bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The STEP 10 MWe sCO2 Pilot Demonstration Status Update
Authors: Marion John , Lariviere Brian , McClung Aaron , Mortzheim Jason , Ames Robin
Published: January 2021

A team led by Gas Technology Institute (GTI®), Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) and General Electric Global Research (GE-GR), along with the University of Wisconsin and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), is actively executing a project called “STEP” [Supercritical Transformational Electric Power project], to design, construct, commission, and operate an integrated and reconfigurable 10 MWe sCO2 [supercritical CO2] Pilot Plant Test Facility. The $122* million project is funded $84 million by the US DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL Award Number DE-FE0028979) and $38* million by the team members, component suppliers and others interested in sCO2 technology. The facility is currently under construction and is located at SwRI’s San Antonio, Texas, USA campus. This project is a significant step toward sCO2 cycle based power generation commercialization and is informing the performance, operability, and scale-up to commercial plants.

Significant progress has been made. The design phase is complete (Phase 1) and included procurements of long-lead time deliver components. Now well into Phase 2, most major equipment is in fabrication and several completed and delivered. These efforts have already provided valuable project learnings for technology commercialization. A ground-breaking was held in October of 2018 and now civil work and the construction of a dedicated 25,000 ft2 building has progressed and is largely completed at the San Antonio, TX, USA project site.

Supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles are Brayton cycles that utilize supercritical CO2 working fluid to convert heat to power. They offer the potential for higher system efficiencies than other energy conversion technologies such as steam Rankine or Organic Rankine cycles this especially when operating at elevated temperatures. sCO2 power cycles are being considered for a wide range of applications including fossil-fired systems, waste heat recovery, concentrated solar power, and nuclear power generation.

By the end of this 6-year STEP pilot demo project, the operability of the sCO2 power cycle will be demonstrated and documented starting with facility commissioning as a simple closed recuperated cycle configuration initially operating at a 500°C (932°F) turbine inlet temperature and progressing to a recompression closed Brayton cycle technology (RCBC) configuration operating at 715°C (1319 °F).
Flow Physics During Surge and Recovery of a Multi-Stage High-Speed Compressor
Authors: Zhao Fanzhou , Dodds John , Vahdati Mehdi
Published: January 2021

Stall followed by surge in a high-speed compressor can lead to violent disruption of the flow, damage to the blade structures and eventually engine shutdown. Knowledge of unsteady blade loading during surge is crucial for compressor design such as axial gap optimisation. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of using 3D full assembly URANS CFD for modelling surge cycles of an 8-stage high-speed compressor rig.

Results from this work show stalling of the mid-stages is the surge trigger. During the flow reversal, a strong acoustic reflection occurs when the convected entropy perturbations reach the intake opening, which increase the blade loading significantly. During recovery, a hysteresis loop was recorded due to hot air reingestion, which led to a strong shear at mid-span of the IGV/R1 domain and the formation of rotating helical flow structures. The final phase of recovery was accompanied by a 4-cell multi-row tip rotating stall, which was cleared as the compressor recovered to the forward flow characteristic. It was also shown that the single passage model, despite its limitations and shortcomings in modelling recovery, can provide reasonably accurate transient flow features during surge and thus considerable insight to the flow behaviour, which can be used to obtain a first approximation of casing and blade loading.
Investigations of Unsteady Aerodynamics of an Offshore Floating Wind Turbine With Platform Motions Using Dual-Sliding Method
Authors: Wang Xiaodong , Ye Zhaoliang , Chen Ziwen , Guo Yize , Qiao Yujun
Published: January 2021

Offshore wind energy developed rapidly in recent years. Due to the platform motions causing by ocean waves, the aerodynamics of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) show strong unsteady characters than onshore wind turbines. The widely used methods to investigate the unsteady aerodynamic performance of wind turbine are Blade Element Momentum (BEM) and Free-Vortex Wake (FVW) methods. The accuracy of these two methods strongly depend on empirical formula or correction models. However, for dynamics motions of wind turbine, there is still a lack of accurate models. CFD simulations using overset or dynamic mesh methods also have been used for FOWT aerodynamic investigations. However, the mesh deforming or reconstruction methods are usually suitable for small movement of wind turbine blade. In this paper, a dual-sliding mesh method is employed to simulate the unsteady aerodynamic characters of an offshore floating wind turbine with supporting platform motions using Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations. Both rotor rotation and platform motions are treated as rigid angular motions. The relative motion and data exchange were simulated using sliding mesh method. The NREL 5MW reference wind turbine with platform pitching and rolling motions are considered. The pitching and rolling motions of floating platform are simplified in the form of a prescribed sinusoidal function. Different conditions with two amplitudes and two frequencies of pitching and rolling motions were investigated. URANS were performed with full structured mesh for wind turbine rotor using commercial software FLUENT. The platform motions were set using User Defined Function (UDF). Transitional Shear Stress Turbulence (T-SST) model was employed.

