Analysis of a LPT Rotor Blade for a Geared Engine: Part I — Aero-Mechanical Design and Validation

Author(s):  
Matteo Giovannini ◽  
Filippo Rubechini ◽  
Michele Marconcini ◽  
Andrea Arnone ◽  
Francesco Bertini

The rotational speed of low pressure turbines (LPT) for geared turbofan applications is significantly increased looking for potential benefit in performance, weight and overall dimensions. As a drawback, the high speed LPT are characterized by critical mechanical constraints due to the large centrifugal stresses in conjunction with the use of lightweight materials. The present activity was carried out in the framework of the Clean Sky European research project ITURB (Optimal High-Lift Turbine Blade Aero-Mechanical Design), aimed at designing and validating a turbine blade for a geared open rotor engine. This two-part paper presents the redesign and the analysis of an optimized rotor blade starting from a baseline configuration, representative of a state-of-the-art LPT rotor. In the redesign activity high standard of performance was required in conjunction with tight mechanical and geometrical constraints. The design strategy was based on an effective multi-objective optimization strategy. The aerodynamic performance was evaluated by means of 3D steady multi-row viscous computations using a two-equation k-ω turbulence model. At the same time, the mechanical integrity checks were mainly based on the evaluation of the maximum rotor tensile stress due to centrifugal forces. A simplified and very fast tool was developed in order to compute the centrifugal stress. Finally a response-surface approach based on neural-networks (ANNs) was adopted for the design space exploration. The design was validated by means of a comprehensive experimental campaign carried out in a low-speed turbine single-stage facility. A comparison between the numerical and experimental results is presented in terms of the main rotor performance for a fixed Reynolds number while varying the rotor incidence angle. Unsteady numerical analysis of both the baseline and the optimized blade were carried out by using a multi-equation, transition-sensitive, turbulence model and considering the boundary conditions measured on the test rig.

Author(s):  
Matteo Giovannini ◽  
Michele Marconcini ◽  
Filippo Rubechini ◽  
Andrea Arnone ◽  
Francesco Bertini

The present activity was carried out in the framework of the Clean Sky European research project ITURB (“Optimal High-Lift Turbine Blade Aero-Mechanical Design”), aimed at designing and validating a turbine blade for a geared open rotor engine. A cold-flow, large-scale, low-speed (LS) rig was built in order to investigate and validate new design criteria, providing reliable and detailed results while containing costs. This paper presents the design of a LS stage, and describes a general procedure that allows to scale 3D blades for low-speed testing. The design of the stator row was aimed at matching the test-rig inlet conditions and at providing the proper inlet flow field to the blade row. The rotor row was redesigned in order to match the performance of the high-speed one, compensating for both the compressibility effects and different turbine flow paths. The proposed scaling procedure is based on the matching of the 3D blade loading distribution between the real engine environment and the LS facility one, which leads to a comparable behavior of the boundary layer and hence to comparable profile losses. To this end, the datum blade is parameterized, and a neural-network-based methodology is exploited to guide an optimization process based on 3D RANS computations. The LS stage performance were investigated over a range of Reynolds numbers characteristic of modern low-pressure turbines by using a multi-equation, transition-sensitive, turbulence model.


Author(s):  
Olatz Larrieta ◽  
Roberto Alonso ◽  
Óscar Pérez Escobar ◽  
Ibrahim Eryilmaz ◽  
Vassilios Pachidis

