Effects of Hot Streak and Airfoil Clocking on Heat Transfer and Aerodynamic Characteristics in Gas Turbine

2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenping Feng ◽  
Zhaofang Liu ◽  
Yan Shi ◽  
Zhiduo Wang

The effects of the hot streak and airfoil clocking on the heat transfer and aerodynamic characteristics in a high pressure (HP) gas turbine have been investigated in this paper. The blade geometry is taken from the first 1.5 stage turbine of GE-E3 engine. To study the effect of hot streak clocking, three cases under nonuniform and uniform inlet temperature boundary conditions were simulated first. Subsequently, four clocking positions (CPs) of S2 (second stator) were arranged in these three cases to study the combined effect of hot streak and airfoil clocking. By solving the unsteady compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations, time-dependent solutions for the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the 1.5 stage turbine were obtained. The results indicate that impinged by different inlet temperature profiles, the heat flux distribution on S1 (first stator) blade varies significantly. Due to the separation of hot and cold fluid, more hot fluid flows toward pressure side (PS) of R1 (first rotor) and worsens the heat transfer environment there. The high heat flux on the R1 blade surface is controlled not only by the high heat transfer coefficient but also by the large temperature difference. By adjusting the CPs of S2, the hot streak fragments from the upstream could be guided to different places in S2 passage, to reduce the heat load on S2 blade surface. In view of the influence of the heat transfer characteristics, the nonadiabatic efficiency is calculated. The combined effects of the hot streak and airfoil clocking have been discussed, and the proper matching position for the two kinds of clocking could be selected for a higher nonadiabatic efficiency and lower heat load on S2 blade and end walls.

Author(s):  
A. Rahim ◽  
L. He ◽  
E. Romero

One of the key considerations in high pressure (HP) turbine design is the heat load experienced by rotor blades. The impact of turbine inlet non-uniformities on the blades in the form of combined temperature and velocity traverses, typical for a lean burn combustor exit, has rarely been studied. For general HP turbine aerothermal designs, it is also of interest to understand how the behavior of a lean burn combustor traverses (hot streak and swirl) might contrast with those for rich burn combustion (largely hot streak only). In the present work, a computational study has been carried out on the aerothermal performance of a HP turbine stage under non-uniform temperature and velocity inlet profiles. The analyses are primarily conducted for two combined hot streak and swirl inlets, with opposite swirl directions. In addition, comparisons are made against a hot streak only case and a uniform inlet. The effects of three NGV shape configurations are investigated; namely, straight, compound lean (CL) and reverse compound lean (RCL). The present results show that there is a qualitative change in the roles played by heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and fluid driving (‘adiabatic wall’) temperature, Taw. It has been shown that the blade heat load distribution for a uniform inlet is dominated by HTC, whilst for a hot streak only case it is wholly influenced by Taw. However, in contrast to the hot streak only case, the case with a combined hot streak and swirl shows a role reversal with the HTC being dominant in determining the heat load. Additionally, it is seen that the swirling flow radially redistributes the hot fluid within the NGV passage considerably, leading to a much ‘flatter’ rotor inlet temperature profile compared to its hot streak only counterpart. Further, the rotor heat transfer characteristics for the cases with the combined traverses are shown to be strongly dependent on the NGV shaping and the inlet swirl direction, indicating the potential for future design space exploration. The present findings underline the need to clearly define relevant combustor exit temperature and velocity profiles when designing and optimizing NGVs for HP turbine aerothermal performance.


2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (21-22) ◽  
pp. 5400-5414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Agostini ◽  
John Richard Thome ◽  
Matteo Fabbri ◽  
Bruno Michel ◽  
Daniele Calmi ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Randall Mathison

