Flutter Generation and Control Using Mistuning in a Turbine Rotating Rig

Author(s):  
Roque Corral ◽  
Josu Beloki ◽  
Paolo Calza ◽  
Robert Elliot

The paper describes a free-flutter experiment on a stand-alone low-pressure turbine bladed rotor in a high-speed rotating wind tunnel together with the most relevant design decisions and solutions obtained for a low-reduced frequency cantilever shrouded rotor blade design. The test rotor underwent an experimental campaign with independent control of the shaft speed, pressure ratio and air density levels. Measurements were obtained entirely by means of non-intrusive techniques such as blade tip timing optical probes, and unsteady pressure transducers located in the outer casing of the rig downstream of the rotor. The bladed rotor was designed to flutter under a wide range of operating conditions. The independent effects of the shaft speed and the air density level were thoroughly investigated. It was concluded that, firstly, the higher the density level the higher the level of instability and, secondly, that the vibration amplitude of the rotor blade exhibits a maximum with the shaft speed. In addition the rotor blades were designed in such a way that additional masses could be mounted in the tip-shrouds to create arbitrary mistuning patterns. Two different mistuning patterns were tested, the first consisted of a classical alternate mistuning pattern designed to suppress flutter whereas a second pattern was designed to halve the vibration amplitude of the tuned bladed-disk. Both objectives were successfully achieved during the experiment.

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (3) ◽  
pp. 843-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyeong-Su Kim ◽  
In Lee

Air foil bearings are very attractive bearing systems for turbomachinery because they have several advantages over conventional bearings in terms of oil-free environment, low power loss, long life, and no maintenance. However, most of the developed machines using air foil bearings are limited to small and high-speed rotors of 60,000–120,000 rpm, since the increase in power of turbomachinery requires lower rotor speed and greater loading in bearings, which makes it difficult to use air foil bearings for large machines. In this paper, a 75 kW turboblower using air foil bearings is introduced, and the vibration characteristics of the machine have been investigated experimentally under a wide range of operating conditions, including compressor surge in the performance test. The machine is designed to be fully air lubricated and air cooled, and its operating speed is 20,000–26,000 rpm with maximum pressure ratio of 1.8. The results show that the air foil bearings offer adequate damping to ensure dynamically stable operation in the whole range.


2014 ◽  
Vol 747 ◽  
pp. 119-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Vandre ◽  
M. S. Carvalho ◽  
S. Kumar

AbstractCharacteristic substrate speeds and meniscus shapes associated with the onset of air entrainment are studied during dynamic wetting failure along a planar substrate. Using high-speed video, the behaviour of the dynamic contact line (DCL) is recorded as a tape substrate is drawn through a bath of a glycerol/water solution. Air entrainment is identified by triangular air films that elongate from the DCL above some critical substrate speed. Meniscus confinement within a narrow gap between the substrate and a stationary plate is shown to delay air entrainment to higher speeds for a wide range of liquid viscosities, expanding upon the findings of Vandre, Carvalho & Kumar (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 707, 2012, pp. 496–520). A pressurized liquid reservoir controls the meniscus position within the confinement gap. It is found that liquid pressurization further postpones air entrainment when the meniscus is located near a sharp corner along the stationary plate. Meniscus shapes recorded near the DCL demonstrate that operating conditions influence the size of entrained air films, with smaller films appearing in the more viscous solutions. Regardless of size, air films become unstable to thickness perturbations and ultimately rupture, leading to the entrainment of air bubbles. Recorded critical speeds and air-film sizes compare well to predictions from a hydrodynamic model for dynamic wetting failure, suggesting that strong air stresses near the DCL trigger the onset of air entrainment.