The simulation results were compared with BEM method and FVW method results. Both steady status and dynamic pitching processes are investigated. The variations of wind turbine aerodynamic load, as well as the aerodynamic character of airfoils at different spanwise positions, were obtained and analyzed in detail. The simulations results show that the platform pitching introduce remarkable influence on the wind turbine aerodynamic performance. The platform pitching has much larger influence on the wind turbine power and thrust than the platform rolling. The dual-sliding mesh method shows potentials to investigation the dynamic process with multiple rigid motions.
Investigation on the Fluctuations of the Spray Angle Generated From Pressure-Swirl Atomizers
Authors: Wang Xiwei , Huang Yong , Sun Lei
Published: January 2021

The unsteady characteristic of the pressure-swirl atomization system was studied experimentally in this paper. It was found that the fluctuations of the spray can be divided into two modes: high and low frequency mode, among which the frequency of the high mode is within the range of 500–1100Hz, and the low mode is 100–400Hz. The low mode depends on the turbulent exchange of momentum between the liquid and the surrounding stagnant gas. While the high mode depends on the comprehensive effect of the turbulent vortex generated by the liquid flowing through the atomizer and the natural frequency of the atomizer. Experiments show that the peak frequency of the low mode increases but the peak frequency of the high mode decreases when the pressure drop of the atomizer increases. When the atomizer outlet area size increases, both the peak frequency of the low mode and the high mode decrease. When the deflection angle of the swirl chamber increases, the peak frequency of the low mode increases, while the peak frequency of the high mode decreases first and then increases, reaching the minimum at 60°, and the value at 45° is basically the same as at 80°.
Reliable Calculation of Thermoacoustic Instability Risk Using an Imperfect Surrogate Model
Authors: Guo Shuai , Silva Camilo F. , Polifke Wolfgang
Published: January 2021

One of the fundamental tasks in performing robust thermoacoustic design of gas turbine combustors is calculating the modal instability risk, i.e., the probability that a thermoacoustic mode is unstable, given various sources of uncertainty (e.g., operation or boundary conditions). To alleviate the high computational cost associated with conventional Monte Carlo simulation, surrogate modeling techniques are usually employed. Unfortunately, in practice it is not uncommon that only a small number of training samples can be afforded for surrogate model training. As a result, epistemic uncertainty may be introduced by such an “inaccurate” model, provoking a variation of modal instability risk calculation. In the current study, using Gaussian Process (GP) as the surrogate model, we address the following two questions: Firstly, how to quantify the variation of modal instability risk induced by the epistemic surrogate model uncertainty? Secondly, how to reduce the variation of risk calculation given a limited computational budget for the surrogate model training? For the first question, we leverage on the Bayesian characteristic of the GP model and perform correlated sampling of the GP predictions at different inputs to quantify the uncertainty of risk calculation. We show how this uncertainty shrinks when more training samples are available. For the second question, we adopt an active learning strategy to intelligently allocate training samples, such that the trained GP model is highly accurate particularly in the vicinity of the zero growth rate contour. As a result, a more accurate and robust modal instability risk calculation is obtained without increasing the computational cost of surrogate model training.
Large Eddy Simulation of the 7-7-7 Shaped Film Cooling Hole at Axial and Compound Angle Orientations
Authors: Tracy Kevin , Lynch Stephen P.
Published: January 2021

Shaped film cooling holes are used extensively for film cooling in gas turbines due to their superior performance in keeping coolant attached to the surface, relative to cylindrical holes. However, fewer studies have examined the impact of the orientation of the shaped hole axis relative to the main flow direction, known as a compound angle. A compound angle can occur intentionally due to manufacturing, or unintentionally due to changes in the main flow direction at off-design conditions. In either case, the compound angle causes the film cooling jet to roll up into a strong streamwise vortex that changes the lateral distribution of coolant, relative to the pair of vortices that develop from an axially oriented film cooling hole. In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) using the Wall-Adapting Local Eddy Viscosity (WALE) model was performed on the publicly available 7-7-7 shaped film cooling hole, at two orientations (0°, 30°) and two blowing ratios (M = 1, 3). Laterally-averaged film effectiveness was largely unchanged by a compound angle at a blowing ratio of 1, but improved at a blowing ratio of 3. For both blowing ratios, the lateral distribution of film was more uniform with the addition of a 30° compound angle. Both wall normal and lateral turbulent convective heat transfer was increased by the addition of a compound angle at both blowing ratios.
Heat Transfer in Rotating, Trailing Edge, Converging Channels With Smooth Walls and Pin-Fins
Authors: Sahin Izzet , Chen I-Lun , Wright Lesley M. , Han Je-Chin , Xu Hongzhou , Fox Michael
Published: January 2021

The heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a rotating cooling channel that has an angled trapezoidal cross-section and converges from the hub to tip in both the streamwise and spanwise directions are experimentally investigated. The channel is oriented 120° with respect to the direction of rotation to model the geometry of an internal, trailing edge cooling passage. Both the leading and trailing sides of the channel are divided into three and six regions in the spanwise and streamwise directions, respectively. The copper plate method is used to obtain regionally averaged heat transfer coefficients. The pressure drop is measured utilizing pressure taps placed at the inlet and outlet of the channel. Experiments were conducted with the inlet Reynolds number ranging from 10,000 to 40,000. The rotational speed varies from 0 rpm to 300 rpm, resulting in the highest rotation number of 0.21. The effects of full pin-fins on the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics are obtained and compared to the smooth surface converging channel results. The impact of the convergence, which causes variations of flow and geometric parameters through the passage, such as aspect ratio, Reynolds number, and rotation number, on the heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop are addressed. Results show that due to the 120° channel orientation, rotation has a positive impact on the leading and trailing surface heat transfer. Furthermore, the convergence decreases the aspect ratio while increasing Reynolds number. The convergence significantly enhances heat transfer on both the leading and trailing surfaces along the streamwise and spanwise directions. The convergence also reduces the rotation effect in the streamwise direction for a given mass flow rate.
Steady and Unsteady Temperature Measurements in the Wake of a Linear Cascade With Heated Airfoils
Authors: Aberle-Kern Svenja , Ripplinger Thomas , Niehuis Reinhard
Published: January 2021

Understanding basic aerodynamic and thermodynamic processes in engine components is critical to achieving higher efficiencies and lower fuel consumption in aircraft engines. To aid in this process, a linear compressor cascade was investigated in the high-speed cascade wind tunnel of the Institute of Jet Propulsion to quantify the influence of heat transfer on the temperature distribution in the wake and, finally, the profile loss. For this purpose, a patented five-hole probe with an integrated thermocouple was developed and applied for steady measurements. Additionally, a hot-wire measurement set-up was implemented to receive temperature fluctuations via the constant current mode as well as velocity fluctuations via the constant temperature mode. A novel method for a two-way temperature and velocity correction for the two types of hot-wire measurement is presented. Good agreement between the measurement data of the five-hole probe and averaged data from hot-wire anemometry was found. The temperature distribution indicates the occurrence of energy separation which in some cases is overlain with the effects of heat transfer. In addition, the analysis of unsteady fluctuations of temperature and velocity give more detailed information about the vortex shedding in the wake, including the size of the vortices. Finally, this is the first discussion of energy separation at a compressor cascade combined with overlain effects of heat transfer on the blade surface.
Control of the Aero-Engine Nacelle Intake Flow Separation Caused by Crosswind Condition Using Plasma Actuation
Authors: Zhang Haideng , Wu Yun , Yu Xianjun , Li Yinghong , He Qikun
Published: January 2021

To develop active flow control technique which can suppress the nacelle intake flow separations caused by crosswind effectively, microsecond plasma actuation is used to control the flow separations of a typical nacelle intake model. Both experimental and numerical investigations have been implemented to uncover the corresponding flow control effects. The plasma actuation is installed near the inception point of the nacelle intake flow separations. According to the experimental and numerical results, the nacelle intake flow separations caused by crosswind are suppressed by the plasma actuation. The frequency of the plasma actuation as well as the scale of the flow separation are influential to the flow control effects. The compressive wave induced by the plasma actuation will act on the separated flow as well as the interface between the flow separation zone and the mainstream zone. This is the mechanism behind the suppression of nacelle intake flow separations using microsecond plasma actuation.
Theoretical Assessment of Turbocharged Pulse Detonation Engine Performance at Various Flight Conditions
Authors: Nageswara Reddy Pereddy
Published: January 2021

A typical Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) cycle of operation includes three basic processes: initiation and propagation of detonation wave in the Detonation Chamber (DC); a quasi-steady exhaust of detonation products from the DC at varying pressure through the supersonic nozzle; and a steady exhaust of remained detonation products at constant pressure through the nozzle while filling the DC with fresh air. In the present work, a novel method of Turbo-charging is proposed to increase the inlet pressure/density of fresh air fed into the DC in each cycle so as to increase the thrust developed per unit area of DC. The thermodynamic cycle of operation of Turbocharged Pulse Detonation Engine (TPDE) is analyzed based on quasi-steady state one dimensional formulation, and a computer code is developed in MATLAB to simulate the cycle performance at different compressor pressure ratios. Thrust per unit area of DC, the specific thrust and the fuel-based specific impulse are estimated at various flight conditions at different pressure ratios by considering C2H4/air as the fuel-oxidizer. The net thrust developed per unit area of DC increases with an increase in compressor pressure ratio, up to the pressure ratio of 4.0, at all flight conditions. The compressor pressure ratio of about 2.0 is observed to be optimum pressure ratio as TPDE develops nearly the same air-based specific thrust at this pressure ratio irrespective of flight operating conditions.
Dynamic Gas Turbine Condition Monitoring Scheme With Multi-Part Neural Network
Authors: Li Zhouzheng , Feng Kun , Yan Binbin
Published: January 2021

Gas turbines are high value industrial assets with significant roles in various kinds of industrial processes, health management systems are therefore important for helping maintaining gas turbines’ stability in long-term operations. With more and more performance data able to be collected by sensors and the new machine learning methods developed, researchers are able to build more powerful digital models to monitor the gas turbine.

