Experimental Investigation and Computational Evaluation of Contoured Endwall and Leading Edge Fillet Configurations in a Turbine NGV

Author(s):  
Özhan H. Turgut ◽  
Cengiz Camcı

Secondary flow minimization is a crucial problem in a turbine passage. In the present paper, three different ways are employed to reduce the secondary flow related total pressure loss. These are nonaxisymmetric endwall contouring, leading edge (LE) fillet, and the combination of these two approaches. Experimental investigation and computational assessment are applied for the performance calculations. The experiments are carried out in an annular Axial Flow Turbine Research Facility (AFTRF) having a diameter of 91.66cm. For the experimental measurement comparison, a reference Flat Insert is installed in the nozzle guide vane (NGV) passage. It has a constant thickness with cylindrical surface and is manufactured by stereolithography (SLA) method. Also, Flat Insert has a backward facing step at the NGV exit, and the effect of this step is analyzed computationally. Four different LE fillets are designed, and they are attached to both cylindrical Flat Insert and the contoured endwall. Total pressure measurements are taken at rotor inlet plane with Kiel probe. The probe traversing is completed with one vane pitch and from 8% to 38% span. For one of the designs, area-averaged loss is reduced by 15.06%. The simulation estimated this reduction as 6.95%. Computational evaluation is also performed at the NGV exit plane. The most effective design reduced the mass-averaged loss by 1.84% on the whole passage. The computational study did not include the rim seal flow between the vane and rotor domain and also rotor simulation was absent. The difference between the measurements and the simulation comes from these two important effects.

Author(s):  
Özhan H. Turgut ◽  
Cengiz Camcı

Three different ways are employed in the present paper to reduce the secondary flow related total pressure loss. These are nonaxisymmetric endwall contouring, leading edge (LE) fillet, and the combination of these two approaches. Experimental investigation and computational simulations are applied for the performance assessments. The experiments are carried out in the Axial Flow Turbine Research Facility (AFTRF) having a diameter of 91.66cm. The NGV exit flow structure was examined under the influence of a 29 bladed high pressure turbine rotor assembly operating at 1300 rpm. For the experimental measurement comparison, a reference Flat Insert endwall is installed in the nozzle guide vane (NGV) passage. It has a constant thickness with a cylindrical surface and is manufactured by a stereolithography (SLA) method. Four different LE fillets are designed, and they are attached to both cylindrical Flat Insert and the contoured endwall. Total pressure measurements are taken at rotor inlet plane with Kiel probe. The probe traversing is completed with one vane pitch and from 8% to 38% span. For one of the designs, area averaged loss is reduced by 15.06%. The simulation estimated this reduction as 7.11%. Computational evaluation is performed with the rotating domain and the rim seal flow between the NGV and the rotor blades. The most effective design reduced the mass averaged loss by 1.28% over the whole passage at the NGV exit.


Author(s):  
O¨zhan H. Turgut ◽  
Cengiz Camcı

Nonaxisymmetric endwall contouring has recently become one of the ways to minimize the secondary flow related losses in a turbine nozzle guide vane (NGV) passage. In this study, a specific nonaxisymmetric endwall contouring design methodology is introduced. Fourier series based splines at different axial locations are generated and combined with the help of stream-wise B-splines within solid modeling program. Eight different contoured endwalls are presented in this paper. Computational study of these designs are performed by the finite-volume flow solver. The SST k–ω turbulence model is selected and a body-fitted structured grid is used. Total pressure distribution at the NGV exit shows that contouring the endwall effectively changes the results. Among from these various designs, the most promising one is with the contouring extended in the upstream of the vane leading edge. Mass-averaged value of 3.2% total pressure loss reduction is achieved at the NGV exit plane. The current study was performed in a rotating turbine rig simulating a state of the art HP turbine stage. An NGV only simulation is performed. This approach is helpful in isolating rotor-stator influence and the possible upstream flow modifications of the rim seal cavity flow existing in the rotating turbine research rig. The investigation including the rotor-stator interaction and rim seal cavity flow is the topic of a subsequent paper currently under progress.


