scholarly journals Numerical Analysis on Steam Exciting Force Caused by Rotor Eccentricity

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. H. Cao ◽  
J. X. Wang ◽  
P. Li ◽  
P. F. Hu ◽  
Y. Li

The steam exciting force has been proved to be great threat to the operation safety of steam turbines. The mechanism of steam exciting vibration cannot be profoundly revealed by simply analyzing the steam exciting force, especially in simplified models. Therefore, a full-circle stage of steam turbine with shroud and labyrinth seals was investigated by numerical simulator CFX. The instability of leakage flow and the pressure fluctuation were analyzed on the eccentric condition. The effects of leakage vortexes, the depth-width ratio of seal cavity, and the eccentricity on the steam exciting force were studied. Results show that the leakage flow is nonuniform in the circumferential direction with the change of front teeth vortexes, which causes the steam exciting force. The tangential and radial steam exciting force both increase with the eccentricity increasing. The effects of the depth-width ratio of seal cavity on the two forces are different. In addition, the pressure fluctuation caused by the leakage vortexes on the shroud surfaces is a main factor inducing the steam exciting force. This research provides a theoretical guidance for the operation safety and optimization of steam turbines.

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinxiang Xi ◽  
David L. Rhode

Rotors in steam turbines experience significant axial shifting during start-up and shut-down process due to thermal expansion. This axial-shifting could significantly alter the flow pattern and the flow-induced rotordynamic forces in labyrinth seals, which in turn, can considerably affect the rotor-seal system’s performance. This paper investigates the influence of the rotor-axial-shifting on leakage rate and rotordynamic forces for high-low labyrinth seals under different geometrical and operational conditions. A well-established CFD-perturbation model was employed to predict the rotordynamic coefficients. A surprisingly large effect was found for rotordynamic characteristics due to changes in seal configurations caused by rotor axial shifting. It was also found that less destabilizing effect arose from rotor-axial-shifting in the leakage flow direction whereas a more destabilizing effect arose from shifting against the leakage flow direction. A tentative explanation was proposed for the large sensitivities of dynamic forces to the off-design operations with rotor-axial-shifting.


Volume 3 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minter Cheng

Leakage flow plays an important role on the performance evaluation of hydraulic components. Leakage flow induces adverse influences on many practical industrial applications. For the sake of reducing friction and/or abrasion, most of the high-speed hydraulic components install some kind of non-contact seals to minimize leakage flow, the labyrinth seal is the most popular one. This research is to investigate the leakage flow of labyrinth seals in hydraulic components by using numerical analysis technique. The parameters investigated in this study are cavity number, cavity width, cavity depth, cavity gap, and Reynolds number. The traditional rectangular cavity is considered in this research. It shows that cavity width is about 20∼30 times of clearance, cavity depth is about 3∼5 times of clearance, cavity gap is greater than 50 times of clearance, cavity depth to width ratio is about 0.15∼0.25, and cavity gap to width ratio is greater than 2.5 have better sealing capability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (6 Part A) ◽  
pp. 3823-3834
Author(s):  
Pan Li ◽  
Lihua Cao ◽  
Heyong Si ◽  
Wenlong Wang

The paper presents the unsteady numerical simulation results of tip leakage flow in high pressure steam turbines, and also presents the influence analysis of leakage vortexes on pressure fluctuation characteristics of rotor cascade under different blade tip seal clearances. The numerical method for calculating is based on the large eddy simulation turbulence model and the pressure fluctuation of rotor cascade which induced by the unstable leakage vortexes is obtained by frequency spectrum analysis. The results show that the vortex frequencies in tip seal cavity contain both the wheel rotating frequency and the high frequency caused by the tip leakage flow breaking into small scale vortexes. The unsteady characteristics of tip leakage flow also induce steam exciting force which changes with the time.


Author(s):  
Andrew Messenger ◽  
Richard Williams ◽  
Grant Ingram ◽  
Simon Hogg ◽  
Stacie Tibos ◽  
...  

Effective sealing in turbomachinery reduces the leakage flow bypassing the turbine blades and also reduces the losses where the leakage flow mixes with the primary flow. In general the clearance should be as small as possible but is limited by thermal and mechanical effects which vary with load. In recent years intermittent energy sources, particularly wind and solar, have appeared in greater numbers on the power network. As a consequence conventional power plants need to become more flexible to accommodate renewable energy generation. A sealing technology which can accommodate rapid changes in load and maintain seal performance would be a valuable development. This paper presents a novel seal design for steam turbines. The seal is designed to be capable of maintaining a smaller clearance than that of conventional labyrinth seals whilst allowing for dynamic movement with the rotor. The paper describes the seal concept and the analytic al work undertaken to demonstrate the concept. The seal design has also been tested in test facilities at Durham and the initial experimental results are included. They show that the concept works as intended.