This paper introduces a performance parameters alarm scheme for gas turbine using an adaptive state following model. The proposed scheme consist of 3 parts: Part 1, a dynamically adaptive multi-part neural network trained using performance data that can simulate different parts of gas turbine and output “normal” sensor data to make comparison with the actual data collected; Part 2, a group of thresholds set according to system noise that flags sudden failures by sensing performance parameter outliers, this also decides which data should be used to update the neural network; Part 3, a recorder for “reference point” outputs that can reflect change of the gas turbine’s status and detect long-term degradation.

Unlike traditional approaches, the proposed adaptive states following model separates long term degradation and short term sudden failure, therefore both faults can be detected more accurately. The core of the proposed method is that physical properties are embedded into the neural network as constraints to regulate training and make the model more interpretable. In our scheme, a gas turbine is divided into 4 parts referencing the equipment’s physical mechanism, they are simulated digitally by 4 sub corresponding networks, which are then combined into the proposed integrated network. The proposed scheme achieves an overall pleasing result and shows potential in gas turbine fault analysis.
A Sector-Cascade Test Rig for Measurements of Heat Transfer in Turbine Center Frames
Authors: Jagerhofer Patrick R. , Patinios Marios , Erlacher Gerhard , Glasenapp Tobias , Göttlich Emil , Farisco Federica
Published: January 2021

The turbine center frame (TCF) is an inherent component of turbofan aircraft engines and is used for connecting the high-pressure turbine (HPT) to the low-pressure turbine (LPT). Its position immediately downstream of the HPT makes it susceptible to the extremely high temperatures of future engines. Despite this, fundamental knowledge of heat transfer in TCFs and the influencing factors is still missing.

This paper presents a new 45° sector-cascade test rig specifically designed for fundamental studies of film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient in TCFs and for the development and validation of a measurement technique involving infrared thermography and heating foils.

Measurements of heat transfer coefficient in the TCF were taken for two purge-to-mainstream mass flow ratios corresponding to the case of no purge and nominal (to engine operation) purge. The magnitude of the heat transfer coefficients on the hub and strut surfaces was highly influenced by the various flow structures in the passage and by the velocity variation of the mainstream flow due to the “aggressive” design of the TCF. Heat transfer on the surface of the strut was mainly governed by boundary layer behavior (laminar near the leading edge and turbulent for the rest of the strut) augmented by the effect of the secondary flow structures.

Measurements of film cooling effectiveness were also taken for the single case of nominal purge. A region of high film cooling effectiveness was observed, extending from the purge cavity exit to about 40% of the passage axial length. In this region, the effectiveness decreased with increasing axial length. On the surface of the struts and fillet radii the film cooling effectiveness was found to be zero. This was attributed to the effect of the horse-shoe vortex which sweeps the purge flow away from the strut surface and dilutes it by continuously entraining hot mainstream flow.
Hybrid Model-Based and Data-Driven Diagnostic Algorithm for Gas Turbine Engines
Authors: Fentaye Amare , Zaccaria Valentina , Rahman Moksadur , Stenfelt Mikael , Kyprianidis Konstantinos
Published: January 2021

Data-driven algorithms require large and comprehensive training samples in order to provide reliable diagnostic solutions. However, in many gas turbine applications, it is hard to find fault data due to proprietary and liability issues. Operational data samples obtained from end-users through collaboration projects do not represent fault conditions sufficiently and are not labeled either. Conversely, model-based methods have some accuracy deficiencies due to measurement uncertainty and model smearing effects when the number of gas path components to be assessed is large. The present paper integrates physics-based and data-driven approaches aiming to overcome this limitation. In the proposed method, an adaptive gas path analysis (AGPA) is used to correct measurement data against the ambient condition variations and normalize. Fault signatures drawn from the AGPA are used to assess the health status of the case engine through a Bayesian network (BN) based fault diagnostic algorithm. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated based on five different gas path component faults of a three-shaft turbofan engine, namely intermediate-pressure compressor fouling (IPCF), high-pressure compressor fouling (HPCF), high-pressure turbine erosion (HPTE), intermediate-pressure turbine erosion (IPTE), and low-pressure turbine erosion (LPTE). Robustness of the method under measurement uncertainty has also been tested using noise-contaminated data. Moreover, the fault diagnostic effectiveness of the BN algorithm on different number and type of measurements is also examined based on three different sensor groups. The test results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method to diagnose single gas path component faults correctly even under a significant noise level and different instrumentation suites. This enables to accommodate measurement suite inconsistencies between engines of the same type. The proposed method can further be used to support the gas turbine maintenance decision-making process when coupled with overall Engine Health Management (EHM) systems.
Numerical Investigation of Inlet Turbulence Intensity Effect on a Bluff-Body Stabilized Flame at Near Flame Blow-Off Conditions
Authors: Ali Montakhab Amir , Akih Kumgeh Benjamin
Published: January 2021