Abstract The geared turbofan engines bring the potential to rotate the fan at lower speed and allow an increase in diameter, which in turn leads to an increase in propulsive efficiency through high by-pass ratio. The low-pressure turbine stages driving the fan can also rotate at high speed resulting in fewer stages when compared to traditional turbofans. However, when operating at high speed, pressure fluctuations due to self-excited vibrations increase and may provoke flutter instabilities. In a geared architecture, to deliver the high power required by the fan and the intermediate-pressure compressor, the low-pressure turbine system operates at higher temperatures compared to its predecessors. This phenomenon requires structural materials with higher heat resistance, which carries the inconvenience of poor welding suitability. That is the reason why alternative non-welded blade shroud joint techniques are so important, techniques as the blade interlock mechanism studied in this work. This manuscript examines the effects of different design parameters of a low-pressure turbine blade shroud interlock on flutter stability, to make future recommendations for geared engines. The shrouded turbine rotor blades feature blade interlocks, which enhances the dynamic stability by providing stiffness to the rotor blade row. To assess the stability of the system, a parametric design of a turbine blade-disk assembly was prepared. In the parametric model the design variables that define the blade interlock are the interlock angle, interlock axial position, interlock contact length and height, knife seal position and pre-twist angle. After parametrization, a finite element model of the turbine blade and disk assembly was prepared with cyclic symmetry boundary condition. The stresses caused by rotation were calculated in a static structural analysis and these were used as pre-stress boundary conditions in modal analysis. The modal results were afterwards exchanged with an aerodynamic model to obtain the aerodynamic damping for different blade interlock design configurations. In the present work, the dynamic response of the first three excitation modes was analyzed. It was found that the third mode was stable for all the design points, whereas first and second modes were unstable at least for the reference design point. Among the considered six different parameters that define the blade interlock geometry, the interlock contact position turned to be the most influential parameter for modal response and for flutter stability. Moving the interlock contact position towards the trailing edge gave the most beneficial results. On the other hand, the interlock angle showed the least influence on both, the modal analysis and flutter behavior. The accomplished Design of Experiments and subsequent optimization process also conclude that there exists an interdependency between the studied parameters.


Author(s):  
J. Frischbier ◽  
G. Schulze ◽  
M. Zielinski ◽  
G. Ziller ◽  
C. Blaha ◽  
...  

A major challenge during the design process of a modern low aspect ratio high speed axial compressor is to find rotor blade geometries that meet both, aerodynamic and mechanical requirements. This paper deals with the mechanical design of a transonic compressor blade. In order to meet the mechanical requirements in a short development time, new methods were used: A numerical optimization tool and an optical blade vibration measurement method: The numerical resonance tuning took advantage of a semi-automatic optimization technique, based on a Finite Element vibration anlysis tool. The intention was to find a geometry which has no critical resonances (with fundamental engine orders) within the operation range. To verify the calculated blade natural frequencies and eigen-values standard shaker tests using a laser holography system were carried out. Blades under g-load in the running compressor were investigated with an in-house developed vibration measurement system. This system is able to measure frequencies and amplitudes of the rotor blade vibrations without blade instrumentation but small optical probes, mounted in the compressor casing. The measured resonance points are in good agreement with the predictions. All amplitudes are far below the blade fatigue limits.


2007 ◽  
Vol 340-341 ◽  
pp. 283-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Han Song ◽  
Hoon Huh

The dynamic response of the turbine blade materials is indispensable for analysis of erosions of turbine blades as a result of impulsive loading associated with gas flow. This paper is concerned with the dynamic material properties of the Inconel 718 alloy which is widely used in the high speed turbine blade. The dynamic response at the corresponding level of the strain rate should be acquired with an adequate experimental technique and apparatus due to the inertia effect and the stress wave propagation. In this paper, the dynamic response of the Inconel 718 at the intermediate strain rate ranged from 1/s to 400/s is obtained from the high speed tensile test and that at the high strain rate above 1000/s is obtained from the split Hopkinson pressure bar test. The effects of the strain rate on the dynamic flow stress, the strain rate sensitivity and the failure elongation are evaluated with the experimental results. Experimental results from both the quasi-static and the high strain rate up to 3000/s are interpolated in order to construct the constitutive relation that should be applied to simulate the dynamic behavior of the turbine blade made of the Inconel 718.