Author(s):  
Ernst Lindner

To enhance the performance of the inlet guide vane and the annular duct of a jet engine, a detailed investigation of annular cascades with two different types of turbine guide vane rows is made. The first one is a leaned guide vane with an aspect ratio of two and a half and a transition duct ahead of the vane. To avoid the losses associated to the decelerating transition duct an alternative vane is designed and investigated with the same inlet and exit conditions. In this case the chord of the vane is increased to the effect that the vane begins immediately at the enterance of the diverging annulus and so a continuously accelerated flow is achieved. To maintain a good performance for this configuration a bowed-type vane with an aspect ratio of one is designed. The aim of the investigation is to obtain detailed informations on the secondary flow behaviour with particular regard to the development of the total pressure losses and the streamwise vorticity of the vortices inside and behind the blade rows. In the first step a three-dimensional, structured, explicit finite-volume flow-solver with a k–ε turbulence model is validated against the measurements, which were made in cross-sections behind the blades. Having proved that the numerical results are very close to the experimental ones, the secondary flow behaviour inside and behind the blade rows is analysed in the second step. By calculating the streamwise vorticity from the numerical results the formation of horse-shoe vortex, passage-vortex and the trailing edge vortex shed is investigated. The differences of the vortical motion and the formation of the total pressure losses between the two configurations of turbine guide vane rows are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhigang Li ◽  
Luxuan Liu ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
Ridge A. Sibold ◽  
Wing F. Ng ◽  
...  

This paper presents a detailed experimental and numerical study on the effects of upstream step geometry on the endwall secondary flow and heat transfer in a transonic linear turbine vane passage with axisymmetric converging endwalls. The upstream step geometry represents the misalignment between the combustor exit and the nozzle guide vane endwall. The experimental measurements were performed in a blowdown wind tunnel with an exit Mach number of 0.85 and an exit Re of 1.5×106. A high freestream turbulence level of 16% was set at the inlet, which represents the typical turbulence conditions in a gas turbine engine. Two upstream step geometries were tested for the same vane profile: a baseline configuration with a gap located 0.88Cx (43.8 mm) upstream of the vane leading edge (upstream step height = 0 mm) and a misaligned configuration with a backward-facing step located just before the gap at 0.88Cx (43.8 mm) upstream of the vane leading edge (step height = 4.45% span). The endwall temperature history was measured using transient infrared thermography, from which the endwall thermal load distribution, namely, Nusselt number, was derived. This paper also presents a comparison with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions performed by solving the steady-state Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes with Reynolds stress model using the commercial CFD solver ansysfluent v.15. The CFD simulations were conducted at a range of different upstream step geometries: three forward-facing (upstream step geometries with step heights from −5.25% to 0% span), and five backward-facing, upstream step geometries (step heights from 0% to 6.56% span). These CFD results were used to highlight the link between heat transfer patterns and the secondary flow structures and explain the effects of upstream step geometry. Experimental and numerical results indicate that the backward-facing upstream step geometry will significantly enlarge the high thermal load region and result in an obvious increase (up to 140%) in the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) level, especially for arched regions around the vane leading edge. However, the forward-facing upstream geometry will modestly shrink the high thermal load region and reduce the HTC (by ∼10% to 40% decrease), especially for the suction side regions near the vane leading edge. The aerodynamic loss appears to have a slight increase (0.3–1.3%) because of the forward-facing upstream step geometry but is slightly reduced (by 0.1–0.3%) by the presence of the backward upstream step geometry.