This paper investigates the effects of the inlet turbulence intensity (ITI) on the dynamics of a bluff-body stabilized flame operating very close to its blow-off condition. This work is motivated by the understanding that more stringent regulations on combustion-generated emission have forced the industry to design combustion systems that operate at very fuel-lean conditions. Combustion at very lean conditions, however, induces flame instability that can ultimately lead to flame extinction. The dynamics of the flame at lean conditions can therefore be very sensitive to boundary conditions. Here, a numerical investigation is conducted using Large Eddy Simulation method to understand the flame sensitivity to inlet turbulence intensity. Combustion is accounted for through the transport of chemical species. The sensitivity to inlet turbulence is assessed by carrying out simulations in which the inlet turbulence is varied in increments of 5%. It is observed that while the inlet intensity of 5% causes blow-off, further increased to 10% preserves a healthy flame on account of greater heat release arising from greater and balanced entrainment of combustible mixtures into the flame zone just behind the bluff-body. This balanced stabilization is again lost as the inlet turbulence intensity is further increased to 15%. Since experimental data pertaining to the topic of this paper are rare, the reasonableness of the combination of models is first checked by validating Volvo propane bluff-body flame, whereby reasonable agreement is observed. This study will advance our understanding of the sensitivity of bluff-body flames to boundary conditions specifically to the inlet turbulent boundary condition at near critical blow-off flame conditions.
Unsteady Analysis of Heat Transfer Coefficient Distribution in a Static Ribbed Channel for an Established Flow
Authors: Perrot Aurélien , Gicquel Laurent , Duchaine Florent , Odier Nicolas , Dombard Jérôme , Grosnickel Thomas
Published: January 2021

Turbulent ribbed channels are extensively used in turbomachinery to enhance convective heat transfer in internally-cooled components like turbine blades. One of the key aspect of such a problem is the distribution of the Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) in fully developed flows and many studies have addressed this problem by use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In the present document, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is performed for a configuration from a test-rig at the Von Karman Institute representing a square channel with periodic square ribs. The whole channel is computed in an attempt to better understand HTC maps in this specific configuration. Resulting mean and unsteady flow features are captured and predictions are used to further explain the obtained HTC distribution. More specifically turbulent structures are seen to bring cold gas from the main flow to the wall. A statistical analysis of these events using the joint velocity-temperature PDF and quadrant method allows to define 4 types of events happening at every location of the channel and which can then be linked to the HTC distribution. First the HTC is very high where the flow impacts the wall with cold temperature whereas it is lower where the hot gas is ejected to the main flow. In an attempt to link the HTC trace on the channel wall with structures in the flow field far-off the wall, the main modes are identified performing Power Spectral Density (PSD) analysis of the velocity along the channel. Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) of the flow field data is then used to present the spatio-temporal characteristics of two of the identified most dominant modes: a vortex-street mode linked to the first rib and a rib-to-rib mode appearing because of the quasi-periodicity of the configuration. However DMD analysis of the HTC trace on the wall does not emphasize any dominant mode. This indicates a weak link between the main flow large scale features and the instantaneous and more local HTC distribution.
Off-Design Performance Comparison Between Single and Two-Shaft Engines: Part 1 — Fixed Geometry
Authors: Nikolaidis Th. , Pellegrini A. , Saravanamuttoo H. I. H. , Aslanidou I. , Kalfas A. , Pilidis P.
Published: January 2021

This paper describes an investigation into the off-design performance comparison of single and two-shaft gas turbine engines. A question that has been asked for a long time which gas turbine delivers a better thermal efficiency at part load. The authors, notwithstanding their intensive searches, were unable to find a comprehensive answer to this question. A detailed investigation was carried out using a state of the art performance evaluation method and the answer was found to be: It depends!

In this work, the performance of two engine configurations is assessed. In the first one, the single-shaft gas turbine operates at constant shaft rotational speed. Thus, the shape of the compressor map rotational speed line will have an important influence on the performance of the engine. To explore the implications of the shape of the speed line, two single-shaft cases are examined. The first case is when the speed line is curved and as the compressor pressure ratio falls, the non-dimensional mass flow increases. The second case is when the speed line is vertical and as the compressor pressure ratio falls, the non-dimensional mass flow remains constant.

In the second configuration, the two-shaft engine, the two-shafts can be controlled to operate at different rotational speeds and also varying relationships between the rotational speeds. The part-load operation is characterized by a reduction in the gas generator rotational speed.

The tool, which was used in this study, is a 0-D whole engine simulation tool, named Turbomatch. It was developed at Cranfield and it is based on mass and energy balance, carried out through an iterative method, which is based on component maps. These generic, experimentally derived maps are scaled to match the design point of a particular engine before an off-design calculation is performed. The code has been validated against experimental data elsewhere, it has been used extensively for academic purposes and the research activities that have taken place at Cranfield University.

