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At least 127 records · Page 7

Visualization of Rotor Tip Secondary Flows with Blade Tip Air Discharge and Suction in a Low-speed Turbine

Smoke was used to visualize outer-wall secondary flows in a low-speed turbine utilizing rotor tip air discharge and suction. Photographs as well as visual observations of the effect of tip air discharge and suction were made by independently varying the direction and quantity of the tip air discharge and suction, and varying tip clearance, and main-stream air speed. In addition, the cross-sectional area of the hollow blade discharge opening was varied for the case of tip air discharge.

Kofskey, Milton G↗

Effect of hole geometry and Electric-Discharge Machining (EDM) on airflow rates through small diameter holes in turbine blade material

The effects of two design parameters, electrode diameter and hole angle, and two machine parameters, electrode current and current-on time, on air flow rates through small-diameter (0.257 to 0.462 mm) electric-discharge-machined holes were measured. The holes were machined individually in rows of 14 each through 1.6 mm thick IN-100 strips. The data showed linear increase in air flow rate with increases in electrode cross sectional area and current-on time and little change with changes in hole angle and electrode current. The average flow-rate deviation (from the mean flow rate for a given row) decreased linearly with electrode diameter and increased with hole angle. Burn time and finished hole diameter were also measured.

Hippensteele, S. A.↗

Influence of thermal boundary conditions on heat transfer from a cylinder in cross flow

Local heat transfer data over the leading surface of a cylinder in crossflow were obtained for a Reynolds number range of 50,000. The cylinder was operated at both uniform-wall-temperature and uniform-heat-flux thermal ance of 80 deg from the front stagnation point, the uniform-wall-temperature heat transfer coefficients were as much as 66 percent lower than the uniform-heat-flux data. Between the stagnation point and 60 deg around the cylinder, there were no significant differences in the data. This region of the cylinder is within the cylindrical curvature region of the front end of a real turbine so it was concluded that either thermal boundary condition could be used to model turbine flow over that region of the blade. Results of evaluating the exponent x in the fundamental relationship Nu=f(Re) sup x, which is used in data correlation show the exponent varies as a function of local position on the cylinder even in the laminar flow region. The value of x increases linearly from 0.50 at the stagnation point to 0.59 at 60 deg around the cylinder. This linear trend continued into the separation region at 80 deg for the uniform-wall-temperature data, but x increased markedly in the separation region for the uniform-heat-flux data.

Papell, S. S.↗

Characterization of Ceramic Matrix Composite Vane Subelements Subjected to Rig Testing in a Gas Turbine Environment

Vane subelements were fabricated from a silicon carbide fiber-reinforced silicon carbide matrix (SiC/SiC) composite. A cross-sectional slice of an aircraft engine metal vane was the basis of the vane subelement geometry. To fabricate the small radius of the vane's trailing edge using stiff Sylramic SiC fibers, a unique SiC fiber architecture was developed. A test configuration for the vanes in a high pressure gas turbine environment was designed and fabricated. Testing was conducted using a pressure of 6 atm and combustion flow rate of 0.5 kg/sec, and consisted of fifty hours of steady state operation followed by 102 2-minute thermal cycles. A surface temperature of 1320 C was obtained for the EBC-coated SiC/SiC vane subelement. This paper will briefly discuss the vane fabrication, test configuration, and results of the vane testing. The emphasis of the paper is on characterization of the post-test condition of the vanes.

Verrilli, Michael↗

Transition mixing study

A computer model capable of analyzing the flow field in the transition liner of small gas turbine engines is developed. A FORTRAN code has been assembled from existing codes and physical submodels and used to predict the flow in several test geometries which contain characteristics similar to transition liners, and for which experimental data was available. Comparisons between the predictions and measurements indicate that the code produces qualitative results but that the turbulence models, both K-E and algebraic Reynolds Stress, underestimate the cross-stream diffusion. The code has also been used to perform a numerical experiment to examine the effect of a variety of parameters on the mixing process in transition liners. Comparisons illustrate that geometries with significant curvature show a drift of the jet trajectory toward the convex wall and weaker wake region vortices and decreased penetration for jets located on the convex wall of the liner, when compared to jets located on concave walls. Also shown were the approximate equivalency of angled slots and round holes and a technique by which jet mixing correlations developed for rectangular channels can be used for can geometries.