1959 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Zabriskie ◽  
B. Sternlicht

The leakage flow through labyrinth seals in turbomachinery has been the subject of increasing concern as refinements and advances in design are made. Accurate knowledge of seal leakage is necessary in at least three areas of design: (a) Estimating the effect of seal leakage on performance; (b) regulating the leakage flow required for cooling purposes; (c) determining the thrust-bearing load which is a function of the pressure drop through the seal. This paper is concerned primarily with the fluid-flow aspect of gas leakage through labyrinth seals of the types commonly used in gas and steam turbines. This includes staggered and unstaggered seals of the axial type, which are most commonly used in turbomachinery. The attention to fluid-flow considerations does not imply that material compatibility and operating problems of expansion, deformation, and rub-in are unimportant. In fact, these mechanical considerations may overrule the fluid-flow considerations. For the foregoing reasons, it is desirable to be able to predict seal leakage flows, and thus this aspect of seal design has been singled out for consideration here.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinxiang Xi ◽  
David L. Rhode

Rotors in high-performance steam turbines experience a significant axial shifting during starting and stopping processes due to thermal expansion, for example. This axial shifting could significantly alter the flow pattern and the flow-induced rotordynamic forces in labyrinth seals, which in turn, can considerably affect the rotor-seal system performance. This paper investigates the influence of the rotor axial shifting on leakage rate as well as rotordynamic forces in high-low labyrinth seals over a range of seal clearances and inlet swirl velocities. A well-established CFD-perturbation model was employed to predict the rotordynamic coefficients. A surprisingly large effect was detected for rotordynamic characteristics due to rotor shifting. It was also found that a less destabilizing effect arose from rotor axial shifting in the leakage flow direction, whereas a more destabilizing effect arose from shifting against the leakage flow direction. Further, a tentative explanation was proposed for the large sensitivities of dynamic forces to rotor axial shifting.


2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-zhe Wang ◽  
Ying-zheng Liu ◽  
Pu-ning Jiang ◽  
Han-ping Chen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhipeng Feng ◽  
Liwen Deng ◽  
Xuan Huang ◽  
Pingchuan Shen ◽  
Shuai Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Flow-induced vibration is an important issue related to the safety and reliability of nuclear reactor, which need to be analyzed and evaluated in the design stage. In order to obtain the input loads and key parameters used in the calculation of flow-induced vibration of reactor vessel internals (RVIs) that need to satisfy the engineering requirements. The typical RVIs are selected as the research object, and the fluid exciting force characteristics are studied based on the computational fluid dynamics methods. The results show that the fluid exciting force acting on the RVIs is a wide-band stochastic process. For upper internal, the largest pressure fluctuation occurs at the guide tubes and support columns located near the outlet. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to these guide tubes and support columns in response analysis. As for core barrel, the root mean square value of the pressure fluctuation changes drastically at the inlet and outlet location. For lower internal, the lower flow field of RVIs is relatively disordered, and its pressure fluctuation possesses irregular characteristics. Each component of lower internal need to be considered in analysis and evaluation.


Author(s):  
Mikhail Gritckevich ◽  
Kunyuan Zhou ◽  
Vincent Peltier ◽  
Markus Raben ◽  
Olga Galchenko

A comprehensive study of several labyrinth seals has been performed in the framework of both single-objective and multi-objective optimizations with the main focus on the effect of stator grooves formed due to the rubbing during gas turbine engine operation. For that purpose, the developed optimization workflow based on the DLR-AutoOpti optimizer and ANSYS-Workbench CAE environment has been employed to reduce the leakage flow and windage heating for several seals. The obtained results indicate that the seal designs obtained from optimizations without stator grooves have worse performance during the lifecycle than those with the stator grooves, justifying the importance of considering this effect for real engineering applications.


2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Rapisarda ◽  
Alessio Desando ◽  
Elena Campagnoli ◽  
Roberto Taurino

The design of modern aircrafts propulsion systems is strongly influenced by the important objective of environmental impact reduction. Through a great number of researches carried out in the last decades, significant improvements have been obtained in terms of lower fuel consumption and pollutant emission. Experimental tests are a necessary step to achieve new solutions that are more efficient than the current designs, even if during the preliminary design phase, a valid alternative to expensive experimental tests is the implementation of numerical models. The processing power of modern computers allows indeed the simulation of more complex and detailed phenomena than the past years. The present work focuses on the implementation of a numerical model for rotating stepped labyrinth seals installed in low-pressure turbines. These components are widely employed in sealing turbomachinery to reduce the leakage flow between rotating components. The numerical simulations were performed by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology, focusing on the leakage performances at different rotating speeds and inlet preswirl ratios. Investigations on velocity profiles into seal cavities were also carried out. To begin with, a smooth labyrinth seal model was validated by using the experimental data found in the literature. The numerical simulations were extended to the honeycomb labyrinth seals, with the validation performed on the velocity profiles. Then, the effects of two geometrical parameters, the rounded fin tip leading edge, and the step position were numerically investigated for both smooth and honeycomb labyrinth seals. The obtained results are generally in good agreement with the experimental data. The main effect found when the fin tip leading edge was rounded was a large increase in leakage flow, while the step position contribution to the flow path behavior is nonmonotone.


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