For an ideal cycle, the single-shaft engine was found to be a clear winner in terms of part-load thermal efficiency. However, this picture changed when realistic component maps were utilized. The basic cycle and the shape of component maps had a profound influence on the outcome.

The authors explored the influence of speed line shapes, levels of component efficiencies and the variation of these component efficiencies within the operating range. This paper describes how each one of these factors, individually, influences the outcome.
Turbine Nozzle Insert Clogging With Seeded Medium Size Particles
Authors: Xu Hongzhou , Liu Kevin , Fox Michael
Published: January 2021

Gas turbine nozzle cooling often uses inserts to intentionally distribute cool air through impingement holes to hot spots, especially at leading edge regions of stage-1 nozzles. Owing to the variations of engine operation environment, inlet air filtration systems, upstream component surface coating layers, and oil/air sealing material choices, solid particles could enter the engine from outside or be generated inside from rotor rubbing, seal debris, peeled off coating layers or rusty surfaces, etc. These particles and their agglomerates can be carried by airflow to enter nozzle inserts and clog impingement holes, which may reduce cooling air significantly, resulting in severe engine failures. To reduce the risk of insert clogging, particle separation devices and filtration mesh screens have been implemented in front of nozzle inlets to prevent larger particles from entering. Therefore, designing appropriate nozzle insert hole sizes becomes very critical to let smaller particles pass through and exhaust from the nozzle exit. This experimental study focuses on finding a correlation between the impingement hole sizes of a nozzle insert and their clogged areas caused by seeded fine and medium size particles of Fe2O3 under specific pressure ratios. A nozzle insert was first chosen, and a single row of cylindrical impingement holes was machined at the leading edge of the insert. Measurements were conducted in a pressurized vessel at Reynolds numbers from 7,000 to 62,000 and pressure ratios from 1.01 to 1.10. Results indicate that insert clogging is a strong function of the hole size, particle size, and pressure ratio. The tested particles showed a bimodal distribution of fine and medium sizes, and the medium size particles played a major role in clogging holes. A clogging diagram with 3 zones (fully clogged zone, partially clogged zone, and no clogging zone) is generated from the test data, which can provide important design criteria for sizing the insert leading edge impingement holes to reduce the risk of clogging.
Adaptive Detached Eddy Simulation of End-Wall Flow in a Linear Compressor Cascade
Authors: Yin Zifei
Published: January 2021

Delayed detached eddy simulations and wall-modeled eddy simulations using the adaptive DES model were performed to simulate corner separation in the Ecole Centrale de Lyon linear compressor cascade. The adaptive DES model directly uses length scale to define eddy viscosity, which makes it nature to compute the model constant CDES dynamically. The dynamic procedure adapts viscosity to local flow and grid. Delayed detached eddy simulations, with and without the dynamic procedure, were performed to demonstrate the benefit of adapting viscosity to local flow. Recycling method was adopted to generate inflow unsteady turbulent boundary layer for wall-modeled eddy simulations. The wall-modeled eddy simulation showed improvement over delayed-DES, in terms of static pressure coefficient around the blade and total pressure loss at downstream locations.
Experimental Investigation of the Combustion Behavior of Single-Nozzle Liquid-FLOX®-Based Burners on an Atmospheric Test Rig
Authors: Izadi Saeed , Zanger Jan , Kislat Oliver , Enderle Benedict , Grimm Felix , Kutne Peter , Aigner Manfred
Published: January 2021

As an alternative to the commonly used swirl burners in micro gas turbines (MGT), the FLOX®-based combustion concept promises great potential for the nitric oxide emission reduction and increased fuel flexibility. Previous research on FLOX®-based MGT combustors mainly addressed gaseous fuels and there is limited knowledge available on liquid fuel FLOX®-based MGT combustors. Despite having to deal with a new set of challenges while utilizing liquid fuel in the burner, first steps are taken to gain more information on the influencing operational parameters. In this regard, a FLOX®-based liquid fuel burner is developed to fit into a newly designed combustor for the Capstone C30 MGT. The C30 combustor operates with three burners arranged tangentially to an annular combustion chamber and provides a total thermal power of 115 kW. In this work, operational properties of merely one of the three C30 liquid fuel burners are investigated and the rest of the two burners are emulated in form of hot cross–flow. As for the liquid burners, the experiments are conducted with three geometrically different single–nozzle burners at atmospheric pressure. The studied FLOX®-based burners consist of an air nozzle with a coaxially arranged fuel pressure atomizer. The cross–flow is realized by utilizing a 20–nozzle FLOX®-based natural gas combustor. Measurements include visualization of the reaction zone and analysis of the exhaust gas emissions. By detecting the hydroxyl radical chemiluminescence (OH*-CL) emissions, the position of the heat release zone within the combustion chamber is attained. Correspondingly, the flame height above burner and the flame length are calculated. The investigated design parameters include air preheat temperature up to 733 K, equivalence ratio, burner geometry, and thermal power. The work presented in this paper aims to deepen the understanding of the design parameter interactions involved within the single–nozzle liquid–FLOX®-based burners. The cross–flow is set at a constant operating point to take the influence of the circulating hot gases on the flame into account. Through variation of thermal power the effect of liquid fuel preparation, i.e., atomization, evaporation, and mixing on combustion properties and exhaust gas emissions are examined. Analyses of measurements of different burner configurations are shown. The results show that the burners with the medium diameter consistently performed remarkably at different flame temperatures and thermal powers. The lowest NOx and CO emissions for the medium diameter burner lied between 5–7 ppm and 8–10 ppm, respectively. The collected data sets can be used for the validation of numerical simulations as well.
The Formula of Discharge Coefficient of the Cooling Hole in the Combustion Chamber for a Uniform Penetration Boundary Method
Authors: Wang Sen , Jin Donghai , Gui Xingmin , Liu Xiaoheng
Published: January 2021

