Effective strategy of non-axisymmetric endwall contouring in a linear compressor cascade

The corner separation and the related secondary flow have great impact on the compressor performance, and non-axisymmetric endwall contouring is proved effective in improving compressor efficiency. The aim of the study is to improve the compressor performance by two local endwall contouring strategies at the design and off-design conditions. The endwall is parameterized and the Bezier curve is used to loft the endwall surface. The design of the contoured endwall is based on a multi-point optimization method to minimize the aerodynamic pressure loss. In order to identify the influence of the contoured endwall, a detailed flow analysis is conducted on four effective contoured endwall designs. The selected endwall geometries exhibit great control ability on the corner separation and significantly reduce the pressure loss at the two operating conditions. The directional concave near the leading edge can induce strong streamwise pressure gradient and accelerate the endwall flow, greatly reducing the cross-passage pressure gradient. The convex structures near the concave edge and at the outlet can block the cross-flow and prevent the interaction between the cross-flow and the suction corner flow. The benefit of the contoured endwall is mainly due to the re-distributed endwall static pressure and blocking of the cross-flow movement. In terms of the control effect, the shape of the concave also matters and better control effect is observed on the deep and wide concave. The flow will be guided by the concave, and the best suppression on corner separation is observed on the concave which follows the suction side. The results also indicate that the relief of the hub corner separation slightly increases the shroud pressure loss.

Secondary Flow Loss Reduction Method by Use of Endwall Contouring in Gas Turbine Cascade Using Optimization Method

High efficiency is strongly demanded for gas turbines to reduce CO2 emissions. In order to improve the efficiency of gas turbines, the turbine inlet temperature is being raised higher. In that case, the turbine blade loading is higher and secondary flow loss becomes a major source of aerodynamic losses due to the interaction between the horseshoe vortex and the strong endwall cross flow. One of the authors have optimized a boundary layer fence which is a partial vane to prevent cross-flow from pressure-side to suction-side between blade to blade. However, it was also found that installing the fence leads to increase another loss due to tip vortex, wake and viscosity. Therefore, in this paper, we focused on the endwall contouring and the positive effect findings from the boundary layer fence were used to study its optimal shape. Firstly, the relationship between the location of the endwall contouring and the internal flow within the turbine cascade was investigated. Two patterns of contouring were made, one is only convex and another is just concave, and the secondary flow behavior of the turbine cascade was investigated respectively. Secondly, the shape was designed and the loss reduction effect was investigated by using optimization method. The optimized shape was manufactured by 3D-printer and experiment was conducted using cascade wind tunnel. The total pressure distributions were measured and compared with CFD results. Furthermore, flow near the endwall and the internal flow of the turbine cascade was experimentally visualized. The internal flow in the case of a flat wall (without contouring), with a fence, and with optimized endwall contouring were compared by experiment and CFD to extract the each feature.

Coupling of Endwall and Aerofoil Optimisation on a Low-Speed Compressor Tandem Stator

The scope of this paper is to provide clarity over fundamental effects of non-axisymmetric endwall contouring in a highly-loaded compressor tandem stator. Specifically, the focus of the research will be the influence that aerofoil optimization and end-wall contouring have on each other, and how a combined optimization of the two simultaneously affects the final design of the optimized geometry. The reference geometry used in this research is a standard tandem vane arrangement with smooth axi-symmetric endwalls and designed to represent a datum stage configuration for future investigations of such blade geometries, experimental work on a low-speed research compressor being a next step. The optimization was performed using an in-house developed routine coupled with Auto-Opti, an automated optimizer based on an evolutionary strategy algorithm, developed by the DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology. The entire optimization was conducted solely on the stator, modeled as an annular cascade. This paper reports about a thorough flow field analysis of the optimized geometry in order to understand local mechanisms occurring with non-axisymmetric contouring in the tandem stator passage flow field and its overall performance. Furthermore, it describes and explains the effect that the aerofoil optimization has on the contoured hub surface shape, compared to an optimization process, which is only applied to the hub contouring. In particular, the results clarify how endwall flow field improvements reduce the degree of required aerofoil deformation, and show that the new blade shape is better adapted to the contoured endwall. The 3D endwall flow field has been investigated in order to understand how the optimized geometry modifies the magnitude of the cross-passage flow and reduces the size of the trailing edge corner vortex of the front and rear tandem vane. The paper concludes with some guidelines on how endwall contouring and near endwall aerofoil section design and optimization can be applied most effectively.