Author(s):  
B. R. Nichols ◽  
R. L. Fittro ◽  
C. P. Goyne

Many high-speed, rotating machines across a wide range of industrial applications depend on fluid film bearings to provide both static support of the rotor and to introduce stabilizing damping forces into the system through a developed hydrodynamic film wedge. Reduced oil supply flow rate to the bearings can cause cavitation, or a lack of a fully developed film layer, at the leading edge of the bearing pads. Reducing oil flow has the well-documented effects of higher bearing operating temperatures and decreased power losses due to shear forces. While machine efficiency may be improved with reduced lubricant flow, little experimental data on its effects on system stability and performance can be found in the literature. This study looks at overall system performance of a test rig operating under reduced oil supply flow rates by observing steady-state bearing performance indicators and baseline vibrational response of the shaft. The test rig used in this study was designed to be dynamically similar to a high-speed industrial compressor. It consists of a 1.55 m long, flexible rotor supported by two tilting pad bearings with a nominal diameter of 70 mm and a span of 1.2 m. The first bending mode is located at approximately 5,000 rpm. The tiling-pad bearings consist of five pads in a vintage, flooded bearing housing with a length to diameter ratio of 0.75, preload of 0.3, and a load-between-pad configuration. Tests were conducted over a number of operating speeds, ranging from 8,000 to 12,000 rpm, and bearing loads, while systematically reducing the oil supply flow rates provided to the bearings under each condition. For nearly all operating conditions, a low amplitude, broadband subsynchronous vibration pattern was observed in the frequency domain from approximately 0–75 Hz. When the test rig was operated at running speeds above its first bending mode, a distinctive subsynchronous peak emerged from the broadband pattern at approximately half of the running speed and at the first bending mode of the shaft. This vibration signature is often considered a classic sign of rotordynamic instability attributed to oil whip and shaft whirl phenomena. For low and moderate load conditions, the amplitude of this 0.5x subsynchronous peak increased with decreasing oil supply flow rate at all operating speeds. Under the high load condition, the subsynchronous peak was largely attenuated. A discussion on the possible sources of this subsynchronous vibration including self-excited instability and pad flutter forced vibration is provided with supporting evidence from thermoelastohydrodynamic (TEHD) bearing modeling results. Implications of reduced oil supply flow rate on system stability and operational limits are also discussed.


Author(s):  
Mohammad R. Saadatmand

The aerodynamic design process leading to the production configuration of a 14 stage, 16:1 pressure ratio compressor for the Taurus 70 gas turbine is described. The performance of the compressor is measured and compared to the design intent. Overall compressor performance at the design condition was found to be close to design intent. Flow profiles measured by vane mounted instrumentation are presented and discussed. The flow through the first rotor blade has been modeled at different operating conditions using the Dawes (1987) three-dimensional viscous code and the results are compared to the experimental data. The CFD prediction agreed well with the experimental data across the blade span, including the pile up of the boundary layer on the corner of the hub and the suction surface. The rotor blade was also analyzed with different grid refinement and the results were compared with the test data.


Author(s):  
K. R. Pullen ◽  
N. C. Baines ◽  
S. H. Hill

A single stage, high speed, high pressure ratio radial inflow turbine was designed for a single shaft gas turbine engine in the 200 kW power range. A model turbine has been tested in a cold rig facility with correct simulation of the important non-dimensional parameters. Performance measurements over a wide range of operation were made, together with extensive volute and exhaust traverses, so that gas velocities and incidence and deviation angles could be deduced. The turbine efficiency was lower than expected at all but the lowest speed. The rotor incidence and exit swirl angles, as obtained from the rig test data, were very similar to the design assumptions. However, evidence was found of a region of separation in the nozzle vane passages, presumably caused by a very high curvature in the endwall just upstream of the vane leading edges. The effects of such a separation are shown to be consistent with the observed performance.


2020 ◽  
pp. 146808742092264
Author(s):  
Boni F Yraguen ◽  
Farzad Poursadegh ◽  
Caroline L Genzale

The engine combustion network recommends two different imaging-based diagnostics for the measurement of diesel spray ignition delay and lift-off length, respectively. To measure ignition delay, high-speed imaging of broadband luminosity, spectrally filtered to limit collected wavelengths below 600 nm, is recommended. This diagnostic is often referred to as broadband natural luminosity. For lift-off length measurements, the engine combustion network recommends imaging of OH* chemiluminescence. This diagnostic requires using an image-intensified camera to detect narrowly filtered light around 310 nm. Alternatively, it has been shown that the lift-off length can be measured using broadband natural luminosity, avoiding the need for an intensifier and ultraviolet-transmitting optics. However, care is needed in the collection and processing of this diagnostic to accurately isolate the chemiluminescence signal. Particularly, standard intensity thresholding techniques are not sufficient for isolating the chemiluminescence signal in broadband natural luminosity images. Thus, an intensity-histogram-based thresholding method is introduced. This article assesses the feasibility and practicality of measuring lift-off length using broadband natural luminosity using a detailed comparison to OH* chemiluminescence measurements. It is shown that lift-off length measurements using broadband natural luminosity are prone to user bias error in the optical setup and data processing, especially under moderate- to high-sooting conditions. We conclude that while OH* imaging provides the most reliable and accurate measurement of lift-off length at a wide range of ambient conditions, an intensity-histogram analysis can help discriminate the high-temperature chemiluminescence signal from others in a broadband natural luminosity image at higher-sooting operating conditions than demonstrated in current literature.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (4) ◽  
pp. 930-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Mosher ◽  
D. W. Childs

This research investigates the effect of varying the concentric recess pressure ratio of hybrid (combination hydrostatic and hydrodynamic) bearings to be used in high-speed, high-pressure applications. Bearing flowrate, load capacity, torque, rotordynamic coefficients, and whirl frequency ratio are examined to determine the concentric, recess-pressure ratio which yields optimum bearing load capacity and dynamic stiffness. An analytical model, using two-dimensional bulk-flow Navier-Stokes equations and anchored by experimental test results, is used to examine bearing performance over a wide range of concentric recess pressure ratios. Typically, a concentric recess pressure ratio of 0.50 is used to obtain maximum bearing load capacity. This analysis reveals that theoretical optimum bearing performance occurs for a pressure ratio near 0.40, while experimental results indicate the optimum value to he somewhat higher than 0.45. This research demonstrates the ability to analytically investigate hybrid bearings and shows the need for more hybrid-bearing experimental data.


