Developing Swirl Boundary Layer and Flow Separation at the Inlet of a Coaxial Rotating Diffuser or Nozzle

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand-J. Cloos ◽  
Peter F. Pelz

When an axial flow enters a rotating diffuser or nozzle, a swirl boundary layer appears at the wall and interacts with the axial boundary layer. Below a critical flow number φc, there is a flow separation, known in the turbomachinery context as part load recirculation. This paper extends the previous work for a cylindrical coaxial rotating pipe still considering the influence of the centrifugal force by varying the pipe's radius, yielding a coaxial rotating circular diffuser or nozzle. The integral method of boundary layer theory is used to describe the flow at the inlet of a rotating circular diffuser or nozzle, obtaining a generalized von Kármán momentum equation. This work conducts experiments to validate the analytical results and shows the influence of Reynolds number, flow number, apex angle, and surface roughness on the boundary layers evolution. By doing so, a critical flow number for incipient flow separation is analytically derived, resulting in a stability map for part load recirculation depending on Reynolds number and apex angle. Hereby, positive apex angles (diffuser) and negative apex angles (nozzle) are considered.

2016 ◽  
Vol 811 ◽  
pp. 350-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.-J. Cloos ◽  
D. Stapp ◽  
P. F. Pelz

When a fluid enters a rotating circular pipe, an angular momentum or swirl boundary layer appears at the wall and interacts with the axial momentum boundary layer. In the centre of the pipe, the fluid is free of swirl and is accelerated due to boundary layer growth. Below a critical flow number, defined as the ratio of average axial velocity to circumferential velocity of the pipe, there is flow separation, known in the turbomachinery context as part load recirculation. To describe this phenomenon analytically, we extended boundary layer theory to a swirl boundary layer interacting with the axial momentum boundary layer. The solution of the resulting generalized von Kármán momentum equation takes into account the influence of the Reynolds number and flow number. We show the impact of swirl on the axial boundary layer and conduct experiments in which we vary Reynolds number, flow number and surface roughness to validate the analytical results. The extended boundary layer theory predicts a critical flow number which is analytically derived and validated. Below this critical flow number, separation is expected.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand-J. Cloos ◽  
Peter F. Pelz

When a fluid enters a rotating pipe, a swirl boundary layer with thickness of δ̃S appears at the wall and interacts with the axial momentum boundary layer with thickness of δ̃. The swirl is produced by the wall shear stress and not due to kinematic reasons as by a turbomachine. In the center of the pipe, the fluid is swirl-free and is accelerated due to axial boundary layer growth. Below a critical flow number φ < φc, there is flow separation, known in the turbomachinery context as part load recirculation. The previous work analyzes the flow at the inlet of a coaxial rotating circular pipe (R̃=R̃0). For a systematic approach to a turbomachine, the influence of the turbine's and pump's function, schematically fulfilled by a diffuser and a nozzle, on the evolution of the swirl and flow separation is to analyze. The radius of the rotating pipe depends linearly on the axial coordinate, yielding a rotating circular diffuser or nozzle. The swirl evolution depends on the Reynolds number, flow number, axial coordinate, and apex angle. The influence of the latter is the paper's main task. The circumferential velocity component is measured applying one-dimensional laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) to investigate the swirl evolution.


1980 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Scha¨ffler

The general effect of Reynolds Number on axial flow compressors operating over a sufficiently wide range is described and illustrated by experimental data for four multistage axial compressors. The wide operating range of military aircraft engines leads in the back stages of high pressure ratio compression systems to three distinctly different regimes of operation, characterized by the boundary layer conditions of the cascade flow: • laminar separation, • turbulent attached flow with hydraulically smooth blade surface, • turbulent attached flow with hydraulically rough blade surface. Two “critical” Reynolds Numbers are defined, the “lower critical Reynolds Number” below which laminar separation occurs with a definite steepening of the efficiency/Reynolds Number relation and an “upper critical Reynolds Number” above which the blade surface behaves hydraulically rough, resulting in an efficiency independant of Reynolds Number. The permissible blade surface roughness for hydraulically smooth boundary layer conditions in modern high pressure ratio compression systems is derived from experimental data achieved with blades produced by grinding, electrochemical machining and forging. A correlation between the effect of technical roughness and sand type roughness is given. The potential loss of efficiency in the back end of compression systems due to excessive blade roughness is derived from experimental results. The repeatedly experienced different sensitivity of front and back stages towards laminar separation in the low Reynolds Number regime is explained by boundary layer calculations as a Mach Number effect on blade pressure distribution, i.e. transonic versus subsonic flow.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Aqib Chishty ◽  
Hossein Raza Hamdani ◽  
Khalid Parvez ◽  
Muhammad Nafees Mumtaz Qadri