Reynolds, R.↗

Incidence loss for a core turbine rotor blade in a two-dimensional cascade

The effect of incidence angle on the aerodynamic performance of an uncooled core turbine rotor blade was investigated experimentally in a two-dimensional cascade. The cascade test covered a range of incidence angles from minus 15 deg to 15 deg in 5-degree increments and a range of pressure ratios corresponding to ideal exit critical velocity ratios of 0.6 to 0.95. The principal measurements were blade-surface static pressures and cross-channel surveys of exit total pressure, static pressure, and flow angle. The results of the investigation include blade-surface velocity distribution and overall performance in terms of weight flow and loss for the range of incidence angles and exit velocity ratios investigated. The measured losses are also compared with two common methods of predicting incidence loss.

Stabe, R. G.↗

Flow in Rotating Serpentine Coolant Passages With Skewed Trip Strips

Laser velocimetry was utilized to map the velocity field in serpentine turbine blade cooling passages with skewed trip strips. The measurements were obtained at Reynolds and Rotation numbers of 25,000 and 0.24 to assess the influence of trips, passage curvature and Coriolis force on the flow field. The interaction of the secondary flows induced by skewed trips with the passage rotation produces a swirling vortex and a corner recirculation zone. With trips skewed at +45 deg, the secondary flows remain unaltered as the cross-flow proceeds from the passage to the turn. However, the flow characteristics at these locations differ when trips are skewed at -45 deg. Changes in the flow structure are expected to augment heat transfer, in agreement with the heat transfer measurements of Johnson, et al. The present results show that trips are skewed at -45 deg in the outward flow passage and trips are skewed at +45 deg in the inward flow passage maximize heat transfer. Details of the present measurements were related to the heat transfer measurements of Johnson, et al. to relate fluid flow and heat transfer measurements.

Tse, David G.N.↗

A new coupling of a GPU-resident large-eddy simulation code with a multiphysics wind turbine simulation tool

The development of new wind farm control strategies can benefit from combined analysis of flow dynamics in the farm and the behavior of individual turbines within one simulation environment. In this work, we present such an environment by developing a new coupling between the large-eddy simulation (LES) code GRASP and the multiphysics wind turbine simulation tool OpenFAST via an actuator line model (ALM). In addition, the implementation of the recently proposed filtered actuator line model (FALM) within the coupling is described. The new ALM implementation is cross-verified with results from four other commonly used research LES codes. The results for the blade loads and the near wake obtained with the new coupling are consistent with the other codes. Deviations are observed in the far wake. The results further indicate that the FALM is able to reduce the lift and power overprediction from which the traditional ALM suffers on coarse LES grids. This new simulation environment paves the way for future wind farm simulations under realistic weather conditions by leveraging GRASP's ability to impose data from large-scale meteorological models as boundary conditions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Aerodynamic performance of a ceramic-coated core turbine vane tested with cold air in a two-dimensional cascade

The aerodynamic performance of a core turbine vane with a ceramic coating was investigated experimentally in a two-dimensional cascade of 10 vanes. The vane was first tested with a rough coating and then retested after the coating had been smoothed. The test fluid was atmospheric air. The cascade tests covered a range of pressure ratios corresponding to ideal exit critical velocity ratios of 0.6 to 0.95. The principal measurements were cross-channel surveys of exit total pressure, static pressure, and flow angle. The results presented include exit survey results and overall performance in terms of flow angle, weight flow, and kinetic energy loss. The performance of the ceramic-coated vanes is compared with the performance of an uncoated vane having a similar profile.