At present, researches on the discharge coefficient of the combustion chamber cooling holes are mostly based on the experimental study of the porous plates considering various geometric structures under different flow conditions. In this method, the average discharge coefficients of multiple holes are obtained. Since the discharge coefficient will be applied to the numerical simulation, it is important to obtain an accurate formula for each cooling hole. Therefore, the discharge coefficient will be associated with some local aerodynamic parameters around the cooling holes and geometric parameters of the cooling holes.

In this paper, the geometric parameters consist of length-to-diameter ratio (L/d) and inclination angle (α). The aerodynamic parameters cover the Mach number of cooling flow and mainstream (Mac, Mam), characterizing the flow feature, and the pressure ratio (π) which associates the cooling flow with the mainstream. The purpose of this paper is to study the discharge coefficient of a single circular hole with variable geometries under a cold condition of a combustion chamber, which has low crossflow and low-pressure ratio on both sides of the hole. In this environment, according to the research results, the discharge coefficient is sensitive to the cooling flow Mach number, length-to-diameter ratio and pressure ratio (π ≈ 1.05). Discharge coefficient decreases with L/d linearly, conforms the quadratic function with Mac and changes complexly at π ≈ 1.05. Other parameters have little effect on the discharge coefficient. The data for discharge coefficient of the cylindrical hole considering different parameters is obtained through numerical simulation and the correlations summarized by these data are valid for the following ranges: L/d = 3∼12, α = 20°∼45°, Mac = 0.05∼0.15, Mam = 0∼0.1, π = 1.05∼1.15. Compared with the CFD data, the prediction formula has a maximum error of less than 3% and a mean absolute error of 0.78%.
Numerical Investigations on the Leakage Flow Characteristics of Brush Seal Based on the 3D Staggered Tube Bundle Model
Authors: Ma Dengqian , Zhang Yuanqiao , Li Zhigang , Li Jun , Yan Xin
Published: January 2021

Brush seals are widely applied in turbomachinery to control leakage flow between the stationary and rotational components due to the high sealing performance. In consideration of the axial compression of the bristle pack posing a challenge to accurately predict the leakage flow rate at the practical operating condition, the 3D staggered tube bundle model is established based on the multi-block structured mesh. The mesh motion technique is used to obtain the leakage flow pattern and aerodynamic resistance performance of the brush seal. The effects of pressure ratio Rp, sealing clearance c and axial pitch reduction ΔSx,i on leakage flow characteristics as well as Eu of the brush seal were investigated. The numerical results were in good agreement with the experimental data. Thus the accuracy of the presented numerical method was validated. For the contacting brush seal, ΔSx,i has a significant effect on the leakage flow rate reduction. As the ΔSx,i increases from 0 mm to 0.004 mm, the leakage flow rate is reduced by 39.63% when Rp equals to 1.5. For the clearance brush seal, ΔSx,i has little effect on the leakage flow rate reduction. As the ΔSx,i increases from 0 mm to 0.004 mm, the leakage flow rate is reduced by 3.44% when Rp equals to 1.5 and c equals to 0.2 mm. As for the aerodynamic resistance, the presence of the sealing clearance could effectively convert the pressure energy of the leakage flow into kinetic energy. This causes that the leakage flow velocity exiting the bristle pack of the clearance brush seal is 1.5 to 2.0 times than that of the contacting brush seal. Although the existence of the sealing clearance obviously increases the leakage flow rate, it effectively reduces the aerodynamic forces acting on the bristles. This research would provide technical support for the analysis of the leakage flow characteristics of the brush seal.
A Probabilistic Model for Forging Flaw Crack Nucleation Processes
Authors: Radaelli Francesco , Amann Christian , Aydin Ali , Varfolomeev Igor , Gumbsch Peter , Kadau Kai
Published: January 2021

A probabilistic model for quantifying the number of load cycles for nucleation of forging flaws into a crack has been developed. The model correlates low cycle fatigue (LCF) data, ultrasonic testing (UT) indication data, flaw morphology and type with the nucleation process. The nucleation model is based on a probabilistic LCF model applied to finite element analyses (FEA) of flaw geometries. The model includes statistical size and notch effects. In order to calibrate the model, we conducted experiments involving specimens that include forging flaws. The specimens were machined out from heavy duty steel rotor disks for the energy sector. The large disks, including ultrasonic indications on the millimeter scale, were cut into smaller segments in order to efficiently machine specimens including manufacturing related forging flaws. We conducted cyclic loading experiments at a variety of temperatures and high stresses in order to capture realistic engine operating conditions for flaws as they occur in service.

