Numerical and Experimental Study of Unsteady Flow Field and Vibration in Radial Inflow Turbines

1999 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Kreuz-Ihli ◽  
D. Filsinger ◽  
A. Schulz ◽  
S. Wittig

The blades of turbocharger impellers are exposed to unsteady aerodynamic forces, which cause blade vibrations and may lead to failures. An indispensable requirement for a safe design of radial inflow turbines is a detailed knowledge of the exciting forces. Up to now, only a few investigations relating to unsteady aerodynamic forces in radial turbines have been presented. To give a detailed insight into the complex phenomena, a comprehensive research project was initiated at the Institut fu¨r Thermische Stro¨mungsmaschinen, at the University of Karlsruhe. A turbocharger test rig was installed in the high-pressure, high-temperature laboratory of the institute. The present paper gives a description of the test rig design and the measuring techniques. The flow field in a vaneless radial inflow turbine was analyzed using laser-Doppler anemometry. First results of unsteady flow field investigations in the turbine scroll and unsteady phase-resolved measurements of the flow field in the turbine rotor will be discussed. Moreover, results from finite element calculations analyzing frequencies and mode shapes are presented. As vibrations in turbines of turbochargers are assumed to be predominantly excited by unsteady aerodynamic forces, a method to predict the actual transient flow in a radial turbine utilizing the commercial Navier–Stokes solver TASCflow3d was developed. Results of the unsteady calculations are presented and comparisons with the measured unsteady flow field are made. As a major result, the excitation effect of the tongue region in a vaneless radial inflow turbine can be demonstrated. [S0889-504X(00)01402-1]

Author(s):  
T. Kreuz-Ihli ◽  
D. Filsinger ◽  
A. Schulz ◽  
S. Wittig

The blades of turbocharger impellers are exposed to unsteady aerodynamic forces, which cause blade vibrations and may lead to failures. An indispensable requirement for a safe design of radial inflow turbines is a detailed knowledge of the exciting forces. Up to now, only few investigations relating to unsteady aerodynamic forces in radial turbines were presented. To give a detailed insight into the complex phenomena, a comprehensive research project was initiated at the Institut für Thermische Strömungsmaschinen, at the University of Karlsruhe. A turbocharger test rig was installed in the high pressure, high temperature laboratory of the institute. The present paper gives a description of the test rig design and the measuring techniques. The flow field in a vaneless radial inflow turbine was analyzed using laser Doppler anemometry. First results of unsteady flow field investigations in the turbine scroll and unsteady phase resolved measurements of the flow field in the turbine rotor will be discussed. Moreover, results from finite element calculations analyzing frequencies and mode shapes are presented. As vibrations in turbines of turbochargers are assumed to be predominantly excited by unsteady aerodynamic forces, a method to predict the actual transient flow in a radial turbine utilizing the commercial Navier Stokes solver TASCflow3d was developed. Results of the unsteady calculations are presented and comparisons with the measured unsteady flow field are made. As a major result, the excitation effect of the tongue region in a vaneless radial inflow turbine can be demonstrated.


Author(s):  
Ping Li ◽  
Jianhui Chen ◽  
Di Zhang ◽  
Yonghui Xie

There is a great deal of residual heat under 350 °C being released into environment, without being used efficiently. Compared to the Rankine cycle with water as its working substance, it is effective to utilize Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to recover these waste heats. In the threshold of this paper, a miniature ORC system is proposed, and maximum efficiency of the system is achieved by means of optimal working substance. Moreover, numerical simulation of the partial admission (ε = 0.267) high rotational speed radial inflow turbine, which is the key unit in the system, is fulfilled. At the operating rotational speed of 60000 rpm and the proposed thermodynamic parameters, steady and unsteady flow field in the turbine are investigated with R11 as working fluid. The detailed parameters, such as axial force of rotor, power generated and thermal efficiency of the radial turbine, are analyzed. In addition, the unsteady flow pressure is integrated around the rotor blade profile to provide the unsteady aerodynamic blade force. And subsequently frequencies of unsteady disturbances and excitation force factors are obtained by spectrum analysis, which are of key importance for blade response analysis. The generation, development and dissipation process of the secondary flows, passage vortex and leakage vortex are observed in the flow channel. The results reveal that the partial admission greatly influences the parameters distributions in the flow field and the losses of radial turbine mainly occur at the frontier of the passage in the vicinity of blade root. As is discussed in the analysis of excitation force factor, the radial turbine is safe in the operation. The results discussed in this paper are beneficial for the sequent optimization and manufacture of the miniature turbine.