Author(s):  
G. A. Zess ◽  
K. A. Thole

With the desire for increased power output for a gas turbine engine comes the continual push to achieve higher turbine inlet temperatures. Higher temperatures result in large thermal and mechanical stresses particularly along the nozzle guide vane. One critical region along a vane is the leading edge-endwall juncture. Based on the assumption that the approaching flow to this juncture is similar to a two-dimensional boundary layer, previous studies have shown that a horseshoe vortex forms. This vortex forms because of a radial total pressure gradient from the approaching boundary layer. This paper documents the computational design and experimental validation of a fillet placed at the leading edge-endwall juncture of a guide vane to eliminate the horseshoe vortex. The fillet design effectively accelerated the incoming boundary layer thereby mitigating the effect of the total pressure gradient. To verify the CFD studies used to design the leading edge fillet, flow field measurements were performed in a large-scale, linear, vane cascade. The flow field measurements were performed with a laser Doppler velocimeter in four planes orientated orthogonal to the vane. Good agreement between the CFD predictions and the experimental measurements verified the effectiveness of the leading edge fillet at eliminating the horseshoe vortex. The flowfield results showed that the turbulent kinetic energy levels were significantly reduced in the endwall region because of the absence of the unsteady horseshoe vortex.


1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Ohkita ◽  
H. Kodama ◽  
O. Nozaki ◽  
K. Kikuchi ◽  
A. Tamura

A series of numerical and experimental studies have been conducted to understand the mechanism of loss generation in a high speed compressor stator with inlet radial shear flow over the span. In this study, numerical simulation is extensively used to investigate the complex three-dimensional flow in the cascades and to interpret the phenomena appeared in the high speed compressor tests. It has been shown that the inlet radial shear flow generated by upstream rotor had a significant influence on the stator secondary flow, and consequently on the total pressure loss. Redesign of the stator aiming at the reduction of loss by controlling secondary flow has been carried out and the resultant performance recovery was successfully demonstrated both numerically and experimentally.


Author(s):  
Ralf E. Walraevens ◽  
Heinz E. Gallus ◽  
Alexander R. Jung ◽  
Jürgen F. Mayer ◽  
Heinz Stetter

A study of the unsteady flow in an axial flow turbine stage with a second stator blade row is presented. The low aspect ratio blades give way to a highly three-dimensional flow which is dominated by secondary flow structures. Detailed steady and unsteady measurements throughout the machine and unsteady flow simulations which include all blade rows have been carried out. The presented results focus on the second stator flow. Secondary flow structures and their origins are identified and tracked on their way through the passage. The results of the time-dependent secondary velocity vectors as well as flow angles and Mach number distributions as perturbation from the time-mean flow field are shown in cross-flow sections and azimuthal cuts throughout the domain of the second stator. At each location the experimental and numerical results are compared and discussed. A good overall agreement in the time-dependent flow behaviour as well as in the secondary flow structures is stated.


1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
Heinz E. Gallus

Detailed results of unsteady flow measurements in a stator-rotor-stator assembly of an axial-flow turbine as well as an inlet guide vane-rotor-stator formation of an axial-flow compressor are presented in this paper.The measurements include the time-dependent 3-D velocity vector fields in the axial gaps between the blade rows by means of triple-hot wire-technique, furthermore the total pressure field downstream of the blade rows by means of semiconductor total pressure probes and the unsteady flow field determination in the rotor passages by LDV-technique. Special semiconductor pressure measurements along the casing all over the rotor tip clearance permit detailed discussion of the rotor tip clearance flows.The conclusion of the measured data provides a new and very instructive view of the physics of the unsteady blade-row interaction in axial-flow turbines and compressors.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Kumar Pujari ◽  
B. V. S. S. S. Prasad ◽  
N. Sitaram

A computational study on conjugate heat transfer is carried out to present the behavior of nondimensional temperature and heat transfer coefficient of a Nozzle Guide Vane (NGV) leading edge. Reynolds number of both mainstream flow and coolant impinging jets are varied. The NGV has five rows of film cooling holes arranged in shower head manner and four rows of impingement holes arranged in staggered manner. The results are presented by considering materials of different thermal conductivity. The results show that the mainstream flow affects the temperature distribution on the interior side of the vane leading edge for high conductivity material whereas it has negligible effects for low conductivity material. The effect of changing blowing ratio on internal heat transfer coefficient and internal surface temperature is also presented.


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