Experimental and Numerical Calculation of Turbulent Timescales at the Exit of an Engine Representative Combustor Simulator

Author(s):  
Charlie Koupper ◽  
Laurent Gicquel ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Tommaso Bacci ◽  
Bruno Facchini ◽  
...  

To deepen the knowledge of the interaction between modern lean burn combustors and high pressure (HP) turbines, a nonreactive real scale annular trisector combustor simulator (CS) has been assembled at University of Florence (UNIFI), with the goal of investigating and characterizing the combustor aerothermal field as well as the hot streak transport toward the HP vanes. To generate hot streaks and simulate lean burn combustor behaviors, the rig is equipped with axial swirlers fed by a main air flow stream that is heated up to 531 K, while liners with effusion cooling holes are fed by air at ambient temperature. Detailed experimental investigations are then performed with the aim of characterizing the turbulence quantities at the exit of the combustion module, and specifically evaluating an integral scale of turbulence. To do so, an automatic traverse system is mounted at the exit of the CS and equipped to perform hot wire anemometry (HWA) measurements. In this paper, two-point correlations are computed from the time signal of the axial velocity giving access to an evaluation of the turbulence timescales at each measurement point. For assessment of the advanced numerical method that is large Eddy simulation (LES), the same methodology is applied to a LES prediction of the CS. Although comparisons seem relevant and easily accessible, both approaches and contexts have fundamental differences: mostly in terms of duration of the signals acquired experimentally and numerically but also with potentially different acquisition frequencies. In the exercise that aims at comparing high-order statistics and diagnostics, the specificity of comparing experimental and numerical results is comprehensively discussed. Attention is given to the importance of the acquisition frequency, intrinsic bias of having a short duration signal and influence of the investigating windows. For an adequate evaluation of the turbulent time scales, it is found that comparing experiments and numerics for high Reynolds number flows inferring small-scale phenomena requires to obey a set of rules, otherwise important errors can be made. If adequately processed, LES and HWA are found to agree well indicating the potential of LES for such problems.

Author(s):  
Charlie Koupper ◽  
Tommaso Bacci ◽  
Bruno Facchini ◽  
Alessio Picchi ◽  
Lorenzo Tarchi ◽  
...  

To deepen the knowledge of the interaction between modern lean burn combustors and high pressure turbines, a non-reactive real scale annular trisector Combustor Simulator (CS) has been assembled at University of Florence, with the goal of investigating and characterizing the combustor aerothermal field as well as the hot streak transport towards the high pressure vanes. To generate hot streaks and simulate lean burn combustor behaviors, the rig is equipped with axial swirlers fed by a main air flow stream that is heated up to 531 K, while liners with effusion cooling holes are fed by air at ambient temperature. Detailed experimental investigations are then performed with the aim of characterizing the turbulence quantities at the exit of the combustion module, and specifically evaluating an integral scale of turbulence. To do so, an automatic traverse system is mounted at the exit of the CS and equipped to perform Hot Wire Anemometry (HWA) measurements. In this paper, two-point correlations are computed from the time signal of the axial velocity giving access to an evaluation of the turbulence timescales at each measurement point. For assessment of the advanced numerical method that is Large Eddy Simulation (LES), the same methodology is applied to a LES prediction of the CS. Although comparisons seem relevant and easily accessible, both approaches and contexts have fundamental differences: mostly in terms of duration of the signals acquired experimentally and numerically but also with potentially different acquisition frequencies. In the exercise that aims at comparing high-order statistics and diagnostics, the specificity of comparing experimental and numerical results is comprehensively discussed. Attention is given to the importance of the acquisition frequency, intrinsic bias of having a short duration signal and influence of the investigating windows. For an adequate evaluation of the turbulent time scales, it is found that comparing experiments and numerics for high Reynolds number flows inferring small-scale phenomena requires to obey a set of rules, otherwise important errors can be made. If adequately processed, LES and HWA are found to agree well indicating the potential of LES for such problems.


