Performance Characterization of a Twin Scroll Volute for Turbocharging Applications

Author(s):  
Carlo Cravero ◽  
Mario La Rocca ◽  
Andrea Ottonello

The use of twin scroll volutes in radial turbine for turbocharging applications has several advantages over single passage volute related to the engine matching and to the overall compactness. Twin scroll volutes are of increasing interest in power unit development but the open scientific literature on their performance and modelling is still quite limited. In the present work the performance of a twin scroll volute for a turbocharger radial turbine are investigated in some detail in a wide range of operating conditions at both full and partial admission. A CFD model for the volute have been developed and preliminary validated against experimental data available for the radial turbine. Then the numerical model has been used to generate the database of solutions that have been investigated and used to extract the performance. Different parameters and indices are introduced to describe the volute aerodynamic performance in the wide range of operating conditions chosen. The above parameters can be used for volute development or matching with a given rotor or efficiently implemented in automatic design optimization strategies.

Author(s):  
Carlo Cravero ◽  
Davide De Domenico ◽  
Andrea Ottonello

Abstract Frequently in turbocharging radial turbine studies, some assumptions have to be done in order to make 1D matching calculations as easy as possible and to develop simulation approaches that can be useful for different purposes, like axial thrust prediction. One of these assumptions concerns the degree of reaction, which is often considered constant and equal to the value 0.5. In standard radial turbines design the velocity triangles are set by the target to keep a mean degree of reaction of 50%, in order to obtain low rotor losses and to minimize the exit swirl to get lower losses in the exhaust diffuser. From the experience gained on radial turbines operating in a wide range of conditions, it is evident that: the degree of reaction presents large variations along a given isospeed (especially at low rotational speed) and the mean value is far from 0.5 (particularly true in high performance applications). In the present work a method for the representation of the degree of reaction for radial turbine is suggested. The approach has been developed onto a twin scroll radial turbine for turbocharging, considering a large dataset of operating conditions (at both equal and partial admission). The discussion and the method suggested are based on a rich database from experimental data and numerical simulations developed by the authors on the 3D configuration of the turbines under investigation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Cravero ◽  
Davide De Domenico ◽  
Andrea Ottonello

Twin scroll radial turbines are increasingly used for turbocharging applications, to take advantage of the pulsating exhaust gases. In spite of its relevance in turbocharging techniques, scientific literature about CFD applied to twin scroll turbines is limited, especially in case of partial admission. In the present paper a CFD complete model of a twin scroll radial turbine is developed in order to give a contribution to literature in understanding the capabilities of current industrial CFD approaches applied to these difficult cases and to develop performance index that can be used for turbine design optimization purposes. The flow solution is obtained by means of ANSYS CFX ® in a wide range of operating conditions in full and partial admission cases. The total-to-static efficiency and the mass flow parameter (MFP) have been calculated and compared with the experimental database in order to validate the numerical model. The purpose of the developed procedure is also to generate a database for twin scroll turbines useful for future applications. A comparison between performances obtained in different admission conditions was performed. In particular the analysis focused on the characterization of the flow at volute outlet/rotor inlet section. A flow distortion index at rotor inlet was introduced to correlate the turbine performance and the flow nonuniformities generated by the volute. Finally the influence of the backside cavity on the performance parameters is also discussed. The introduction of these new nonuniformity indices is proposed for volute design and optimization procedures.


Author(s):  
Pavlos K. Zachos ◽  
Fabio Pengue ◽  
Vassilios Pachidis ◽  
Pericles Pilidis

The performance prediction of axial flow compressors and turbines still relies on the stationary testing of blade cascades. Most of the blade testing studies are done for operating conditions close to the design point or in off-design areas not too far from it. However, blade performance remains unexplored at very far off-design conditions characterised by operation under extremely low mass flows and rotational speeds which imply highly negative incidence angle values. In this work the development and validation against experimental data of a CFD model for predicting the flowfield in a compressor cascade at a highly negative incidence angle is presented. The CFD model has been tested for quite a wide range of Mach numbers, and an extensive analysis of the tools provided by the CFD code has been carried out. Several turbulence models have been tested, different meshes have been compared and various boundary condition sets have been applied to the model in order to achieve results as close as possible to the experimental data. The model is validated against the experimental results and the maximum observed deviation was found to be within reasonable order of magnitude. In addition, most trends of the properties of interest have been captured sufficiently, therefore the physical phenomena can be considered quite well predicted allowing the numerical tool to be used for further studies on similar test cases.