Author(s):  
Igor Zolotarev ◽  
Václav Vlček ◽  
Jan Kozánek

The study presents evaluation of optical measurements of the air flow field near the fluttering profile NACA0015 with two-degrees of freedom, Mach number of the flutter occurrence were M=0.21 and M=0.45. Aerodynamic forces (drag and lift components) were evaluated independently on the upper and lower surfaces of the profile. Using the mentioned decomposition, the new information about mechanism of flutter properties was obtained. The forces on the upper and lower surfaces are phase shifted and are partially eliminated as a result of the circulation around the profile. The cycle changes of these forces cause the permanent energy contribution from the airflow to the vibrating system.


Author(s):  
Matthias Witte ◽  
Benjamin Torner ◽  
Frank-Hendrik Wurm

Tonalities in hydro and airborne noise emission are a known problem of turbomachines, wherein the tonalities in the noise spectrum are associated with the different orders of the blade passing frequency (BPF). The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method was utilized to find the relationship between the fluctuations in the pressure field at the BPF orders which are the origin of the noise emission and the correlated fluctuations in the turbulent velocity field in terms of coherent, periodic flow structures. In order the provide the input data for the POD analysis, a URANS k-ω-SST scale adaptive simulation (SAS) of the turbulent flow field in a single stage radial pump under part load conditions was performed. Compared to traditional two equation turbulence models this approach is less dissipative and allows the development of small scale turbulence structures and is therefore an appropriate method for this study. In order to compute the POD correlation matrix Sirovich’s “Methods of Snapshots” was applied to the unsteady pressure and velocity fields from the CFD simulation. The discrimination of coherent, periodic flow structures and the incoherent, chaotic turbulence was carried out by analyzing the POD eigenvalue distributions, the POD mode shapes and the spectral properties of the POD time coefficients. Five coupled POD mode pairs were identified in total, which were strictly correlated with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th order of the BPF and therefore responsible for the noise emission at these discrete frequencies. The coherent structures were explored on the basis of the spatial POD velocity und pressure mode shapes and in terms of vortical structures after an additional phase averaging. The scope of this study is to introduce an enhanced collection of post processing techniques which are capable of analyzing highly unsteady flow fields from numerical simulations in a better way than is possible by just using traditional techniques like the evaluation of integral or time averaged quantities. The identified coherent flow structures and their associated pressure fluctuations are key elements for a proper comprehension of the internal dynamics of the turbulent flow field in a turbomachine and therefore essential for the understanding of the noise generation processes and the optimization of such machines.


1986 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Hoyniak ◽  
S. Fleeter

A new, and as yet unexplored, approach to passive flutter control is aerodynamic detuning, defined as designed passage-to-passage differences in the unsteady aerodynamic flow field of a rotor blade row. Thus, aerodynamic detuning directly affects the fundamental driving mechanism for flutter, i.e., the unsteady aerodynamic forces and moments acting on individual rotor blades. In this paper, a model to demonstrate the enhanced supersonic unstalled aeroelastic stability associated with aerodynamic detuning is developed. The stability of an aerodynamically detuned cascade operating in a supersonic inlet flow field with a subsonic leading edge locus is analyzed, with the aerodynamic detuning accomplished by means of nonuniform circumferential spacing of adjacent rotor blades. The unsteady aerodynamic forces and moments on the blading are defined in terms of influence coefficients in a manner that permits the stability of both a conventional uniformly spaced rotor configuration as well as the detuned nonuniform circumferentially spaced rotor to be determined. With Verdon’s uniformly spaced Cascade B as a baseline, this analysis is then utilized to demonstrate the potential enhanced aeroelastic stability associated with this particular type of aerodynamic detuning.