Author(s):  
Tommaso Bacci ◽  
Tommaso Lenzi ◽  
Alessio Picchi ◽  
Lorenzo Mazzei ◽  
Bruno Facchini

Modern lean burn aero-engine combustors make use of relevant swirl degrees for flame stabilization. Moreover, important temperature distortions are generated, in tangential and radial directions, due to discrete fuel injection and liner cooling flows respectively. At the same time, more efficient devices are employed for liner cooling and a less intense mixing with the mainstream occurs. As a result, aggressive swirl fields, high turbulence intensities, and strong hot streaks are achieved at the turbine inlet. In order to understand combustor-turbine flow field interactions, it is mandatory to collect reliable experimental data at representative flow conditions. While the separated effects of temperature, swirl, and turbulence on the first turbine stage have been widely investigated, reduced experimental data is available when it comes to consider all these factors together.In this perspective, an annular three-sector combustor simulator with fully cooled high pressure vanes has been designed and installed at the THT Lab of University of Florence. The test rig is equipped with three axial swirlers, effusion cooled liners, and six film cooled high pressure vanes passages, for a vortex-to-vane count ratio of 1:2. The relative clocking position between swirlers and vanes has been chosen in order to have the leading edge of the central NGV aligned with the central swirler. In order to generate representative conditions, a heated mainstream passes though the axial swirlers of the combustor simulator, while the effusion cooled liners are fed by air at ambient temperature. The resulting flow field exiting from the combustor simulator and approaching the cooled vane can be considered representative of a modern Lean Burn aero engine combustor with swirl angles above ±50 deg, turbulence intensities up to about 28% and maximum-to-minimum temperature ratio of about 1.25. With the final aim of investigating the hot streaks evolution through the cooled high pressure vane, the mean aerothermal field (temperature, pressure, and velocity fields) has been evaluated by means of a five-hole probe equipped with a thermocouple and traversed upstream and downstream of the NGV cascade.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bastine ◽  
Lukas Vollmer ◽  
Matthias Wächter ◽  
Joachim Peinke

Abstract. In this work, large eddy simulation data is analyzed to investigate a new stochastic modeling approach for the wake of a wind turbine. The data is generated by the LES model PALM combined with an actuator disk with rotation representing the turbine. After applying a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), three different stochastic models for the weighting coefficients of the POD modes are deduced resulting in three wake models. Their performance is investigated mainly on the basis of aeroelastic simulations of a wind turbine in the wake. Three different load cases and their statistic characteristics are compared for the original LES, truncated PODs and the stochastic wake models including different numbers of POD modes. It is shown that approximately six POD modes are enough to capture the load dynamics on large temporal scales. Modeling the weighting coefficients as independent stochastic processes leads to similar load characteristics as in the case of the truncated POD. To complete this simplified wake description, we show evidence that the small-scale dynamics can be grasped by adding to our model a homogeneous turbulent field. In this way, we present a procedure how to derive stochastic wake models from costly CFD calculations or elaborated experimental investigations. These numerically efficient models provide the added value of possible long-term studies. Depending on the aspects of interest, different minimalized models may be obtained.


