Development of State of the Art Dynamic Stress Prediction Methodology for Steam Turbines

Author(s):  
Tie Chen ◽  
John Rogerson ◽  
Fang Yang ◽  
Gurnam Singh ◽  
Phil Hemsley

To predict the dynamic stresses due to forced response of steam turbine blades, a commercial FE solver ABAQUS has been linked with an in-house CFD solver TF3D-VIB, in the time domain in both one-way and two-way coupling. Both methods have been applied to analyse a freestanding subsonic turbine stage excited by upstream flow perturbations. Over a frequency range the peak responses are very similar, but the peak response of two-way coupling is shifted to a lower frequency, due to the aerodynamic coupling effect of fluid-structure interaction. That means a speed / frequency sweep is necessary to search for the peak response in two-way coupling. However, in one-way coupling, the frequency shift can be derived from the vibration induced modal force, and only one calculation is needed to predict the response over a range of frequency ratio using the classic single degree-of-freedom equation. One calculation using two-way coupling typically takes seven times more computing time than one-way coupling. The total computing time for two-way coupling to define the response characteristic is therefore much higher; more calculations are needed and each calculation takes much longer. Thus a one-way coupling method including the frequency shift correction is much more practical and suitable for blade design iterations. The blade forced response is also limited by damping. In the case of low damping such as material only damping, this can be well represented in the harmonic ABAQUS calculation. However, high values of nonlinear damping can be deliberately introduced by managing the friction forces at blade root attachment. The nonlinear damping can be simulated directly by ABAQUS/Explicit method, convergence criteria often lead to excessive runtimes. Therefore a simple mass/spring model has been developed, which applies an exciting force to a system comprising two masses and springs to represent the blade and the root respectively and includes modelling of both the stick and slip forces of the root due to friction. Both the masses and their spring stiffness are chosen to produce either the sticking natural frequency (with infinite friction) or sliding natural frequency (zero friction). Using the simple two-mass model, the significant nonlinear response pattern is demonstrated. The resulting pattern has been verified against the ABAQUS/Explicit method. This allows the blade forced response prediction from the one way coupling to be further corrected to account for the nonlinear friction damping effect.

Author(s):  
Been-Der Yang ◽  
Chia-Hsiang Menq

Designers of aircraft engines frequently employ shrouds in turbine design. In this paper, a variable normal load friction force model is proposed to investigate the influence of shroud-like contact kinematics on the forced response of frictionally constrained turbine blades. Analytical criteria are formulated to predict the transitions between slick, slip, and separation of the interface so as to assess the induced friction forces. When considering cyclic loading, the induced friction forces are combined with the variable normal load so as to determine the effective stiffness and damping of the friction joint over a cycle of motion. The harmonic balance method is then used to impose the effective stiffness and damping of the friction joint on the linear structure. The solution procedure for the nonlinear response nf a two-degree-of-freedom oscillator is demonstrated. As an application, this procedure is used to study the coupling effect of two constrained forces, friction force and variable normal load, on the optimization of the shroud contact design.


Author(s):  
Jens Aschenbruck ◽  
Christopher E. Meinzer ◽  
Linus Pohle ◽  
Lars Panning-von Scheidt ◽  
Joerg R. Seume

The regeneration of highly loaded turbine blades causes small variations of their geometrical parameters. To determine the influence of such regeneration-induced variances of turbine blades on the nozzle excitation, an existing air turbine is extended by a newly designed stage. The aerodynamic and the structural dynamic behavior of the new turbine stage are analyzed. The calculated eigenfrequencies are verified by an experimental modal analysis and are found to be in good agreement. Typical geometric variances of overhauled turbine blades are then applied to stator vanes of the newly designed turbine stage. A forced response analysis of these vanes is conducted using a uni-directional fluid-structure interaction approach. The effects of geometric variances on the forced response of the rotor blade are evaluated. It is shown that the vibration amplitudes of the response are significantly higher for some modes due to the additional wake excitation that is introduced by the geometrical variances e.g. 56 times higher for typical MRO-induced variations in stagger-angle.