Author(s):  
Andrew Corber ◽  
Nader Rizk ◽  
Wajid Ali Chishty

The National Jet Fuel Combustion Program (NJFCP) is an initiative, currently being led by the Office of Environment & Energy at the FAA, to streamline the ASTM jet fuels certification process for alternative aviation fuels. In order to accomplish this objective, the program has identified specific applied research tasks in several areas. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is contributing to the NJFCP in the areas of sprays and atomization and high altitude engine performance. This paper describes work pertaining to atomization tests using a reference injection system. The work involves characterization of the injection nozzle, comparison of sprays and atomization quality of various conventional and alternative fuels, as well as use of the experimental data to validate spray correlations. The paper also briefly explores the application viability of a new spray diagnostic system that has potential to reduce test time in characterizing sprays. Measurements were made from ambient up to 10 bar pressures in NRC’s High Pressure Spray Facility using optical diagnostics including laser diffraction, phase Doppler anemometry (PDA), LIF/Mie Imaging and laser sheet imaging to assess differences in the atomization characteristics of the test fuels. A total of nine test fluids including six NJFCP fuels and three calibration fluids were used. The experimental data was then used to validate semi-empirical models, developed through years of experience by engine OEMs and modified under NJFCP, for predicting droplet size and distribution. The work offers effective tools for developing advanced fuel injectors, and generating data that can be used to significantly enhance multi-dimensional combustor simulation capabilities.


1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Hah ◽  
A. C. Bryans ◽  
Z. Moussa ◽  
M. E. Tomsho

Three-dimensional flowfields in a centrifugal impeller with backswept discharge at various operating points have been numerically investigated with a three-dimensional viscous flow code. Numerical results and experimental data were compared for the detailed flowfields and overall performance of the impeller at three operating conditions (optimum efficiency, choke, and near-surge conditions). The comparisons indicate that for engineering applications the numerical solution accurately predicts various complex real flow phenomena. The overall aerodynamic performance of the impeller is also well predicted at design and off-design conditions.


Author(s):  
Scott A. Drennan ◽  
Gaurav Kumar ◽  
Erlendur Steinthorsson ◽  
Adel Mansour

A key objective of NASA’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) research program is to develop advanced technologies that enable 75% reduction of LTO NOx emissions of N+2 aviation gas turbine engines relative to the CAEP 6 standard. To meet this objective, a new advanced multi-point fuel injector was proposed and tested under the NASA ERA program. The new injector, called the three-zone injector, or 3ZI, uses fifteen spray cups arranged in three zones. Swirling air flows into each cup and fuel is introduced via pressure swirl atomizers within the cup. Multiple design parameters impact the performance of the injector, such as the location of the atomizer within the spray cup, the spray angle and cup-to-cup spacing. To fully understand the benefits and trade-offs of various injector design parameters and to optimize the performance of the injector, detailed CFD simulations are an essential tool. Furthermore, the CFD methodology must allow easy changes in design parameters and guarantee consistent and comparable accuracy from one design iteration to the next. This paper investigates the use of LES in reacting and non-reacting flows and compares against the NOx experimental data for the multi-point atomization strategy of the injector. The CFD simulations employ an automatically generated Cartesian cut-cell meshing approach with mesh refinement applied near complex geometry and spray regions. Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) is used to refine mesh in regions of high gradients in velocity and temperature. The CFD simulations use boundary and operating conditions based on experimental data for air flow and spray atomization obtained from LDV and PDPA characterizations of the spray respectively. The results are extended to reacting flow using a detailed reaction mechanism and predictions of NOx emissions are compared to experimental data. Overall NOx predictions were consistently less than experimental values. However, the NOx prediction trends showed excellent agreement with experimental data across the wide range of equivalence ratios investigated.


Author(s):  
Hakim Maloufi ◽  
Hanqing Xie ◽  
Andrew Zopf ◽  
William Anderson ◽  
Christian Langevin ◽  
...  

Currently, there is a number of Generation-IV SuperCritical Water-cooled nuclear-Reactor (SCWR) concepts under development worldwide. These high temperature and pressure reactors will have significantly higher operating parameters compared to those of current water-cooled nuclear-power reactors (i.e., “steam” pressures of about 25 MPa and “steam” outlet temperatures up to 625 °C). Additionally, SCWRs will have a simplified flow circuit in which steam generators, steam dryers, steam separators, etc. will be eliminated, as the steam will be flowing directly to a steam turbine. In support of developing SCWRs studies are being conducted on heat transfer at SuperCritical Pressures (SCPs). Currently, there are very few experimental datasets for heat transfer at SCPs in power-reactor fuel bundles to a coolant (water) available in open literature. Therefore, for preliminary calculations, heat-transfer correlations developed with bare-tube data can be used as a conservative approach. Selected empirical heat-transfer correlations, based on experimentally obtained datasets, have been put forward to calculate Heat Transfer Coefficients (HTCs) in forced convective in various fluids, including water at SCPs. The Mokry et al. correlation (2011) has shown a good fit for experimental data at supercritical conditions within a wide range of operating conditions in Normal and Improved Heat-Transfer (NHT and IHT) regimes. However, it is known that a Deteriorated Heat-Transfer (DHT) regime appears in bare tubes earlier than that in bundle flow geometries. Therefore, it is important to know if bare-tube heat-transfer correlations for SCW can predict HTCs at heat fluxes beyond those defined as starting of DHT regime in bare tubes. The Mokry et al. (2011) correlation fits the best SCW experimental data for HTCs and inner wall temperature for bare tubes at SCPs within the NHT and IHT regimes. However, this correlation might have problems with convergence of iterations at heat fluxes above 1000 kW/m2.