Author(s):  
T. Bacci ◽  
T. Lenzi ◽  
A. Picchi ◽  
L. Mazzei ◽  
B. Facchini

Modern lean burn aero-engine combustors make use of relevant swirl degrees for flame stabilization. Moreover important temperature distortions are generated, in tangential and radial directions, due to discrete fuel injection and liner cooling flows respectively. At the same time, more efficient devices are employed for liner cooling and a less intense mixing with the mainstream occurs. As a result, aggressive swirl fields, high turbulence intensities and strong hot streaks are achieved at the turbine inlet. In order to understand combustor-turbine flow field interactions, it is mandatory to collect reliable experimental data at representative flow conditions. While the separated effects of temperature, swirl and turbulence on the first turbine stage have been widely investigated, reduced experimental data is available when it comes to consider all these factors together. In this perspective, an annular three-sector combustor simulator with fully cooled high pressure vanes has been designed and installed at the THT Lab of University of Florence. The test rig is equipped with three axial swirlers, effusion cooled liners and six film cooled high pressure vanes passages, for a vortex-to-vane count ratio of 1:2. The relative clocking position between swirlers and vanes has been chosen in order to have the leading edge of the central NGV aligned with the central swirler. In order to generate representative conditions, a heated mainstream passes though the axial swirlers of the combustor simulator, while the effusion cooled liners are fed by air at ambient temperature. The resulting flow field exiting from the combustor simulator and approaching the cooled vane can be considered representative of a modern Lean Burn aero engine combustor with swirl angles above ±50°, turbulence intensities up to about 28% and maximum-to-minimum temperature ratio of about 1.25. With the final aim of investigating the hot streaks evolution through the cooled high pressure vane, the mean aerothermal field (temperature, pressure and velocity fields) has been evaluated by means of a five hole probe equipped with a thermocouple and traversed upstream and downstream of the NGV cascade.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Koupper ◽  
Gianluca Caciolli ◽  
Laurent Gicquel ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Guillaume Bonneau ◽  
...  

Nowadays, the lack of confidence in the prediction of combustor-turbine interactions and more specifically our ability to predict the migration of hot spots through this interface leads to the application of extra safety margins, which are detrimental to an optimized turbine design and efficiency. To understand the physics and flow at this interface, a full 360 deg nonreactive combustor simulator (CS) representative of a recent lean burn chamber together with a 1.5 turbine stage is instrumented at DLR in Gottingen (Germany) within the European project FACTOR. The chamber operates with axial swirlers especially designed to reproduce engine-realistic velocity and temperature distortion profiles, allowing the investigation of the hot streaks transport through the high pressure (HP) stage. First, a true scale three injector annular sector of the CS without turbine is assembled and tested at the University of Florence. To generate the hot steaks, the swirlers are fed by an air flow at 531 K, while the liners are cooled by an effusion system fed with air at ambient temperature. In addition to static pressure taps and thermocouples, the test rig will be equipped with an automatic traverse system which allows detailed measurements at the combustor exit by means of a 5-hole probe, a thermocouple, and hot wire anemometers. This paper presents the design process and instrumentation of the trisector CS, with a special focus on large Eddy simulations (LES) which were widely used to validate the design choices. It was indeed decided to take advantage of the ability and maturity of LES to properly capture turbulence and mixing within combustion chambers, despite an increased computational cost as compared to usual Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) approaches. For preliminary design, simulations of a single periodic sector (representative of the DLR full annular rig) are compared to simulations of the trisector test rig, showing no difference on the central swirler predictions, comforting the choice for the trisector. In parallel, to allow hot wire anemometry (HWA) measurements, the selection of an isothermal operating point, representative of the nominal point, is assessed and validated by use of LES.


Author(s):  
Charlie Koupper ◽  
Guillaume Bonneau ◽  
Gianluca Caciolli ◽  
Bruno Facchini ◽  
Lorenzo Tarchi ◽  
...  

Nowadays, the lack of confidence in the prediction of combustor-turbine interactions and more specifically our ability to predict the migration of hot spots through this interface leads to the application of extra safety margins, which are detrimental to an optimized turbine design and efficiency. To understand the physics and flow at this interface, a full 360° non-reactive combustor simulator representative of a recent lean burn chamber together with a 1.5 turbine stage is instrumented at DLR in Gottingen (Germany) within the European project FACTOR. The chamber operates with axial swirlers especially designed to reproduce engine-realistic velocity and temperature distortion profiles allowing the investigation of the hot streaks transport through the high pressure stage. First, a true scale three injector annular sector of the combustor simulator without turbine is assembled and tested at the University of Florence. To generate the hot steaks the swirlers are fed by an air flow at 531 K, while the liners are cooled by an effusion system fed with air at ambient temperature. In addition to static pressure taps and thermocouples, the test rig will be equipped with an automatic traverse system which allows detailed measurements at the combustor exit by means of a 5-hole probe, a thermocouple and hot wire anemometers. This paper presents the design process and instrumentation of the trisector combustor simulator, with a special focus on Large Eddy Simulations (LES) which were widely used to validate the design choices. It was indeed decided to take advantage of the ability and maturity of LES to properly capture turbulence and mixing within combustion chambers, despite an increased computational cost as compared to usual RANS approaches. For preliminary design, simulations of a single periodic sector (representative of the DLR full annular rig) are compared to simulations of the trisector test rig, showing no difference on the central swirler predictions, comforting the choice for the trisector. In parallel, to allow hot wire anemometry measurements, the selection of an isothermal operating point, representative of the nominal point, is assessed and validated by use of LES.


