scholarly journals Turbines for Peace

2000 ◽  
Vol 122 (08) ◽  
pp. 70-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Valenti

This article discusses that military-sponsored research tools can improve the machines that drive civil applications. The Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) researchers tested the engine of the legendary DeHavilland Vampire single seat jet fighter in the late 1940s. This Vampire is owned by Fred Ihlenburg, president of Yakity Yaks Inc., an importer of foreign military aircraft, based in Aurora, Oregon. DERA is investigating heat transfer on turbine blades to help gas turbine manufacturers develop a cooling system that will keep blades at an optimum temperature while minimizing losses in engine performance. More efficient cooling means less air is bled from the compressor, thus improving performance while extending blade life. This work was co-funded by the Central European Commission under the Brite Euram Fourth-Framework Initiative, which is part of the European Union’s strategy to enhance European global competitiveness, and Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry’s Civil Aircraft Research and Technology Demonstration Program. The British program aims to advance the capabilities of the United Kingdom’s civil aerospace companies.

Author(s):  
Craig R. Davison ◽  
Timothy A. Rutke

Multiple volcanoes erupt yearly propelling volcanic ash into the atmosphere and creating an aviation hazard. The plinian eruption type is most likely to create a significant aviation hazard. Plinian eruptions can eject large quantities of fine ash up to an altitude of 50,000 m (164,000 ft). While large airborne particles rapidly fall, smaller particles at reduced concentrations drift for days to weeks as they gradually descend and deposit on the ground. Very small particles, less than 1 μm, can remain aloft for years. An average of three aircraft encounters with volcanic ash was reported every year between 1973 and 2003. Of these, eight resulted in some loss of engine power, including a complete shutdown of all four engines on a Boeing 747. However, no crashes have been attributed to volcanic ash. The major forms of engine damage caused by volcanic ash are: (1) deposition of ash on turbine nozzles and blades due to glassification (2) erosion of compressor and turbine blades (3) carbon deposits on fuel nozzles. The combination of these effects can push the engine to surge and flame out. If a flame out occurs, engine restart may be possible. Less serious engine damage can also occur. In most cases the major damage will require an engine overhaul long before the minor damage becomes an operational issue, but under some conditions no sign of volcanic ash is evident and the turbine cooling system blockage could go unnoticed until an engine inspection is performed. Several organizations provide aircrew procedures to respond to encounters with a volcanic ash cloud. If a volcanic ash encounter is suspected, then an engine inspection, including borescope, should be performed with particular attention given to the turbine cooling system.


Author(s):  
Craig R. Davison ◽  
Tim Rutke

Multiple volcanoes erupt yearly propelling volcanic ash into the atmosphere and creating an aviation hazard. The plinian eruption type is most likely to create a significant aviation hazard. Plinian eruptions can eject large quantities of fine ash up to an altitude of 50,000 m (164,000 feet). While large airborne particles rapidly fall, smaller particles at reduced concentrations drift for days to weeks as they gradually descend and deposit on the ground. Very small particles, less than 1 μm, can remain aloft for years. An average of three aircraft encounters with volcanic ash was reported every year between 1973 and 2003. Of these, 8 resulted in some loss of engine power, including a complete shutdown of all four engines on a Boeing 747. However, no crashes have been attributed to volcanic ash. The major forms of engine damage caused by volcanic ash are: 1. Deposition of ash on turbine nozzles and blades due to glassification 2. Erosion of compressor and turbine blades 3. Carbon deposits on fuel nozzles The combination of these effects can push the engine to surge and flame out. If a flame out occurs, engine restart may be possible. Less serious engine damage can also occur. In most cases the major damage will require an engine overhaul long before the minor damage becomes an operational issue, but under some conditions no sign of volcanic ash is evident and the turbine cooling system blockage could go unnoticed until an engine inspection is performed. Several organizations provide aircrew procedures to respond to encounters with a volcanic ash cloud. If a volcanic ash encounter is suspected, then an engine inspection, including borescope, should be performed with particular attention given to the turbine cooling system.