Author(s):  
Laurent Sallus ◽  
Walter Van Hove

Since the last decade, Tractebel Engineering has been involved in several consecutive projects in the field of High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR). The objectives of the present project called RAPHAEL (www.raphael-project.org) is to provide R&D results in order to consolidate available data on generic V/HTR technologies and to develop innovative solutions to further contribute to the improvement of HTR performances. One of the objectives of the RAPHAEL Sub-project Safety is to qualify tools for performing safety analyses and supporting the safety approach and demonstration. One of the work packages concerns the validation of the existing thermal-hydraulic system codes capabilities needed to perform transient analysis in V/HTR. This validation is carried out by benchmarking against experimental data and by comparing simulation results given by several codes. The current paper presents the work performed at Tractebel Engineering on the simulation of the HE-FUS3 experimental loop — ENEA facility, Brasimone (Italy) — with the MELCOR v.1.8.6 code. The HE-FUS3 loop contains a wide range of components characteristic of a V/HTR like compressor, pipes, diffusers, valves, heaters and heat exchangers. Even if the loop characteristics/configuration is not prototypical of a V/HTR design, the loop is useful to assess the objectives identified by the Project, i.e. helium operating fluid, design pressure and temperature set respectively at 10.5 MPa and 530 °C. The experimental data of the HE-FUS3 loop made available for the benchmark are a set of steady state tests for the thermal-hydraulic characterization of the loop and two transient tests — Loss Of Flow Accidents (LOFA). Moreover, to assess the characteristics of the compressor, data have also been provided from a compressor test campaign. From the code-to-experiment comparison the ability of MELCOR v.1.8.6 to reproduce the experimental results is judged.


Author(s):  
Andrew Corber ◽  
Nader Rizk ◽  
Wajid Ali Chishty

The National Jet Fuel Combustion Program (NJFCP) is an initiative being led by the Office of Environment & Energy at the FAA, to streamline the ASTM jet fuels certification process for alternative aviation fuels. To accomplish this, the program has identified specific applied research tasks in several areas. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is contributing to the NJFCP in the areas of sprays and atomization and high altitude engine performance. This paper describes work pertaining to atomization tests using a reference injection system. The work involves characterization of the injection nozzle, comparison of sprays and atomization quality of various conventional and alternative fuels, and uses the experimental data to validate spray correlations. The paper also briefly explores the application viability of a new diagnostic system that has the potential to reduce test time in characterizing sprays. Measurements were made from ambient up to 10 bar pressures in NRC's High Pressure Spray Facility using optical diagnostics including laser diffraction, phase Doppler anemometry (PDA), LIF/Mie imaging and laser sheet imaging to assess differences in the atomization characteristics of the test fuels. A total of nine test fluids including six NJFCP fuels and three calibration fluids were used. The experimental data were then used to validate semi-empirical models, developed through years of experience by engine original equipment manufacturers, and modified under the NJFCP, for predicting droplet size and distribution. The work offers effective tools for developing advanced fuel injectors, and generating data that can be used to significantly enhance multidimensional combustor simulation capabilities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Häfele ◽  
Christoph Traxinger ◽  
Marius Grübel ◽  
Markus Schatz ◽  
Damian M. Vogt ◽  
...  

An experimental and numerical study on the flow in a three-stage low-pressure (LP) industrial steam turbine is presented and analyzed. The investigated LP section features conical friction bolts in the last and a lacing wire in the penultimate rotor blade row. These part-span connectors (PSC) allow safe turbine operation over an extremely wide range and even in blade resonance condition. However, additional losses are generated which affect the performance of the turbine. In order to capture the impact of PSCs on the flow field, extensive measurements with pneumatic multihole probes in an industrial steam turbine test rig have been carried out. State-of-the-art three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applying a nonequilibrium steam (NES) model is used to examine the aerothermodynamic effects of PSCs on the wet steam flow. The vortex system in coupled LP steam turbine rotor blading is discussed in this paper. In order to validate the CFD model, a detailed comparison between measurement data and steady-state CFD results is performed for several operating conditions. The investigation shows that the applied one-passage CFD model is able to capture the three-dimensional flow field in LP steam turbine blading with PSC and the total pressure reduction due to the PSC with a generally good agreement to measured values and is therefore sufficient for engineering practice.


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