Author(s):  
Friedrich-Karl Benra ◽  
Hans Josef Dohmen

The transport of fluids which include a lot of impurities is often done by special single-stage pumps. In order to avoid clogging of the pumps, the impellers have only one blade. This minimum blade number brings strong disadvantages during the pump operation. The rotation of the impeller in the pump casing produces a strongly uneven pressure field along the perimeter of the casing. The resulting periodically unsteady flow forces affect the impeller and produce radial deflections of the pump shaft which can be recognized as vibrations at the bearing blocks or at the pump casing. These vibrations will also be transferred to the pump casing and attached pipes. In a numerical approach the hydrodynamic excitation forces of a single-blade pump were calculated from the time dependent flow field. The flow field is known from the numerical simulation of the three-dimensional, viscous, unsteady flow in the pump by using a commercial computer code determining the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations (URANS). The periodically unsteady flow forces were computed for a complete impeller revolution. This forces affect the rotor of the pump and stimulate it to oscillations. The computed forces were defined as external forces and applied as the load on the rotor for a structural analysis. The resulting oscillations of the rotor were calculated by a transient analysis of the rotors structure using a commercial FEM-Method. To verify the calculated results, experimental investigations have been performed. The deflections of the pump rotor were measured with proximity sensors in a wide range of pump operation. Measurements of the vibration accelerations at the pump casing showed the visible effects of the transient flow. To minimize the vibration amplitudes the energizing forces have been reduced by attaching a compensation mass at the impeller. This procedure can be used as “operational balancing” of the pump rotor for a certain point of operation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Promio Charles F. ◽  
Raja Samikkannu ◽  
Niranjan K. Sura ◽  
Shanwaz Mulla

Purpose Ground vibration testing (GVT) results can be used as system parameters for predicting flutter, which is essential for aeroelastic clearance. This paper aims to compute GVT-based flutter in time domain, using unsteady air loads by matrix polynomial approximations. Design/methodology/approach The experimental parameters, namely, frequencies and mode shapes are interpolated to build an equivalent finite element model. The unsteady aerodynamic forces extracted from MSC NASTRAN are approximated using matrix polynomial approximations. The system matrices are condensed to the required shaker location points to build an aeroelastic reduced order state space model in SIMULINK. Findings The computed aerodynamic forces are successfully reduced to few input locations (optimal) for flutter simulation on unknown structural system (where stiffness and mass are not known) through a case study. It is demonstrated that GVT data and the computed unsteady aerodynamic forces of a system are adequate to represent its aeroelastic behaviour. Practical implications Airforce of every nation continuously upgrades its fleet with advanced weapon systems (stores), which demands aeroelastic flutter clearance. As the original equipment manufacturers does not provide the design data (stiffness and mass) to its customers, a new methodology to build an aeroelastic system of unknown aircraft is devised. Originality/value A hybrid approach is proposed, involving GVT data to build an aeroelastic state space system, using rationally approximated air loads (matrix polynomial approximations) computed on a virtual FE model for ground flutter simulation.


1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 810-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Fang ◽  
H. M. Atassi

A frequency domain linearized unsteady aerodynamic analysis is presented for three-dimensional unsteady vortical flows around a cascade of loaded airfoils. The analysis fully accounts for the distortion of the impinging vortical disturbances by the mean flow. The entire unsteady flow field is calculated in response to upstream three-dimensional harmonic disturbances. Numerical results are presented for two standard cascade configurations representing turbine and compressor bladings for a reduced frequency range from 0.1 to 5. Results show that the upstream gust conditions and blade sweep strongly affect the unsteady blade response.


Author(s):  
Ronald Mailach ◽  
Ingolf Lehmann ◽  
Konrad Vogeler

In this two-part paper results of the periodical unsteady flow field within the third rotor blade row of the four-stage Dresden Low-Speed Research Compressor are presented. The main part of the experimental investigations was performed using Laser-Doppler-Anemometry. Results of the flow field at several spanwise positions between midspan and rotor blade tip will be discussed. In addition time-resolving pressure sensors at midspan of the rotor blades provide information about the unsteady profile pressure distribution. In part I of the paper the flow field at midspan of the rotor blade row will be discussed. Different aspects of the blade row interaction process are considered for the design point and an operating point near the stability limit. The periodical unsteady blade-to-blade velocity field is dominated by the incoming stator wakes, while the potential effect of the stator blades is of minor influence. The inherent vortex structures and the negative jet effect, which is coupled to the wake appearance, are clearly resolved. Furthermore the time-resolved profile pressure distribution of the rotor blades is discussed. Although the negative jet effect within the rotor blade passage is very pronounced the rotor blade pressure distribution is nearly independent from the convectively propagating chopped stator wakes.


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