Short-duration facilities have been used for the past thirty-five years to obtain measurements of heat transfer, aerodynamic loading, vibratory response, film-cooling influence, purge flow migration, and aeroperformance for full-stage high-pressure turbines operating at design corrected conditions of flow function, corrected speed, and stage pressure ratio. This paper traces the development of experimental techniques now in use at The Ohio State University (OSU) Gas Turbine Laboratory (GTL) from initial work in this area at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL, later to become Calspan) in 1975 through to the present. It is intended to summarize the wide range of research that can be performed with a short-duration facility and highlight the types of measurements that are possible. Beginning with heat-flux measurements for the vane and blade of a Garrett TFE 731-2 HP turbine stage with vane pressure-surface slot cooling, the challenge of each experimental program has been to provide data to aid turbine designers in understanding the relevant flow physics and help drive the advancement of predictive techniques. Through many different programs, this has involved collaborators at a variety of companies and experiments performed with turbine stages from Garrett, Allison, Teledyne, Pratt and Whitney, General Electric Aviation, Rocketdyne, Westinghouse, and Honeywell. The Vane/Blade Interaction measurement and CFD program, which ran from the early eighties until 2000, provided a particularly good example of what can be achieved when experimentalists and computational specialists collaborate closely. Before conclusion of this program in 2000, the heat-flux and pressure measurements made for this transonic turbine operated with and without vane trailing edge cooling flow were analyzed and compared to predictive codes in conjunction with engineers at Allison, United Technologies Research Center, Pratt and Whitney, and GE Aviation in jointly published papers. When the group moved to OSU in 1995 along with the facility used at Calspan, refined techniques were needed to meet new research challenges such as investigating blade damping and forced response, measuring aeroperformance for different configurations, and preparing for advanced cooling experiments that introduced complicating features of an actual engine to further challenge computational predictions. This required conversion of the test-gas heating method from a shock-tunnel approach to a blowdown approach using a combustor emulator to also create inlet temperature profiles, the development of instrumentation techniques to work with a thin-walled airfoil with backside cooling, and the adoption of experimental techniques that could be used to successfully operate fully cooled turbine stages (vane row cooled, blade row cooled, and proper cavity purge flow provided). Further, it was necessary to develop techniques for measuring the aeroperformance of these fully cooled machines.


Author(s):  
A. Rahim ◽  
B. Khanal ◽  
L. He ◽  
E. Romero

One of the most widely studied parameters in turbine blade shaping is blade lean, i.e. the tangential displacement of spanwise sections. However, there is a lack of published research that investigates the effect of blade lean under non-uniform temperature conditions (commonly referred to as a ‘hot-streak’) that are present at the combustor exit. Of particular interest is the impact of such an inflow temperature profile on heat transfer when the NGV blades are shaped. In the present work a computational study has been carried out for a transonic turbine stage using an efficient unsteady Navier-Stokes solver (HYDRA). The configurations with a nominal vane and a compound leaned vane under uniform and hot-streak inlet conditions are analysed. After confirming the typical NGV loading and aero-loss redistributions as seen in previous literature on blade lean, the focus has been directed to the rotor aerothermal behavior. Whilst the overall stage efficiencies for the configurations are largely comparable, the results show strikingly different rotor heat transfer characteristics. For a uniform inlet, a leaned NGV has a detrimental effect on the rotor heat transfer. However, once the hot-streak is introduced, the trend is reversed; the leaned NGV leads to favourable heat transfer characteristics in general and for the rotor tip region in particular. The possible causal links for the observed aerothermal features are discussed. The present findings also highlight the significance of evaluating NGV shaping designs under properly conditioned inflow profiles, rather than extrapolating the wisdom derived from uniform inlet cases. The results also underline the importance of including rotor heat transfer and coolability during the NGV design process.