Non-Axisymmetric Endwall Contouring in a Linear Compressor Cascade

Modern axial compressors are designed to be highly loaded in terms of aerodynamics, which can lead to challenges of increasing the compressor efficiency. Losses associated with secondary flow effects are well known to be the major limiting factor of improving the compressor performance. In this study, non-axisymmetric endwall contouring in a linear compressor cascade was generated through the optimization process. Combined with numerical simulation, wind tunnel tests on linear cascades with flat and contoured endwall were performed with various measurement techniques at the design and off-design conditions. The simulation results show that optimal endwall design can provide 3.08% reduction of the total pressure loss at the design condition. The reduction of pressure loss obtained is mainly below 24%span with the size of the high loss region being effectively reduced. At off-design condition, the numerical benefit of the endwall contouring is found less pronounced. The discrepancy is spotted between simulation and experiments. The experimental pressure loss reduction is mainly below 18% at ADP. And the pressure loss for the CEW increases greatly at offdesign condition in experiments. Flow patterns revealed by numerical simulations show that the separation on the blade surface is mitigated with focus point disappearing, and reverse flow on the endwall near the suction side corner is moved away from the blade surface. CFD analysis indicates that the altered pressure distribution on the endwall accelerates the flow at the suction side corner and moves the reverse flow core further downstream. The weakened interaction between the corner vortex and tornado-like vortex from the endwall near the suction side corner is the main control mechanism of the CEW. The performance improvement in the linear compressor is mainly gained from it.

Investigation of improving the hydraulic turbine cascade performance using non-axisymmetric endwall contouring

Non-axisymmetric endwall contouring techniques have been widely applied in gas turbines; numerous papers and experimental studies have shown that it can significantly improve the overall performance of the turbine. This article first presents the non-axisymmetric endwall profile construction and optimization both for the rotor hub and shroud of a turbine drilling hydraulic cascade in the presence of an axisymmetric rotor, in order to improve the performance and investigate non-axisymmetric endwall contouring’s influence laws on a hydraulic cascade. Rotor cascade endwall design is studied by confining the axisymmetric variation near hub, shroud, and both endwalls. Endwall surface is parameterized with control points of Bezier curve, and control points are considered as design variables having a height constraint of 10%, 12%, or 15% span to move in radial coordinate. This methodology also combines Latin hypercube sampling with NSGA-II algorithm to obtain optimum solution. Computational fluid dynamics simulation results show that the non-axisymmetric endwall contouring technology applied to hub and shroud all realize an improvement in efficiency, while the NEW_S_15% has the best comprehensive performance and it causes an improvement of 1.52% in efficiency and 5.1% in torque. Off-design experiment shows that NEW_S_15% improves the output torque and efficiency as well even it deviates from design working condition, which proves valuableness of the non-axisymmetric endwall contouring technology.

Purge flow effects on rotor hub endwall heat transfer with extended endwall contouring into the disk cavity

Efficiency improvements for gas turbines are strongly coupled with increasing turbine inlet temperatures. This imposes new challenges for designers for efficient and adequate cooling of turbine components. Modern gas turbines inject bleed air from the compressor into the stator/rotor rim seal cavity to prevent hot gas ingestion from the main flow, while cooling the rotor disk. The purge flow interacts with the main flow field and static pressure field imposed by the turbine blades. This complex interaction causes non-uniform and jet-like penetration of the purge flow into the main flow field, hence affecting the endwall heat transfer on the rotor. To improve the understanding of purge flow effects on rotor hub endwall heat transfer, an unshrouded, high-pressure representative turbine design with 3D blading and extended endwall contouring of the rotor into the cavity seal was tested. The measurements were conducted in the 1.5-stage axial turbine facility LISA at ETH Zurich, where a state-of-the-art measurement setup with a high-speed infrared camera and thermally managed rotor insert was used to perform high-resolution heat transfer measurements on the rotor. Three different purge flow rates were investigated with regard to hub endwall heat transfer. Additionally, steady-state computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to complement the experiments. It was found that the local heat transfer rate changes up to ±20% depending on the purge flow rate. The main part of the purged air is ejected at the endwall trough location and swept towards the rotor suction side, which is caused by the interaction of main flow and the cavity extended endwall design. The presence of low momentum purge flow locally reduces the heat transfer rate. Changes in adiabatic wall temperature and heat transfer (depending on purge rate) are observed from the platform start up to the cross passage migration of the secondary flow structures.