Active and passive techniques have been used in the past, to control flow separation. Numerous studies were published on controlling and delaying the flow separation on low pressure turbine. In this study, a single dimple (i.e. passive device) is engraved on the suction side of LP turbine cascade T106A. The main aim of this research is to find out the optimum parameters of dimple i.e. diameter (D) and depth (h) which can produce strong enough vortex that can control the flow either in transition or fully turbulent phase. Furthermore, this optimal dimple is engraved to suppress the boundary layer separation at different Reynolds number (based on the chord length and inlet velocity). The dimple of different depth and diameter are used to find the optimal depth to diameter ratio. Computational results show that the optimal ratio of depth to diameter (h/D) for dimple is 0.0845 and depth to grid boundary layer (h/δ) is 0.5152. This optimized dimple efficiently reduces the normalized loss coefficient and it is found that the negative values of shear stresses found in uncontrolled case are being removed by the dimple. After that, dimple of optimized parameters are used to suppress the laminar separation bubble at different Re∼25000, 50000 and 91000. It was noticed that the dimple did not reduce the losses at Re∼25000. But at Re∼50000, it produced such a strong vortex that reduced the normalized loss coefficient to 25%, while 5% losses were reduced at Re∼91000. It can be concluded that the optimized dimple effectively controlled flow separation and reduced normalized loss coefficient from Re 25000 to 91000. As the losses are decreased, this will increase the low pressure turbine efficiency and reduce its fuel consumption.


Author(s):  
M. Tadjfar ◽  
D. J. Kamari

Abstract The effects of applying a coupled unsteady blowing and suction combination over SD7003 airfoil at Reynolds number of 60,000 at an angle of attack of 13°, where a large separation on the suction side of the airfoil existed, was considered to investigate active flow control (AFC) mechanism. URANS equations were employed to solve the flow field and k–ω SST was used as the turbulence model. The unsteady blowing and suction were implemented at an angle to the surface crossing the boundary layer (CBL). The influence of location and frequency of the blowing/suction jets were examined.


Author(s):  
Mahmoud Ardebili ◽  
Yiannis Andreopoulos

An experimental investigation of a separated boundary layer flow has been attempted which has been created by perturbing a flat plate flow with a favorable pressure gradient immediately followed by an adverse pressure gradient. The aim of the research program is possible control of flow separation by means of free stream turbulence. The flow is configured in a large-scale low speed wind tunnel where measurements of turbulence can be obtained with high spatial and temporal resolution. A model has been designed by using CFD analysis. Mean wall pressure and vorticity flux measurements are reported in this paper. Twelve experiments with three different mesh size grids at three different Reynolds numbers have been carried out. Three bulk flow parameters seem to characterize the flow: The Reynolds number of the boundary layer, Re+, the Reynolds number of the flow through the grid, ReM, and the solidity of the grid. It was found that the pressure coefficient depends weakly on the solidity of the grids. Vorticity flux also depends on the grid used to generate free stream turbulence. The location of maximum or minimum vorticity flux moves upstream at higher ReM.


2011 ◽  
Vol 682 ◽  
pp. 617-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. KLEWICKI ◽  
R. EBNER ◽  
X. WU

The dynamical mechanisms underlying the redistribution of mean momentum and vorticity are explored for transitional two-dimensional boundary-layer flow at nominally zero pressure gradient. The analyses primarily employ the direct numerical simulation database of Wu & Moin (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 630, 2009, p. 5), but are supplemented with verifications utilizing subsequent similar simulations. The transitional regime is taken to include both an instability stage, which effectively generates a finite Reynolds stress profile, −ρuv(y), and a nonlinear development stage, which progresses until the terms in the mean momentum equation attain the magnitude ordering of the four-layer structure revealed by Wei et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 522, 2005, p. 303). Self-consistently applied criteria reveal that the third layer of this structure forms first, followed by layers IV and then II and I. For the present flows, the four-layer structure is estimated to be first realized at a momentum thickness Reynolds number Rθ = U∞ θ/ν ≃ 780. The first-principles-based theory of Fife et al. (J. Disc. Cont. Dyn. Syst. A, vol. 24, 2009, p. 781) is used to describe the mean dynamics in the laminar, transitional and four-layer regimes. As in channel flow, the transitional regime is marked by a non-negligible influence of all three terms in the mean momentum equation at essentially all positions in the boundary layer. During the transitional regime, the action of the Reynolds stress gradient rearranges the mean viscous force and mean advection profiles. This culminates with the segregation of forces characteristic of the four-layer regime. Empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that the formation of the four-layer structure also underlies the emergence of the mean dynamical properties characteristic of the high-Reynolds-number flow. These pertain to why and where the mean velocity profile increasingly exhibits logarithmic behaviour, and how and why the Reynolds stress distribution develops such that the inner normalized position of its peak value, ym+, exhibits a Reynolds number dependence according to $y_m^+ {\,\simeq\,} 1.9 \sqrt{\delta^+}$.


1989 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 533-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Busse ◽  
R. I. Loehrke

A method is presented for predicting laminar, subsonic flow in axisymmetric cylindrical heat pipe condensers. The method involves the use of the boundary layer approximation and a noncontinuous power series to describe the velocity profile under conditions including strong axial flow reversal. A comparison between laminar predictions and measurements indicates that transition to turbulent flow in the condenser begins when the absolute value of the radial Reynolds number exceeds 6. The condenser pressure recovery in the turbulent regime can be calculated from the momentum flow at the condenser inlet and an empirical wall-friction parameter.


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