Author(s):  
A. Rahim ◽  
L. He

A key consideration in high pressure (HP) turbine designs is the heat load experienced by rotor blades. Impact of turbine inlet nonuniformity of combined temperature and velocity traverses, typical for a lean-burn combustor exit, has rarely been studied. For general turbine aerothermal designs, it is also of interest to understand how the behavior of lean-burn combustor traverses (with both hot-streak and swirl) might contrast with those for a rich-burn combustor (largely hot-streak only). In the present work, a computational study has been carried out on the aerothermal performance of a HP turbine stage under nonuniform temperature and velocity inlet profiles. The analyses are primarily conducted for two combined hot-streak and swirl inlets, with opposite swirl directions. In addition, comparisons are made against a hot-streak only case and a uniform inlet. The effects of three nozzle guide vane (NGV) shape configurations are investigated: straight, compound lean (CL) and reverse CL (RCL). The present results reveal a qualitative change in the roles played by heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and fluid driving (“adiabatic wall”) temperature, Taw. It has been shown that the blade heat load for a uniform inlet is dominated by HTC, whilst a hot-streak only case is largely influenced by Taw. However, in contrast to the hot-streak only case, a combined hot-streak and swirl case shows a role reversal with the HTC being a dominant factor. Additionally, it is seen that the swirling flow redistributes radially the hot fluid within the NGV passage considerably, leading to a much ‘flatter’ rotor inlet temperature profile compared to its hot-streak only counterpart. Furthermore, the rotor heat transfer characteristics for the combined traverses are shown to be strongly dependent on the NGV shaping and the inlet swirl direction, indicating a potential for further design space exploration. The present findings underline the need to clearly define relevant combustor exit temperature and velocity profiles when designing and optimizing NGVs for HP turbine aerothermal performance.


Author(s):  
Zhiduo Wang ◽  
Wenhao Zhang ◽  
Zhaofang Liu ◽  
Chen Zhang ◽  
Zhenping Feng

In this paper, unsteady RANS simulations were performed at two hot streak (HS) circumferential positions with inlet turbulence intensity of 5% and 20%. The interacted HS and high mainstream turbulence effects on endwall heat transfer characteristics of a high-pressure (HP) turbine were discussed by analyzing the flow structures and presenting the endwall adiabatic wall temperature, heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and heat flux distributions. The results indicate that both the wall temperature and HTC increase with the turbulence intensity at most stator endwall regions. In addition, the increase of wall temperature plays a greater role than HTC of influencing the wall heat flux. However, higher turbulence intensity decreases the intensity of the stator passage horse-shoe vortex, also the corresponding region HTC and heat flux are reduced. In rotor passage, the variation of HS circumferential position would alter the hub and casing endwall temperature, however, the discrepancy is weakened at higher turbulence. The elevated HS attenuation at higher turbulence results in temperature augmentation at the leading edge of rotor hub and casing endwalls, while temperature decrease after 50% axial chord, thus obtains more uniform temperature distributions on the endwalls. However, the rotor endwall HTC is only augmented significantly at the leading edge on hub endwall, and pressure side and downstream of trailing edge on casing endwall. Variation of HTC and adiabatic wall temperature jointly determines the rotor hub and casing endwall heat flux, and the temperature variation has dominant effects in the most regions. In general, the variation of adiabatic wall temperature and HTC should be considered simultaneously when analyzing the turbine endwall heat transfer characteristics.


2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Rahim ◽  
B. Khanal ◽  
L. He ◽  
E. Romero

One of the most widely studied parameters in turbine blade shaping is blade lean, i.e., the tangential displacement of spanwise sections. However, there is a lack of published research that investigates the effect of blade lean under nonuniform temperature conditions (commonly referred to as a “hot-streak”) that are present at the combustor exit. Of particular interest is the impact of such an inflow temperature profile on heat transfer when the nozzle guide vane (NGV) blades are shaped. In the present work, a computational study has been carried out for a transonic turbine stage using an efficient unsteady Navier–Stokes solver (HYDRA). The configurations with a nominal vane and a compound leaned vane under uniform and hot-streak inlet conditions are analyzed. After confirming the typical NGV loading and aeroloss redistributions as seen in previous literature on blade lean, the focus has been directed to the rotor aerothermal behavior. While the overall stage efficiencies for the configurations are largely comparable, the results show strikingly different rotor heat transfer characteristics. For a uniform inlet, a leaned NGV has a detrimental effect on the rotor heat transfer. However, once the hot-streak is introduced, the trend is reversed; the leaned NGV leads to favorable heat transfer characteristics in general and for the rotor tip region in particular. The possible causal links for the observed aerothermal features are discussed. The present findings also highlight the significance of evaluating NGV shaping designs under properly conditioned inflow profiles, rather than extrapolating the wisdom derived from uniform inlet cases. The results also underline the importance of including rotor heat transfer and coolability during the NGV design process.


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