1968 ◽  
Vol 72 (696) ◽  
pp. 1087-1094 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Bayley ◽  
A. B. Turner

It is well known that the performance of the practical gas turbine cycle, in which compression and expansion are non-isentropic, is critically dependent upon the maximum temperature of the working fluid. In engines in which shaft-power is produced the thermal efficiency and the specific power output rise steadily as the turbine inlet temperature is increased. In jet engines, in which the gas turbine has so far found its greatest success, similar advantages of high temperature operation accrue, more particularly as aircraft speeds increase to utilise the higher resultant jet velocities. Even in high by-pass ratio engines, designed specifically to reduce jet efflux velocities for application to lower speed aircraft, overall engine performance responds very favourably to increased turbine inlet temperatures, in which, moreover, these more severe operating conditions apply continuously during flight, and not only at maximum power as with more conventional cycles.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastien Wylie ◽  
Alexander Bucknell ◽  
Peter Forsyth ◽  
Matthew McGilvray ◽  
David R. H. Gillespie

Internal cooling passages of turbine blades have long been at risk to blockage through the deposition of sand and dust during fleet service life. The ingestion of high volumes of volcanic ash (VA) therefore poses a real risk to engine operability. An additional difficulty is that the cooling system is frequently impossible to inspect in order to assess the level of deposition. This paper reports results from experiments carried out at typical high pressure (HP) turbine blade metal temperatures (1163 K to 1293 K) and coolant inlet temperatures (800 K to 900 K) in engine scale models of a turbine cooling passage with film-cooling offtakes. Volcanic ash samples from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption were used for the majority of the experiments conducted. A further ash sample from the Chaiten eruption allowed the effect of changing ash chemical composition to be investigated. The experimental rig allows the metered delivery of volcanic ash through the coolant system at the start of a test. The key metric indicating blockage is the flow parameter (FP), which can be determined over a range of pressure ratios (1.01–1.06) before and after each experiment, with visual inspection used to determine the deposition location. Results from the experiments have determined the threshold metal temperature at which blockage occurs for the ash samples available, and characterize the reduction of flow parameter with changing particle size distribution, blade metal temperature, ash sample composition, film-cooling hole configuration and pressure ratio across the holes. There is qualitative evidence that hole geometry can be manipulated to decrease the likelihood of blockage. A discrete phase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model implemented in Fluent has allowed the trajectory of the ash particles within the coolant passages to be modeled, and these results are used to help explain the behavior observed.


Author(s):  
Miki Koyama ◽  
Toshio Mimaki

This aims to put the fruits of the R&D; “The Hydrogen Combustion Turbine” in WE-NET Phase I Program(1993-1998) to practical use at an early stage. The topping regenerating cycle was selected as the optimum cycle, with energy efficiency expected to be more than 60%(HHV) under the conditions of the turbine inlet temperature of 1973K(1700°C) and the pressure of 4.8MPa,in it. • As the turbine inlet temperature and pressure increase, issues to be resolved include the amount of NOx emissions and the durability of super alloys for turbine blades under such thermal conditions. In this respect, the development of the highly efficient methane-oxygen combustion technology, the turbine blade cooling technology, and the ultrahigh-temperature materials including thermal barrier coatings is being carried out. • In 1999, the results made it clear that there are little error among the three analytic programs used to verify the system efficiency, it was verified that the burning rate was going to arrive at over 98% from the methane-oxygen combustion test (under the atmospheric pressure). And the type of vane “Film cooling plus recycle type with internal cooling system” was selected as the most suitable vane.


Author(s):  
Sandu Constantin ◽  
Dan Brasoveanu

Abstract The thermal efficiency of gas turbines is critically dependent on the temperature of burnt gases at turbine inlet, the higher this temperature the higher the efficiency. Stochiometric combustion would provide maximum efficiency, but in the absence of an internal cooling system, turbine blades cannot tolerate gas temperatures that exceed 1300 K. Therefore, for this temperature, the thermal efficiency of turbine engine is 40% less than theoretical maximum. Conventional air-cooling techniques of turbine blades allow inlet temperatures of about 1500 K on current operating engines yielding thermal efficiency gains of about 6%. New designs, that incorporate advanced air-cooling methods allows inlet temperatures of 1750–1800 K, with a thermal efficiency gain of about 6% relative to current operating engines. This temperature is near the limit allowed by air-cooling systems. Turbine blades can be cooled with air taken from the compressor or with liquid. Cooling systems with air are easier to design but have a relatively low heat transfer capacity and reduce the efficiency of the engine. Some cooling systems with liquid rely on thermal gradients to promote re-circulation from the tip to the root of turbine blades. In this case, the flow and cooling of liquid are restricted. For best results, cooling systems with liquid should use a pump to re-circulate the coolant. In the past, designers tried to place this pump on the engine stator and therefore were unable to avoid high coolant losses because it is impossible to reliably seal the stator-rotor interface. Therefore it was assumed that cooling systems with liquid could not incorporate pumps. This is an unwarranted assumption as shown studying the system in a moving frame of reference that is linked to the rotor. Here is the crucial fact overlooked by previous designers. The relative motion of engine stator with respect to the rotor is sufficient to motivate a cooling pump. Both the pump and heat exchange system that is required to provide rapid cooling of liquid with cold ambient air, could be located within the rotor. Therefore, the entire cooling system can be encapsulated within the rotor and the sealing problem is circumvented. Compared to recent designs that use advanced air-cooling methods, such a liquid cooling system would increase the thermal efficiency by 8%–11% because the temperatures at turbine inlet can reach stoichiometric levels and most of the heat extracted from turbine during cooling is recuperated. The appreciated high reliability of the system will permit a large applicability in aerospace propulsion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 1178-1207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fazli ◽  
Mehrdad Raisee

