scholarly journals Open-Source Implementation and Validation of a 3D Inverse Design Method for Francis Turbine Runners

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2020
Author(s):  
Sebastián Leguizamón ◽  
François Avellan

The hydraulic design of Francis turbines and pump-turbines is an expensive project-specific engineering effort that typically involves a direct iterative exploration of the design space. An inverse design method for turbomachinery has been previously introduced in the literature, and several recent applications have demonstrated its advantages; however, only a commercial implementation of the method is currently available. In this work, an open-source implementation of the inverse design method is introduced. First, the governing equations in cylindrical and curvilinear coordinate systems are derived, consolidating the somewhat inconsistent formulations that are available in the literature. Then, a convergence analysis of the method is performed in order to characterize the behavior of the discretization error and deduce the mesh resolution requirements. A validation of the method output with respect to high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations is then presented; it is demonstrated that the velocity fields are well predicted, the pressure distribution on the blades is reasonably well approximated, and the flow angular momentum extraction is achieved in the prescribed manner. Possible improvements to the open-source implementation of the method are discussed.

Author(s):  
Hidenobu Okamoto ◽  
Akira Goto

This paper describes a new design method of blade geometry for a Francis turbine runner by using a three-dimensional inverse design method and the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique. The design objectives are the suppression of cavitation by reducing the area in which static pressure is lower than the vapor pressure while keeping the efficiency high. In the inverse design method, it is possible to optimize the static pressure distribution in the runner by controlling blade loading parameters and/or stacking condition, which is related to a blade lean angle, for the same design specification. A Francis turbine runner was re-designed by the inverse design method for different blade loading and stacking conditions, and the flow fields were evaluated by applying CFD. It was confirmed that the present design method is very practical and effective to control low pressure region and achieve high efficiency for Francis turbine runners.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Longinovich Bolsunovsky ◽  
Nikolay Petrovich Buzoverya ◽  
Nikita Aleksandrovich Pushchin

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 4845
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Noorsalehi ◽  
Mahdi Nili-Ahmadabadi ◽  
Seyed Hossein Nasrazadani ◽  
Kyung Chun Kim

The upgraded elastic surface algorithm (UESA) is a physical inverse design method that was recently developed for a compressor cascade with double-circular-arc blades. In this method, the blade walls are modeled as elastic Timoshenko beams that smoothly deform because of the difference between the target and current pressure distributions. Nevertheless, the UESA is completely unstable for a compressor cascade with an intense normal shock, which causes a divergence due to the high pressure difference near the shock and the displacement of shock during the geometry corrections. In this study, the UESA was stabilized for the inverse design of a compressor cascade with normal shock, with no geometrical filtration. In the new version of this method, a distribution for the elastic modulus along the Timoshenko beam was chosen to increase its stiffness near the normal shock and to control the high deformations and oscillations in this region. Furthermore, to prevent surface oscillations, nodes need to be constrained to move perpendicularly to the chord line. With these modifications, the instability and oscillation were removed through the shape modification process. Two design cases were examined to evaluate the method for a transonic cascade with normal shock. The method was also capable of finding a physical pressure distribution that was nearest to the target one.


Author(s):  
M. H. Noorsalehi ◽  
M. Nili-Ahamadabadi ◽  
E. Shirani ◽  
M. Safari

In this study, a new inverse design method called Elastic Surface Algorithm (ESA) is developed and enhanced for axial-flow compressor blade design in subsonic and transonic flow regimes with separation. ESA is a physically based iterative inverse design method that uses a 2D flow analysis code to estimate the pressure distribution on the solid structure, i.e. airfoil, and a 2D solid beam finite element code to calculate the deflections due to the difference between the calculated and target pressure distributions. In order to enhance the ESA, the wall shear stress distribution, besides pressure distribution, is applied to deflect the shape of the airfoil. The enhanced method is validated through the inverse design of the rotor blade of the first stage of an axial-flow compressor in transonic viscous flow regime. In addition, some design examples are presented to prove the effectiveness and robustness of the method. The results of this study show that the enhanced Elastic Surface Algorithm is an effective inverse design method in flow regimes with separation and normal shock.


2021 ◽  
Vol 119 (15) ◽  
pp. 153503
Author(s):  
Chengfu Gu ◽  
Zengtao Yang ◽  
Hua Wang

2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Goto ◽  
Motohiko Nohmi ◽  
Takaki Sakurai ◽  
Yoshiyasu Sogawa

A computer-aided design system has been developed for hydraulic parts of pumps including impellers, bowl diffusers, volutes, and vaned return channels. The key technologies include three-dimensional (3-D) CAD modeling, automatic grid generation, CFD analysis, and a 3-D inverse design method. The design system is directly connected to a rapid prototyping production system and a flexible manufacturing system composed of a group of DNC machines. The use of this novel design system leads to a drastic reduction of the development time of pumps having high performance, high reliability, and innovative design concepts. The system structure and the design process of “Blade Design System” and “Channel Design System” are presented. Then the design examples are presented briefly based on the previous publications, which included a centrifugal impeller with suppressed secondary flows, a bowl diffuser with suppressed corner separation, a vaned return channel of a multistage pump, and a volute casing. The results of experimental validation, including flow fields measurements, were also presented and discussed briefly.


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