2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae Su Kwak ◽  
Je-Chin Han

Experimental investigations were performed to measure the detailed heat transfer coefficients and film cooling effectiveness on the squealer tip of a gas turbine blade in a five-bladed linear cascade. The blade was a two-dimensional model of a first stage gas turbine rotor blade with a profile of the GE-E3 aircraft gas turbine engine rotor blade. The test blade had a squealer (recessed) tip with a 4.22% recess. The blade model was equipped with a single row of film cooling holes on the pressure side near the tip region and the tip surface along the camber line. Hue detection based transient liquid crystals technique was used to measure heat transfer coefficients and film cooling effectiveness. All measurements were done for the three tip gap clearances of 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.5% of blade span at the two blowing ratios of 1.0 and 2.0. The Reynolds number based on cascade exit velocity and axial chord length was 1.1×106 and the total turning angle of the blade was 97.9 deg. The overall pressure ratio was 1.2 and the inlet and exit Mach numbers were 0.25 and 0.59, respectively. The turbulence intensity level at the cascade inlet was 9.7%. Results showed that the overall heat transfer coefficients increased with increasing tip gap clearance, but decreased with increasing blowing ratio. However, the overall film cooling effectiveness increased with increasing blowing ratio. Results also showed that the overall film cooling effectiveness increased but heat transfer coefficients decreased for the squealer tip when compared to the plane tip at the same tip gap clearance and blowing ratio conditions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ferreira Corrêa Barbosa ◽  
Daniel da Silva Tonon ◽  
Luiz Henrique Lindquist Whitacker ◽  
Jesuino Takachi Tomita ◽  
Cleverson Bringhenti

Abstract The aim of this work is an evaluation of different turbulence models applied in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques in the turbomachinery area, in this case, in an axial turbine stage used in turbopump (TP) application. The tip clearance region was considered in this study because it has a high influence in turbomachinery performance. In this region, due to its geometry and the relative movement between the rotor row and casing, there are losses associated with vortices and secondary flow making the flowfield even more turbulent and complex. Moreover, the flow that leaks in the tip region does not participate in the energy transfer between the fluid and rotor blades, degradating the machine efficiency and performance. In this work, the usual flat tip rotor blade geometry was considered. The modeling of turbulent flow based on Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations predicts the variation of turbine operational characteristics that is sufficient for the present turbomachine and flow analysis. Therefore, the appropriate choice of the turbulence model for the study of a given flow is essential to obtain adequate results using numerical approximations. This comparison become important due to the fact that there is no general turbulence model for all engineering applications that has fluid and flow. The turbomachine considered in the present work, is the first stage of the hydraulic axial turbine used in the Low Pressure Oxidizer Turbopump (LPOTP) of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), considering the 3.0% tip clearance configuration relative to rotor blade height. The turbulence models evaluated in this work were the SST (Shear Stress Transport), the k-ε Standard and the k-ε RNG. The computational domain was discretized in several control volumes based on unstructured mesh. All the simulations were performed using the commercial software developed by ANSYS, CFX v15.0 (ANSYS). All numerical settings and how the boundary conditions were imposed at different surfaces are explained in the work. The boundary conditions settings follow the same rule used in the test facility and needs some attention during the simulations to vary the Blade-Jet-Speed ratio parameter adequately. The results from numerical simulations, were synthesized and compared with the experimental data published by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in which the turbine efficiency and its jet velocity parameter are analyzed for each turbulence model result. The work fluid considered in this work was water, the same fluid used in the NASA test facility.


Author(s):  
Ibrahim Eryilmaz ◽  
Sinan Inanli ◽  
Baris Gumusel ◽  
Suha Toprak ◽  
Cengiz Camci

This paper presents the preliminary results of using artificial neural networks in the prediction of gas side convective heat transfer coefficients on a high pressure turbine blade. The artificial neural network approach which has three hidden layers was developed and trained by nine inputs and it generates one output. Input and output data were taken from an experimental research program performed at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics by Camci and Arts [5,6] and Camci [7]. Inlet total pressure, inlet total temperature, inlet turbulence intensity, inlet and exit Mach numbers, blade wall temperature, incidence angle, specific location of measurement and suction/pressure side specification of the blade were used as input parameters and calculated heat transfer coefficient around a rotor blade used as output. After the network is trained with experimental data, heat transfer coefficients are interpolated for similar experimental conditions and compared with both experimental measurements and CFD solutions. CFD analysis was carried out to validate the algorithm and to determine heat transfer coefficients for a closely related test case. Good agreement was obtained between CFD results and neural network predictions.


Author(s):  
B A Marlow

Experience shows that the reliability of large turbogenerators depends substantially on the quality of detail design, particularly the quality of the mechanical design. In addition to the design problems common to all high-speed rotating machinery, the mechanical design of generators must take account of certain electrical requirements. This paper gives an insight into the detail mechanical design of large turbogenerators paying particular attention to the interaction of electrical requirements on the mechanical design.


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