Stabe, R. G.↗

Background-Oriented Schlieren used in a hypersonic inlet test at NASA GRC

Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) is a derivative of the classical schlieren technology, which is used to visualize density gradients, such as shock wave structures in a wind tunnel. Changes in refractive index resulting from density gradients cause light rays to bend, resulting in apparent motion of a random background pattern. The apparent motion of the pattern is determined using cross-correlation algorithms (between no-flow and with-flow image pairs) producing a schlieren-like image. One advantage of BOS is its simplified setup which enables a larger field-of-view (FOV) than traditional schlieren systems. In the present study, BOS was implemented into the Combined Cycle Engine Large-Scale Inlet Mode Transition Experiment (CCE LIMX) in the 10x10 Supersonic Wind Tunnel at NASA Glenn Research Center. The model hardware for the CCE LIMX accommodates a fully integrated turbine based combined cycle propulsion system. To date, inlet mode transition between turbine and ramjet operation has been successfully demonstrated. High-speed BOS was used to visualize the behavior of the flow structures shock waves during unsteady inlet unstarts, a phenomenon known as buzz. Transient video images of inlet buzz were recorded for both the ramjet flow path (high speed inlet) and turbine flow path (low speed inlet). To understand the stability limits of the inlet, operation was pushed to the point of unstart and buzz. BOS was implemented in order to view both inlets simultaneously, since the required FOV was beyond the capability of the current traditional schlieren system. An example of BOS data (Images 1-6) capturing inlet buzz are presented.

Background-oriented schlieren↗

Optical Instrumentation for Temperature and Velocity Measurements in Rig Turbines

Non-intrusive optical measurement techniques have been examined in the context of developing robust instruments which can routinely yield data of engineering utility in high speed turbomachinery test rigs. The engineering requirements of such a measurement are presented. Of particular interest were approaches that provide both velocity and state-variable information in order to be able to completely characterize transonic flowfields. Consideration of all of the requirements lead to the selection of particle image velocimetry (PIV) for the approach to velocity measurement while laser induced fluorescence of oxygen (O2 LIF) appeared to offer the most promise for gas temperature measurement. A PIV system was developed and demonstrated on a transonic turbine stage in the MIT blowdown turbine facility. A comprehensive data set has been taken at one flow condition. Extensive calibration established the absolute accuracy of the velocity measurements to be 3-5 %. The O2 LIF proved less successful. Although accurate for low speed flows, vibrational freezing of O2 prevented useful measurements in the transonic, 300-600 K operating range of interest here.

Ceyhan, I.↗

Aerodynamic performance of a fully film cooled core turbine vane tested with cold air in a two-dimensional cascade

The aerodynamic performance of a fully film cooled core turbine vane was investigated experimentally in a two-dimensional cascade of 10 vanes. Three of the 10 vanes were cooled; the others were solid (uncooled) vanes. Cold air was used for both the primary and coolant flows. The cascade test covered a range of pressure ratios corresponding to ideal exit critical velocity ratios of 0.6 to 0.95 and a range of coolant flow rates to 7.5 percent of the primary flow. The coolant flow was varied by changing the coolant supply pressure. The principal measurements were cross-channel surveys of exit total pressure, static pressure, and flow angle. The results presented include exit survey data and overall performance in terms of loss, flow angle, and weight flow for the range of exit velocity ratios and coolant flows investigated. The performance of the cooled vane is compared with the performance of an uncooled vane of the same profile and also with the performance obtained with a single cooled vane in the 10-vane cascade.