This newly developed model can be incorporated into an existing probabilistic fracture mechanics framework and enables a reliable risk quantification allowing to support customer needs for more flexible operational profiles due to the emergence of renewable energy sources.
Study of Relative Endwall Motion Effects in a Compressor Cascade Through Direct Numerical Simulations
Authors: Ventosa-Molina Jordi , Lange Martin , Mailach Ronald , Fröhlich Jochen
Published: January 2021

Linear cascades are commonly used as surrogate geometries when performing fundamental studies of turbomachinery blading. Several effects are not accounted for in linear cascades, among them the relative motion between blade and endwall. In this study three different relative endwall velocities are analysed. The effect of the relative motion between endwall and blade in a linear compressor cascade is studied through Direct Numerical Simulations. Results show a significant change in the secondary flow structure within the passage. Most notably, the tip leakage vortex is displaced away from the blade. Still, the blade spanwise range affected by the secondary flow field is similar to the case without relative endwall motion. At the outlet plane, a stratification of the total pressure losses and the exit flow angle is found, which overshadows any blade wake effects near the endwall.
Evaluation of the Creep Strength of 9Cr-1Mo-V and 1Cr-1Mo-1/4V Castings and Weldments Using Accelerated Creep Testing
Authors: Laney Scot J.
Published: January 2021

Knowledge of creep properties is vital in determining the allowable stresses for rotating equipment design at high temperatures. Unfortunately, the traditional method to generate creep data requires several long term tests; in some cases, upwards of 100,000 hours are needed. These tests are often time and cost prohibitive to perform. Some data is available from sources such as the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, but these are limited to commonly available materials in set processing conditions. They speak very little to the properties for new materials, alternate processing of existing materials, and properties for weldments and heat affected zones (HAZ) that occur in the fabrication of large equipment. Due to this, several methods have been developed for accelerated creep testing. One such method is the Stress Relaxation Test (SRT) developed by Woodford. This high precision stress relaxation test can generate five decades of creep data in a single, one-day test. This paper discusses the use of the SRT method to evaluate two different materials and their weldments used in the manufacturing of steam turbine casings. The first material is cast 9Cr-1Mo-V (SA-217, Grade C12A). In this first case, material from two different foundries was tested at temperatures between 550°C and 700°C. Specimens consisting entirely of matching weld metal and those that that include the HAZ centered between weld metal and the base casting were also tested as a means to verify fabrication and casting upgrade procedures. In this case, the data generated for all three sample types very closely match those given in literature. In a nearly identical test program, testing was performed on cast 1Cr-1Mo-¼V steel (ASTM A356, Grade 9). In this second case, the base casting closely matched literature data, while the weldments did not. In one instance, through a significant reduction in properties of the weld metal specimen, the SRT method was able to detect that an under matching filler metal was used. In another instance, the HAZ specimen, from a weldment using matching filler metal, failed during the test. It was found that the welding procedure resulted in overheating the sample. These two case studies illustrate the ability of the SRT method to accurately predict creep properties and its sensitivity to detect variations in properties, which can make it useful for rapid verification of welding procedures for high temperature applications.
Effect of Surface Roughness and Inlet Turbulence Intensity on a Turbine Nozzle Guide Vane External Heat Transfer: Experimental Investigation on a Literature Test Case
Authors: Bacci T. , Picchi A. , Lenzi T. , Facchini B. , Innocenti L.
Published: January 2021

Surface roughness is well known to significantly influence turbine aerodynamics and heat transfer; different studies have been undertaken in the last decades, in order to precisely characterize its effects and pursue a reliable and unified CFD modelling approach. Despite the effort, further research is still required to completely fulfill the goal, due to the complexity of the considered environment, with many other aspects and flow characteristics factoring into the final behavior. In this work an experimental campaign was carried out to evaluate the heat transfer coefficient on a linear nozzle guide vane geometry. The adopted geometry has been developed and tested, at different inlet turbulence intensity, Reynolds and Mach number, at Von Karman Institute. The results achieved on a test article with smooth surface were made available. In the present work the effect of increased turbulence level and surface roughness were taken into account, respectively using passive grids and conditioning the test sample surface finishing. Experiments were conducted using a transient technique by measuring the surface temperature evolution by IR thermography. The collected results integrate the existing database available in the open literature in order to support development and benchmarking of numerical approaches aimed at a reliable characterization of these aspects.