PurposeThis paper aims to predict turbulent flow and heat transfer through different channels with periodic dimple/protrusion walls. More specifically, the performance of various low-Rek-ε turbulence models in prediction of local heat transfer coefficient is evaluated.Design/methodology/approachThree low-Re numberk-εturbulence models (the zonalk-ε, the lineark-εand the nonlineark-ε) are used. Computations are performed for three geometries, namely, a channel with a single dimpled wall, a channel with double dimpled walls and a channel with a single dimple/protrusion wall. The predictions are obtained using an in house finite volume code.FindingsThe numerical predictions indicate that the nonlineark-εmodel predicts a larger recirculation bubble inside the dimple with stronger impingement and upwash flow than the zonal and lineark-εmodels. The heat transfer results show that the zonalk-εmodel returns weak thermal predictions in all test cases in comparison to other turbulence models. Use of the lineark-εmodel leads to improvement in heat transfer predictions inside the dimples and their back rim. However, the most accurate thermal predictions are obtained via the nonlineark-εmodel. As expected, the replacement of the algebraic length-scale correction term with the differential version improves the heat transfer predictions of both linear and nonlineark-εmodels.Originality/valueThe most reliable turbulence model of the current study (i.e. nonlineark-εmodel) may be used for design and optimization of various thermal systems using dimples for heat transfer enhancement (e.g. heat exchangers and internal cooling system of gas turbine blades).


1963 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-266

Navigation by the use of inertial information is now an accepted technique for military aircraft and for missiles. In civil aircraft the application of inertial techniques are, as yet, limited to defining the vertical and providing a memory of azimuth direction; that is, as aids to flight rather than a primary or even sole navigational aid. Although the principles applied—the inertial properties of matter and the laws of gravitation—are the same, the accuracy of the inertial sensors differs by some three orders of magnitude, and the cost by some two orders, between these two extremes.Mr. A. Stratton of the Royal Aircraft Establishment first of all presents in perspective the range of application of inertial techniques that are available for civil use and suggests how the information obtained by inertial means can be related to that from other airborne sources. He shows that even if the expense of an accurate inertial platform of ‘navigational’ quality should not be justified, considerable advantage over existing sources obtains in terms of accurate attitude reference, and instantaneous velocity and acceleration, by the use of a lower-grade platform in conjunction with other navigation aids.


2013 ◽  
Vol 465-466 ◽  
pp. 496-499
Author(s):  
Mohd Firdaus Bin Abas ◽  
Abdullah Aslam ◽  
Hamidon bin Salleh ◽  
Nor Adrian Bin Nor Salim

Efforts have been given to improve the turbine blades ability to withstand high temperature for a long period of time by implementing effective cooling system. There are many aspects that should be considered when implementing impingement cooling. This paper will only cover two trending aspects in impingement cooling implementation; the jet-to-target plate distance and the application of ribs in promoting better impingement cooling performance. For target plate distance to impingement jet diameter value, H/d > 1, the area-averaged Nusselt number also decreases as the H/d value increases. This may have been due to a reduction of the amount of momentum exerted by the impinging jets onto the target plate. For H/d < 1, the results have been proven otherwise. Heat transfer in impingement/effusion cooling system in crossflow with rib turbulators showed higher heat transfer rate than that of a surface without ribs because the ribs prevent the wall jets from being swept away by the crossflow and increase local turbulence of the flow near the surface. It could be concluded that both H/d ratio and ribs installation play an important role in enhancing impingement cooling systems heat transfer effectiveness.


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