Stabe, R. G.↗

CFD analysis on control of secondary losses in STME LOX turbines with endwall fences

The rotor blade in the newly designed LOX turbine for the future Space Transportation Main Engine (STME) has a severe flow turning angle, nearly 160 degrees. The estimated secondary loss in the rotor alone accounts for nearly 50 percent of the total loss over the entire stage. To reduce such a loss, one of the potential methods is to use fences attached on the turbine endwall (hub). As a prelude to examining the effects of endwall fence with actual STME turbine configuration, the present study focuses on similar issues with a different, but more generic, geometry - a rectangular duct with a 160-degree bend. The duct cross-section has a 2-to-1 aspect ratio and the radii of curvature for the inner and outer wall are 0.25 and 1.25 times the duct width, respectively. The present emphasis lies in examining the effects of various fence-length extending along the streamwise direction. The flowfield is numerically simulated using the FDNS code developed earlier by Wang and Chen. The FDNS code is a pressure based, finite-difference, Navier-Stokes equations solver.

Chyu, Mingking K.↗

Numerical simulation of vortex-induced vibration response of a single IEA 10-MW wind turbine blade

Three-dimensional simulation of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a single International Energy Agency (IEA) 10-MW reference wind turbine blade with a length of 97.325 m is performed using the ExaWind stack, an open-source suite of codes. This study aims to illustrate the spanwise VIV response characteristics and cross-validate the results with an existing commercial framework. Five near-body meshes and three time steps are selected for the convergence study. To improve computational efficiency, several VIV triggering methods are also compared to shorten the VIV development period. The ExaWind-based VIV simulation strategy for a single IEA 10-MW blade is determined. First, the modal shape is validated against published results. Then, spanwise VIV responses of four blade configurations under a fixed and varied incoming flow velocity are analyzed. Results show that the VIV response is dominated by the first edgewise (second overall) mode. Little first-mode contributions appear near the second-mode node, producing a pi phase jump, and a higher harmonics response occurs near the blade root. Rotational degrees of freedom are minor compared with translational motion. The response versus reduced velocity is analyzed, showing a two-branch behavior similar to that of VIV for a bluff cylinder. Across all tested cases, the dominant frequency remains locked to the natural frequency of the second mode with no observed desynchronization. A mild deviation is observed for the case of 90-degree pitch and 310-degree azimuth rotation near a reduced velocity of 6, which will be examined with additional cases in future work. These findings indicate that severe VIV responses can arise under specific configurations and flow conditions, thereby increasing the potential for VIV fatigue damage and requiring greater attention during operation.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Influence of Shock Wave on the Flutter Behavior of Fan Blades Investigated

Modern fan designs have blades with forward sweep; a lean, thin cross section; and a wide chord to improve performance and reduce noise. These geometric features coupled with the presence of a shock wave can lead to flutter instability. Flutter is a self-excited dynamic instability arising because of fluid-structure interaction, which causes the energy from the surrounding fluid to be extracted by the vibrating structure. An in-flight occurrence of flutter could be catastrophic and is a significant design issue for rotor blades in gas turbines. Understanding the flutter behavior and the influence of flow features on flutter will lead to a better and safer design. An aeroelastic analysis code, TURBO, has been developed and validated for flutter calculations at the NASA Glenn Research Center. The code has been used to understand the occurrence of flutter in a forward-swept fan design. The forward-swept fan, which consists of 22 inserted blades, encountered flutter during wind tunnel tests at part speed conditions.

Srivastava, Rakesh↗

Cooling of Gas Turbines: Effectiveness of Rim Cooling of Blades - 2

An analysis is presented of rim cooling of gas-turbine blades; that is, reducing the temperature at the base of the blade (wheel rim), which cools the blade by conduction alone. Formulas for temperature and stress distributions along the blade are derived and, by the use of experimental stress-rupture data for a typical blade alloy, a relation is established between blade life (time for rupture), operating speed, and amount of rim cooling for several gas temperatures. The effect of blade parameter combining the effects of blade dimensions, blade thermal conductivity, and heat-transfer coefficient is determined. The effect of radiation on the results is approximated. The gas temperatures ranged from 1300F to 1900F and the rim temperature, from 0F to 1000F below the gas temperature. This report is concerned only with blades of uniform cross section, but the conclusions drawn are generally applicable to most modern turbine blades. For a typical rim-cooled blade, gas temperature increases are limited to about 200F for 500F of cooling of the blade base below gas temperature, and additional cooling brings progressively smaller increases. In order to obtain large increases in thermal conductivity or very large decreases in heat-transfer coefficient or blade length or necessary. The increases in gas temperature allowable with rim cooling are particularly small for turbines of large dimensions and high specific mass flows. For a given effective gas temperature, substantial increases in blade life, however, are possible with relatively small amounts of rim cooling.

