) Non-Linear Harmonic methods. With the development of highly-parallelized Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) codes driving high performance computer clusters simulation of combustor hot streak migration through multiple High Pressure (HP) turbine stages using an unsteady, 360° (full-annulus) model can be achieved. To this end, Honeywell, in collaboration with Numeca Corporation, has performed a study to evaluate the state-of the art for computation of the effect on second-stage HP turbine nozzle metal temperatures of combustor hot streaks migrated through the first-stage of a two-stage HP turbine.

Enhancing the Centrifugal Compressor Performance Map Measurements Through a Developed One–Dimensional Calculation Tool to Analyse Local Flow Phenomena

Centrifugal compressors for automotive turbochargers have large influence on the operation characteristic of combustion engines. Especially the improvement of the surge margin is one of the most important development targets. Thereby, a reliable detection of local flow phenomena within the compressor stage is necessary and a procedure to gain this information from standard measurement data is discussed in this paper. A one–dimensional calculation methodology for a single-stage centrifugal compressor with a vaneless diffuser and casing treatment is presented. The tool calculates the flow properties at the impeller inlet and exit as well as at diffuser exit, based on the measured inlet and outlet data and the geometry information of the compressor. The calculated flow characteristics are plotted within the measured compressor performance map to show local flow parameters. The unsteady recirculation flow within the casing treatment, the inflow angle and the total pressure losses are considered. The tool is validated on different compressor sizes. Thereby the compressor is equipped with static pressure measuring points at the impeller inlet and exit as well as at the diffuser exit. The calculated static pressure correlated well with the measured data with an accuracy of 2 % to 5 % on 95 % of the operating range. In this paper an experimental parameter study is executed in order to improve the surge margin. Thereby the geometry of the diffuser and the casing treatment is varied and the compressor performance is measured on a turbocharger test rig. The calculation of the flow angles and other flow characteristics within the diffuser enables one to find out whether surge is triggered through the diffuser or the impeller.

Aerodynamic Analysis and Multi-Objective Optimization Design of a High Pressure Ratio Centrifugal Impeller

The design of high pressure ratio impellers is a challenging task. SRV2-O, a typical high pressure ratio centrifugal impeller is selected for the research. A good understanding of flow characteristics in the passage of SRV2-O is obtained by using 3D Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solutions upon numerical validation. It confirms that tip leakage flow and shock wave boundary layer interactions produce the primary energy loss in this transonic impeller. A 3D multi-objective aerodynamic optimization and data mining method named BMOE is presented and programmed by integrating a self-adaptive multi-objective differential evolution algorithm SMODE, 3D blade parameterization method based on non-uniformed B-Spline, RANS solver technique and self-organization map (SOM) based data mining technique. Using BMOE, multi-objective aerodynamic design optimization and data mining is performed for SRV2-O. 14 Pareto solutions are obtained for maximizing isentropic efficiency and total pressure ratio of the impeller. Three typical Pareto solutions, Design A with the highest efficiency, Design B with the higher efficiency and larger pressure ratio and Design C with the maximum pressure ratio, are analyzed. Detailed analysis indicates that the aerodynamic performance of optimized designs is greatly improved. Furthermore, by SOM-based data mining on optimization results, trade-off relation between objective functions and parameter influence mechanism on impeller aerodynamic performance are visualized and explored.