2002 ◽  
Vol 205 (15) ◽  
pp. 2183-2188 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Connaughton ◽  
M. L. Fine ◽  
M. H. Taylor

SUMMARYThe influence of temperature, size and season on the sounds produced by the sonic muscles of the weakfish Cynoscion regalis are categorized and used to formulate a hypothesis about the mechanism of sound generation by the sonic muscle and swimbladder. Sounds produced by male weakfish occur at the time and location of spawning and have been observed in courtship in captivity. Each call includes a series of 6-10 sound pulses, and each pulse expresses a damped, 2-3 cycle acoustic waveform generated by single simultaneous twitches of the bilateral sonic muscles. The sonic muscles triple in mass during the spawning season, and this hypertrophy is initiated by rising testosterone levels that trigger increases in myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic cross-sectional area of sonic muscle fibers. In response to increasing temperature, sound pressure level (SPL), dominant frequency and repetition rate increase, and pulse duration decreases. Likewise, SPL and pulse duration increase and dominant frequency decreases with fish size. Changes in acoustic parameters with fish size suggest the possibility that drumming sounds act as an `honest' signal of male fitness during courtship. These parameters also correlate with seasonally increasing sonic muscle mass. We hypothesize that sonic muscle twitch duration rather than the resonant frequency of the swimbladder determines dominant frequency. The brief (3.5 ms), rapidly decaying acoustic pulses reflect a low-Q, broadly tuned resonator, suggesting that dominant frequency is determined by the forced response of the swimbladder to sonic muscle contractions. The changing dominant frequency with temperature in fish of the same size further suggests that frequency is not determined by the natural frequency of the bladder because temperature is unlikely to affect resonance. Finally, dominant frequency correlates with pulse duration (reflecting muscle twitch duration),and the inverse of the period of the second cycle of acoustic energy approximates the recorded frequency. This paper demonstrates for the first time that the dominant frequency of a fish sound produced by a single muscle twitch is apparently determined by the velocity of the muscle twitch rather than the natural frequency of the swimbladder.


2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (6) ◽  
pp. 771-783 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Jiang ◽  
J. Tang ◽  
K. W. Wang

The concept of using sensitivity-enhancing feedback control to improve the performance of frequency-shift-based structural damage identification has been recently explored. In previous studies, however, the feedback controller is designed to alter only the closed-loop eigenvalues, and the effect of closed-loop eigenvectors on the sensitivity enhancement performance has not been considered. In this research, it is shown that the sensitivity of the natural frequency shift to the damage in a multi-degree-of-freedom structure can be significantly influenced by the placement of both the eigenvalues and the eigenvectors. A constrained optimization problem is formulated to find the optimal assignment of both the closed-loop eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and then an optimal sensitivity-enhancing control is designed to achieve the desired closed-loop eigenstructure. Another advantage of this scheme is that the dataset of frequency measurement for damage identification can be enlarged by utilizing a series of closed-loop controls, which can be realized by activating different combinations of actuators in the system. Therefore, by using this proposed idea of multiple sensitivity-enhancing feedback controls, we can simultaneously address the two major limitations of frequency-shift-based damage identification: the low sensitivity of frequency shift to damage effects and the deficiency of frequency measurement data. A series of case studies are performed. It is demonstrated that the sensitivity of natural frequency shift to stiffness reduction can be significantly enhanced by using the designed sensitivity-enhancing feedback control, where the optimal placement of closed-loop eigenvectors plays a very important role. It is further verified that such sensitivity enhancement can directly benefit the damage identification accuracy and robustness.


Author(s):  
Yaozhi Lu ◽  
Fanzhou Zhao ◽  
Loic Salles ◽  
Mehdi Vahdati

The current development of wind turbines is moving toward larger and more flexible units, which can make them prone to fatigue damage induced by aeroelastic vibrations. The estimation of the total life of the composite components in a wind turbine requires the knowledge of both low and high cycle fatigue (LCF and HCF) data. The first aim of this study is to produce a validated numerical model, which can be used for aeroelastic analysis of wind turbines and is capable of estimating the LCF and HCF loads on the blade. The second aim of this work is to use the validated numerical model to assess the effects of extreme environmental conditions (such as high wind speeds) and rotor over-speed on low and high cycle fatigue. Numerical modelling of this project is carried out using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) & aeroelasticity code AU3D, which is written at Imperial College and developed over many years with the support from Rolls-Royce. This code has been validated extensively for unsteady aerodynamic and aeroelastic analysis of high-speed flows in gas turbines, yet, has not been used for low-speed flows around wind turbine blades. Therefore, in the first place the capability of this code for predicting steady and unsteady flows over wind turbines is studied. The test case used for this purpose is the Phase VI wind turbine from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which has extensive steady, unsteady and mechanical measured data. From the aerodynamic viewpoint of this study, AU3D results correlated well with the measured data for both steady and unsteady flow variables, which indicated that the code is capable of calculating the correct flow at low speeds for wind turbines. The aeroelastic results showed that increase in crosswind and shaft speed would result in an increase of unsteady loading on the blade which could decrease the lifespan of a wind turbine due to HCF. Shaft overspeed leads to significant increase in steady loading which affects the LCF behaviour. Moreover, the introduction of crosswind could result in significant dynamic vibration due to forced response at resonance.


