The Clogging Behavior of a Vortex Pump: An Experimental Study on the Influence of Impeller Designs

This paper analyzes the clogging behavior of a vortex pump with different impeller designs. The influence of blade outlet angle, blade number, and impeller diameter were tested. Non-woven textiles in different concentrations served as the clogging material. The results suggest that a smaller outlet blade angle, a higher blade number, and a larger impeller diameter allow pumping more textiles. Impellers that were capable of pumping more textiles, however, were less efficient. Overall, pumping textiles causes efficiency losses. However, this could not be only related to increased power consumption. Flow rates under clogging operation were close to the flow rates under clear water operation irrespective of the amount of clogging material and the impellers design. Further, in all tests clogging material accumulated at the suction mouth in the casing.

Visualization of Internal Flow Field of Propeller Fan

Propeller fans are required not only to have high performance but also to be extremely quiet. The internal flow field of ventilation propeller fans is even more complicated because they usually have a very peculiar configuration with protruding blades upstream. Thus, many kinds of internal vortices yield which cause noise and their cause and countermeasures are needed to be clarified. The purposes of this paper are to visualize the internal flow of the propeller fan from the static and rotating frame of reference. The internal flow visualization measured from the static frame gives approximately the scale of the tip vortex. The visualization from the rotating coordinate system yields a better understanding of the flow phenomena occurring at the specific blade. The experiment is implemented by using a small camera mounted on the shaft of the fan and rotated it to capture the behavior of the vortices using a laser light sheet to irradiate the blade surface. Hence, the flow field of the specific blade could be understood to some extent. The visualized results are compared with the CFD results and these results show a similar tendency about the generation point and developing process of the tip vortex. In addition, it is found that the noise measurement result is relevant to the effect of tip vortex from the visualization result.

Numerical Study on Flow Characteristics in High Multi-Stage Pressure Reducing Valve

In this paper, a new high multi-stage pressure reducing valve (HMSPRV) is proposed. The main advantages include reducing noise and vibration, reducing energy consumption and dealing with complex conditions. As a new high pressure reducing valve, its flow characteristics need to be investigated. For that the valve opening has a great effect on steam flow, pressure reduction and energy consumption, thus different valve openings are taken as the research points to investigate the flow characteristics. The analysis is conducted from four aspects: pressure, velocity, temperature fields and energy consumption. The results show that valve opening has a great effect on flow characteristics. No matter for pressure, velocity or temperature field, the changing gradient mainly reflects at those throttling components for all valve openings. For energy consumption, in the study of turbulent dissipation rate, it can be found that the larger of valve opening, the larger of energy consumption. It can be concluded that the new high multi-stage pressure reducing valve works well under complex conditions. This study can provide technological support for achieving pressure regulation, and benefit the further research work on energy saving and multi-stage design of pressure reducing devices.

The Onset of Turbulence: Insights Into the Navier-Stokes Equations

For well over 150 years now, theoreticians and practitioners have been developing and teaching students easily visualized models of fluid behavior that distinguish between the laminar and turbulent fluid regimes. Because of an emphasis on applications, perhaps insufficient attention has been paid to actually understanding the mechanisms by which fluids transition between these regimes. Summarized in this paper is the product of four decades of research into the sources of these mechanisms, at least one of which is a direct consequence of the non-linear terms of the Navier-Stokes equation. A scheme utilizing chaotic dynamic effects that become dominant only for sufficiently high Reynolds numbers is explored. This paper is designed to be of interest to faculty in the engineering, chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics disciplines as well as to practitioners in these and related applications.

