Analysis of Radial Migration of Hot-Streak in Swirling Flow Through HP Turbine Stage

Author(s):  
B. Khanal ◽  
L. He ◽  
J. Northall ◽  
P. Adami

The high pressure (HP) turbine is subject to inlet flow non-uniformities resulting from the combustor. A lean-burn combustor tends to combine temperature variations with strong swirl and, although considerable research efforts have been made to study the effects of a circumferential temperature non-uniformity (hot-streak), there is relatively little known about the interaction between the two. This paper presents a numerical investigation of the transonic test HP stage MT1 behaviour under the combined influence of the swirl and hot-streak. The in house Rolls-Royce HYDRA numerical CFD suite is used for all the simulations of the present study. Baseline configurations with either hot-streak or swirl at the stage inlet are analyzed to assess the methodology and to identify reference performance parameters through comparisons with the experimental data. Extensive computational analyses are then carried out for the cases with hot-streak and swirl combined including both the effects of the combustor-NGV clocking and the direction of the swirl. The present results for the combined hot-streak and swirl cases reveal distinctive radial migrations of hot fluid in the NGV and rotor passages with considerable impact on the aerothermal performance. It is illustrated that the blade heat transfer characteristics and their dependence on the clocking position can be strongly affected by the swirl direction. A further computational examination is carried out on the validity of a superposition of the influences of swirl and hot-streak. It shows that the blade heat transfer in a combined swirl and hot-streak case cannot be predicted by the superposition of each in isolation.

2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Khanal ◽  
L. He ◽  
J. Northall ◽  
P. Adami

The high pressure (HP) turbine is subject to inlet flow nonuniformities resulting from the combustor. A lean-burn combustor tends to combine temperature variations with strong swirl and, although considerable research efforts have been made to study the effects of a circumferential temperature nonuniformity (hot-streak), there is relatively little known about the interaction between the two. This paper presents a numerical investigation of the transonic test HP stage MT1 behavior under the combined influence of the swirl and hot-streak. The in house Rolls-Royce HYDRA numerical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) suite is used for all the simulations of the present study. Baseline configurations with either hot-streak or swirl at the stage inlet are analyzed to assess the methodology and to identify reference performance parameters through comparisons with the experimental data. Extensive computational analyses are then carried out for the cases with hot-streak and swirl combined, including both the effects of the combustor-nozzle guide vane (NGV) clocking and the direction of the swirl. The present results for the combined hot-streak and swirl cases reveal distinctive radial migrations of hot fluid in the NGV and rotor passages with considerable impact on the aerothermal performance. It is illustrated that the blade heat transfer characteristics and their dependence on the clocking position can be strongly affected by the swirl direction. A further computational examination is carried out on the validity of a superposition of the influences of swirl and hot-streak. It shows that the blade heat transfer in a combined swirl and hot-streak case cannot be predicted by the superposition of each in isolation.


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.


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):  
L. He ◽  
V. Menshikova ◽  
B. R. Haller

A computational study is carried out on the influence of turbine inlet temperature distortion (hot streak). The hot streak effects are examined from both aeromechanical (forced blade vibration) and aero-thermal (heat transfer) points of view. Computations are firstly carried out for a transonic HP turbine stage, and the steady and unsteady surface pressure results are compared with the corresponding experimental data. Subsequent analysis is carried out for hot-streaks with variable circumferential wavelength, corresponding to different numbers of combustion burners. The results show that the circumferential wavelength of the temperature distortion can significantly change unsteady forcing as well as the heat-transfer to rotor blades. In particular, when the hot-streak wavelength is the same as the nozzle guide vane (NGV) blade pitch, there is a strong dependence of the preferential heating characteristics on the relative clocking position between hot-streak and NGV blade. However, this clocking dependence is shown to be qualitatively weakened for the cases with fewer hot streaks with longer circumferential wavelengths.


Author(s):  
L. W. Jin ◽  
K. C. Leong

Heat transfer in porous media has been investigated extensively with the motivation of enhancing heat removal in electronics cooling applications. Many investigations have been conducted on heat transfer in a channel filled with porous media. However, steady flow through a porous channel still yield a higher temperature difference along the flow direction. It is conceivable that oscillating flow through a porous channel will produce a more uniform temperature distribution due to the two thermal entrance regions of oscillating flow. As compared to a porous channel packed with metal particles, spheres or woven-screens, the highly porous open-cell metal foam possesses a different configuration. The polyhedral pore and reticulated ligament structures provide the extremely large fluid-to-solid contact surface area and tortuous coolant flow path inside the metal foam, which could increase dramatically the overall heat transfer rate. A survey of the literature shows that heat transfer in open-cell metal foam were mostly investigated under steady flow condition. Published literature on heat transfer in metal foams subjected to oscillating flow is scarce. This paper presents both experimental and numerical investigations on the heat transfer characteristics for oscillating flow through highly porous medium. Experiments were carried out to study the effect of the oscillatory frequency on the heat transfer in metal foams with various pore densities. The results show that the local Nusselt number increases with the kinetic Reynolds number. Higher total heat transfer rates for oscillating flow can be obtained by using high pore density metal foam. The numerical simulation is focused on the study of the variations of the transient temperature and Nusselt number at different locations in the porous channel during a complete cycle. The numerical results show that the profile of the transient temperature decreases with the increase of the distance along the vertical direction and the variation of the instantaneous Nusselt number at entrance region is more significant than that at the location close to the center of the porous channel. It is also found that the two-dimensional temperature distributions in the numerical domain are symmetric about the center of the channel at the cycle-steady state. The comparison shows that the results obtained by the simulation are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental data.


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