Author(s):  
Joachim Kurzke

Realistic compressor maps are the key to high quality gas turbine performance calculations. When modeling the performance of an existing engine then these maps are usually not known and must be approximated by adapting maps from literature to either measured data or to other available information. There are many publications describing map adaptation processes, simple ones and more sophisticated physically based scaling rules. There are also reports about using statistics, genetic algorithms, neural networks and even morphing techniques for re-engineering compressor maps. This type of methods does not consider the laws of physics and consequently the generated maps are valid at best in the region in which they have been calibrated. This region is frequently very narrow, especially in case of gas generator compressors which run in steady state always on a single operating line. This paper describes which physical phenomena influence the shape of speed and efficiency lines in compressor maps. For machines operating at comparatively low speeds (so that the flow into each stage is subsonic), there is usually considerable range between choke and stall corrected flow. As the speed of the machine is increased the range narrows. For high-speed stages with supersonic relative flow into the rotor the efficiency maximum is where the speed line turns over from vertical to lower than maximum corrected flow. At this operating condition the shock is about to detach from the leading edge of the blades. The flow at a certain speed can also be limited by choking in the compressor exit guide vanes. For high pressure ratio single stage centrifugal compressors this is a normal case, but it can also happen with low pressure ratio multistage boosters of turbofan engines, for example. If the compressor chokes at the exit, then the specific work remains constant along the speed line while the overall pressure ratio varies and that generates a very specific shape of the efficiency contour lines in the map. Also in other parts of the map, the efficiency varies along speed lines in a systematic manner. Peculiar shapes of specific work and corrected torque lines can reveal physically impossibilities that are difficult to see in the standard compressor map pictures. Compressor maps generated without considering the inherent physical phenomena can easily result in misleading performance calculations if used at operating conditions outside of the region where they have been calibrated. Whatever map adaptation method is used: the maps created in such a way should be checked thoroughly for violations of the underlying laws of compressor physics.


Author(s):  
Maryam Khelghatibana ◽  
Jean-Yves Trépanier ◽  
Christophe Tribes ◽  
Jason Nichols

A multi-objective and multi-point optimization methodology is developed for aerodynamic design of transonic fan blades. The optimization method aims to increase design efficiency, near stall efficiency and stall margin while maintaining the required design pressure ratio and high speed choke margin. Numerical analyses are performed by solving three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations combined with shear stress turbulence model. A multi-level blade parameterization is employed to modify the blade geometry. The proposed method is applied to redesign NASA rotor 67. First, an optimization case with considering two operating conditions at peak efficiency and near stall is performed to demonstrate the relation between near stall efficiency and stall margin. An investigation on Pareto optimal solutions of this optimization shows that the stall margin is increased with improving near stall efficiency. Then, in order to maintain the required choke margin, an operating point at high speed choked flow is added to the optimization process. A final optimized design is selected by considering the interaction of design requirements at all three operating points. The new design presents higher efficiency and stall margin without any reduction in the chocking mass flow rate.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kimber ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

Piezoelectric fans are vibrating cantilevers actuated by a piezoelectric material and can provide heat transfer enhancement while consuming little power. Past research has focused on feasibility and performance characterization of a single fan, while arrays of such fans, which have important practical applications, have not been widely studied. This paper investigates the heat transfer achieved using arrays of cantilevers vibrating in their first resonant mode. This is accomplished by determining the local convection coefficients due to the two piezoelectric fans mounted near a constant heat flux surface using infrared thermal imaging. The heat transfer performance is quantified over a wide range of operating conditions, including vibration amplitude (7.5–10 mm), distance from heat source (0.01–2 times the fan amplitude), and pitch between fans (0.5–4 times the amplitude). The convection patterns observed are strongly dependent on the fan pitch, with the behavior resembling a single fan for small fan pitch and two isolated fans at a large pitch. The area-averaged thermal performance of the fan array is superior to that of a single fan, and correlations are developed to describe this enhancement in terms of the governing parameters. The best thermal performance is obtained when the fan pitch is 1.5 times its vibration amplitude.


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