Study on Small Fluctuation Stability in Air Cushion Surge Chamber Based on State Space Method

In this paper, on the basis of the state space method and actual system arrangement, the small fluctuation mathematical model of the water conveyance system with air cushion surge chamber (ACSC) was established. According to the basic equations of ACSC, the ideal gas state equation and the units constant output equation, the formula describing the stable cross-section area (SCSA) of ACSC was deduced, and the small fluctuation stability (SFS) of water conveyance system was analyzed. The corresponding results showed that the air chamber constant had a great influence on the SCSA of ACSC. When the air chamber constant became larger, the quality of the system small fluctuation went worse. The higher upstream water level and the lower initial air chamber height will lead to a smaller initial air chamber constant of ACSC, which is destructive for the stability of the system small fluctuation; As long as the equivalent air quality and air chamber volume are constant, good quality system small fluctuations could be obtained when the initial air chamber height is small and the area of ACSC is large.

Aerodynamic Design and Optimization of Pipe Diffuser for a High-Loading Centrifugal Compressor

Pipe diffuser draws more attentions these years as the stage pressure ratio and loads grow, since it is known that the pipe diffuser has a superior performance to the traditional vane diffuser as the diffuser inlet flow field is transonic or supersonic. Generally speaking, when the pressure ratio is high enough to give rise to the emergence of a critical cross-section, it would usually be in the diffuser, closing to the leading edge other than in the impeller. Therefore, the diffuser would have a significant impact on stage choke margin and its performance while be difficult to design and to match the impeller with satisfaction. To address the problem, a preliminary geometry design method for pipe diffuser is presented in this paper. In this paper, the performance and flow field analysis are based on numerical simulation carried out by Numeca, a commercial simulation software. For verified the calculated results′ reliability and grid independence, corresponding calculations and comparisons are conducted and discussed. Then, the performance of stage with pipe diffuser is compared with the stage with vane diffuser. Next, the specific effects of incidence on the performance and flow field are analyzed and discussed respectively. At last, an optimized aerodynamic structure of pipe diffuser is presented. As shown in the CFD results, the stage peak isentropic efficiency can reach up to 83.65% with the stage total pressure ratio slightly increased from 6.50 to 6.78, which means 4.29% of isentropic efficiency was raised by substituting the pipe diffuser for the vane diffuser.

Noise Reduction Measures for an Axial Fan

The aim of this work is to investigate how a reduction of the noise emissions can be achieved by means of an irregular arrangement of the blades of the fan impeller and an additional blade skewing. For this purpose a fan impeller with a defined operating point is designed. Preliminary investigations have shown that a volumetric flow rate of 18 m3/h at a pressure of 200 Pa is required for cooling. Due to structural restrictions, only one axial impeller with a diameter of 68 mm can be used. The rotational speed of the electric motor is 10000 rpm. In a further step, the influences of the blade skewing and irregular arrangement of the blades are examined. These impellers are manufactured in a rapid prototyping process, which is a cost-effective and fast process. Thus, various variants can be examined to find the most suitable impeller. The study of the impellers is divided into two phases. Firstly, the fluid mechanical data of the impeller is measured. For this purpose, a chamber test stand is used to measure the characteristic curves of fan impellers. Thus, on the one hand, it can be examined whether the designed impeller reaches the operating point and, on the other hand, the influence of the noise reduction measures on the characteristic curves can also be evaluated. It is, of course, not desired that the noise reduction measures result in a deterioration of the pressure increase or in the volumetric flow rate. In the second phase, the noise generation of the impeller is measured in an installed state on an acoustic test stand. For this purpose, the impellers are installed in the electric motor and then acoustically examined in enveloping surface method according to DIN 45635. It can be seen that the sound load can be reduced by 5.6 dB by a sufficient design of the impeller compared to a reference impeller. The further measures taken, such as the irregular arrangement of the blades and the blade skewing, have shown a further improvement of 1.6 dB. The influence of the implemented measures on the characteristic curve lies in a small area. It is measured that the pressure increase has fallen due to the irregular arrangement of the blades and the blade skewing by 10 Pa with a constant remaining flow rate.