Wolfenstein, Lincoln↗

An Experimental Investigation of the Flow of Air in a Flat Broadening Channel

The wide use of diffusers, in various fields of technology, has resulted in several experimental projects to study the action and design of diffusers. Most of the projects dealt with steam (steam turbine nozzles). But diffusers have other applications - that is, ventilators, smoke ducts, air coolers, refrigeration, drying, and so forth. At present there is another application for diffusers in wind-tunnel design. Because of higher requirements and increased power of such installations more attention must be paid to the correctness of work and the decrease in losses due to every section of the tunnel. A diffuser, being one of the component parts of a tunnel , can in the event of faulty construction introduce considerable losses. Therefore, in the design of the new CAHI wind tunnel, it was suggested that an experimental study of diffusers be made, with a view to applying the results to wind tunnels. The experiments conducted by K. K. Baulin in the laboratories of CAHI upon models of diffusers of different cross sections, lengths, and angles of divergence, were a valuable source of experimental data. They were of no help, however, in reaching any conclusion regarding the optimum shape because of the complexity and diversity of the factors which all appeared simultaneously, thereby precluding the.study of the effects of any one factor separately. On the suggestion of the director of the CAHI,Prof. B. N. Ureff, it was decided to experiment on a two-dimensional diffuser model and determine the effect, of the angle of divergence. The author is acquainted with two experimental projects of like nature: the first was conducted with water, the other with air. The first of these works, although containing a wealth of experimental data, does not indicate the nature of flow or its relation to the angle of divergence. The second work is limited to four angles - that is, 12 deg, 24 deg, 45 deg, 90 deg. The study of this diffuser did not supply any information about the effect of smaller angles which, because of their advantages, are more commonly used, The author was able to acquaint himself with the second work only after the experiments were started. For these reasons, as well as because on the basis of those works no conclusion can be reached regarding the nature of flow distribution, of eddies, and so forth, experimental work was continued. The need for determining flow patterns follows from the fact that from them are determined methods of measurement - that is, the determination of velocities by means of the pitot tube, which, as is well known, gives correct indications only when placed with its axis parallel to the axis of flow. The data contained in this report were obtained from experiments conducted by the Aerodynamical Laboratories of the CAHI. The solutions to some. of the mathematical problems connected with the experiments are due to Prof. S. A, Chapligin.

Vedernikoff, A. N.↗

Detonation duct gas generator demonstration program

The feasibility of the generation of detonation waves moving periodically across high speed channel flow is experimentally demonstrated. Such waves are essential to the concept of compressing requirements and increasing the engine pressure compressor with the objective of reducing conventional compressor requirements and increasing the engine thermodynamic efficiency through isochoric energy addition. By generating transient transverse waves, rather than standing waves, shock wave losses are reduced by an order of magnitude. The ultimate objective is to use such detonation ducts downstream of a low pressure gas turbine compressor to produce a high overall pressure ratio thermodynamic cycle. A 4 foot long, 1 inch x 12 inch cross-section, detonation duct was operated in a blow-down mode using compressed air reservoirs. Liquid or vapor propane was injected through injectors or solenoid valves located in the plenum or the duct itself. Detonation waves were generated when the mixture was ignited by a row of spark plugs in the duct wall. Problems with fuel injection and mixing limited the air speeds to about Mach 0.5, frequencies to below 10 Hz, and measured pressure ratios of about 5 to 6. The feasibility of the gas dynamic compression was demonstrated and the critical problem areas were identified.

Wortman, Andrew↗