Author(s):  
Thomas Hauptmann ◽  
Christopher E. Meinzer ◽  
Joerg R. Seume

Depending on the in service condition of jet engines, turbine blades may have to be replaced, refurbished, or repaired in the course of an engine overhaul. Thus, significant changes of the turbine blade geometry can be introduced due to regeneration and overhaul processes. Such geometric variances can affect the aerodynamic and aeroelastic behavior of turbine blades. One goal in the development of the regeneration process is to estimate the aerodynamic excitation of turbine blades depending on these geometric variances caused during the regeneration. Therefore, this study presents an experimentally validated comparison of two methods for the prediction of forced response in a multistage axial turbine. Two unidirectional fluid structure interaction (FSI) methods, a time-linearized and a time-accurate with a subsequent linear harmonic analysis, are employed and the results validated against experimental data. The results show that the vibration amplitude of the time-linearized method is in good agreement with the experimental data and, also requires lower computational time than the time-accurate FSI. Based on this result, the time-linearized method is used to perform a sensitivity study of the tip clearance size of the last rotor blade row of the five stage axial turbine. The results show that an increasing tip clearances size causes an up to 1.35 higher vibration amplitude compared to the reference case, due to increased forcing and decreased damping work.


Author(s):  
Abdelgadir M. Mahmoud ◽  
Mohd S. Leong

Turbine blades are always subjected to severe aerodynamic loading. The aerodynamic loading is uniform and Of harmonic nature. The harmonic nature depends on the rotor speed and number of nozzles (vanes counts). This harmonic loading is the main sources responsible for blade excitation. In some circumstances, the aerodynamic loading is not uniform and varies circumferentially. This paper discussed the effect of the non-uniform aerodynamic loading on the blade vibrational responses. The work involved the experimental study of forced response amplitude of model blades due to inlet flow distortion in the presence of airflow. This controlled inlet flow distortion therefore represents a nearly realistic environment involving rotating blades in the presence of airflow. A test rig was fabricated consisting of a rotating bladed disk assembly, an inlet flow section (where flow could be controlled or distorted in an incremental manner), flow conditioning module and an aerodynamic flow generator (air suction module with an intake fan) for investigations under laboratory conditions. Tests were undertaken for a combination of different air-flow velocities and blade rotational speeds. The experimental results showed that when the blades were subjected to unsteady aerodynamic loading, the responses of the blades increased and new frequencies were excited. The magnitude of the responses and the responses that corresponding to these new excited frequencies increased with the increase in the airflow velocity. Moreover, as the flow velocity increased the number of the newly excited frequency increased.


1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-305
Author(s):  
R. Rubinstein

A computer code has been developed to perform structural optimization of turbine blades made from angle ply fiber composite laminates. Design variables available for optimization include geometric parameters such as blade thickness distribution and root chord, and composite material parameters such as ply angles and numbers of plies of each constituent material. Design constraints include resonance margins, forced response margins, maximum stress, and maximum ply combined stress. A general description of this code is given. Design optimization studies for typical blades are presented.


Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Fujiwara ◽  
Tadashi Tsuji ◽  
Osami Matsushita

In certain rotor systems, bending-torsion coupled resonance occurs when the rotational speed Ω (= 2π Ωrps) is equal to the sum/difference of the bending natural frequency ωb (= 2π fb) and torsional natural frequency ωθ(= 2πfθ). This coupling effect is due to an unbalance in the rotor. In order to clarify this phenomenon, an equation was derived for the motion of the bending-torsion coupled 2 DOF system, and this coupled resonance was verified by numerical simulations. In stability analyses of an undamped model, unstable rotational speed ranges were found to exist at about Ωrps = fb + fθ. The conditions for stability were also derived from an analysis of a damped model. In rotational simulations, bending-torsion coupled resonance vibration was found to occur at Ωrps = fb − fθ and fb + fθ. In addition, confirmation of this resonance phenomenon was shown by an experiment. When the rotor was excited in the horizontal direction at bending natural frequency, large torsional vibration appeared. On the other hand, when the rotor was excited by torsion at torsional natural frequency, large bending vibration appeared. Therefore, bending-torsion coupled resonance was confirmed.


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