Modeling Shear Heating in the Hydrodynamic Lubrication of Crankshaft Journal Bearing of a High-Torque Diesel Engine Operating at a Low Speed

Journal bearing plays a critical role in carrying the extensive transient hydrodynamic loads to prevent adhesive wear of crankshaft of a high-torque low-speed diesel engine. The nominal clearance between the shaft-pin and the bearing journal invites viscous shearing of the lubricant on the initiation of rotation at the time of low speed engine start up. Shear heating adversely affects the load carrying ability of the bearing by reducing its viscosity as a function of time. It invites physical contact and wear of bearing and the crankshaft compromising their designed life. In this work the 2-D Reynolds equation is used to model hydrodynamic lubrication phenomenon of crankshaft covering the steady state wedging and transient squeeze which are modeled under the lubricant flooding conditions. The viscous shear heating is modeled by solving energy equation encompassing 2-D convection and 1-D conduction phenomena. The lateral displacements are incorporated in the lubrication model to analyze the effects of secondary dynamics of crankshaft on viscous shearing and friction. The relationships between temperature, viscosity and density are defined to ascertain their effects on bearing lubrication at low engine speed. The numerical simulation results are analyzed for the complete 720-degree 4-stroke engine cycle at a low operating speed. The results show that viscous heating adversely affects the lubrication of journal bearing by significantly reducing the viscosity of lubricant film at low transient loads and speed. The study determines hydrodynamic pressures, temperature, density, viscosity and thermal conductivity of lubricant suitable to minimize the possibility of rupture and adhesive wear due to shear heating under the flooding conditions at a low initial engine speed. It will facilitate towards enhancing the life of crankshaft of a heavy-duty diesel engine.

Calculation Model Based Design-Point Gas Generator Performance Adaptation Method

Accurate performance simulation can provide operating parameters and performance parameters for the gas turbine’s optimization, maintenance, and fault diagnosis. However, the components maps necessary for performance simulation are not publically available. In addition, the same type of gas turbine has slightly different component operating characteristics due to components′ variations in status and assembly tolerance. These causes bring real difficulties to the research of performance simulation. In order to obtain accurate components characteristics and performance simulation results, the original or generic components maps should be modified by the scaling factors. In the process of calculating scaling factors, the simulation model is applied repeatedly to determine the engine’s actual performance parameters until the simulated gas path thermal parameters are compatible with the actual measureable data. This paper introduces a new adaptation method and substitutes the calculation model with the simulation model in the adaptation process. It directly calculates the mass flow rate, isentropic efficiency, and pressure ratio of compressor and turbine based on measureable parameters such as gas path temperature, pressure, fuel component and mass flow rate. Moreover, this paper introduces the virtual gas generator model that enhances the applicability of calculation model based performance adaptation method on gas generators with different structures. This method has been applied to GE PGT25+ gas generator (single-spool) and RR RB211-24G gas generator (double-spool). Compared with the simulation model used in adaptation process, performance calculation model is much simpler and less time consuming.

Research on Heat-Transfer and Cooling Performance of Gas Turbine Endwall

Recently, the number of gas turbine combined cycle plants is rapidly increasing in substitution of nuclear power plants. The turbine inlet temperature (TIT) is being constantly increased in order to achieve higher efficiency. Therefore, the improvement of the cooling technology for high temperature gas turbine blades is one of the most important issue to be solved. In a gas turbine, the main flow impinging at the leading edge of the turbine blade generates a so called horseshoe vortex by the interaction of its boundary layer and generated pressure gradient at the leading edge. The pressure surface leg of this horseshoe vortex crosses the passage and reaches the blade suction surface, driven by the pressure gradient existing between two consecutive blades. In addition, this pressure gradient generates a crossflow along the endwall. This all results into a very complex flow field in proximity of the endwall. For this reason, burnouts tend to occur at a specific position in the vicinity of the leading edge. In this research, a methodology to cool the endwall of the turbine blade by means of film cooling jets from the blade surface is proposed. The cooling performance and heat transfer coefficient distribution is investigated using the transient thermography method. CFD analysis is also conducted to know the phenomena occurring at the end wall and calculate the heat transfer distribution.