Author(s):  
Michael Leschziner ◽  
Ning Li ◽  
Fabrizio Tessicini

This paper provides a discussion of several aspects of the construction of approaches that combine statistical (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes, RANS) models with large eddy simulation (LES), with the objective of making LES an economically viable method for predicting complex, high Reynolds number turbulent flows. The first part provides a review of alternative approaches, highlighting their rationale and major elements. Next, two particular methods are introduced in greater detail: one based on coupling near-wall RANS models to the outer LES domain on a single contiguous mesh, and the other involving the application of the RANS and LES procedures on separate zones, the former confined to a thin near-wall layer. Examples for their performance are included for channel flow and, in the case of the zonal strategy, for three separated flows. Finally, a discussion of prospects is given, as viewed from the writer's perspective.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 7167
Author(s):  
Liang Xu ◽  
Xu Zhao ◽  
Lei Xi ◽  
Yonghao Ma ◽  
Jianmin Gao ◽  
...  

Swirling impinging jet (SIJ) is considered as an effective means to achieve uniform cooling at high heat transfer rates, and the complex flow structure and its mechanism of enhancing heat transfer have attracted much attention in recent years. The large eddy simulation (LES) technique is employed to analyze the flow fields of swirling and non-swirling impinging jet emanating from a hole with four spiral and straight grooves, respectively, at a relatively high Reynolds number (Re) of 16,000 and a small jet spacing of H/D = 2 on a concave surface with uniform heat flux. Firstly, this work analyzes two different sub-grid stress models, and LES with the wall-adapting local eddy-viscosity model (WALEM) is established for accurately predicting flow and heat transfer performance of SIJ on a flat surface. The complex flow field structures, spectral characteristics, time-averaged flow characteristics and heat transfer on the target surface for the swirling and non-swirling impinging jets are compared in detail using the established method. The results show that small-scale recirculation vortices near the wall change the nearby flow into an unstable microwave state, resulting in small-scale fluctuation of the local Nusselt number (Nu) of the wall. There is a stable recirculation vortex at the stagnation point of the target surface, and the axial and radial fluctuating speeds are consistent with the fluctuating wall temperature. With the increase in the radial radius away from the stagnation point, the main frequency of the fluctuation of wall temperature coincides with the main frequency of the fluctuation of radial fluctuating velocity at x/D = 0.5. Compared with 0° straight hole, 45° spiral hole has a larger fluctuating speed because of speed deflection, resulting in a larger turbulence intensity and a stronger air transport capacity. The heat transfer intensity of the 45° spiral hole on the target surface is slightly improved within 5–10%.


2008 ◽  
Vol 615 ◽  
pp. 371-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. DONG

We report three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of the turbulent flow between counter-rotating concentric cylinders with a radius ratio 0.5. The inner- and outer-cylinder Reynolds numbers have the same magnitude, which ranges from 500 to 4000 in the simulations. We show that with the increase of Reynolds number, the prevailing structures in the flow are azimuthal vortices with scales much smaller than the cylinder gap. At high Reynolds numbers, while the instantaneous small-scale vortices permeate the entire domain, the large-scale Taylor vortex motions manifested by the time-averaged field do not penetrate a layer of fluid near the outer cylinder. Comparisons between the standard Taylor–Couette system (rotating inner cylinder, fixed outer cylinder) and the counter-rotating system demonstrate the profound effects of the Coriolis force on the mean flow and other statistical quantities. The dynamical and statistical features of the flow have been investigated in detail.


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