Bob Mischo

Flow Physics and Profiling of Recessed Blade Tips: Impact on Performance and Heat Load

In axial turbine, the tip clearance flow occurring in rotor blade rows is responsible for about one-third of the aerodynamic losses in the blade row and in many cases is the limiting factor for the blade lifetime. The tip leakage vortex forms when the leaking fluid crosses the gap between the rotor blade tip and the casing from pressure to suction side and rolls up into a vortex on the blade suction side. The flow through the tip gap is both of high velocity and of high temperature, with the heat transfer to the blade from the hot fluid being very high in the blade tip area. In order to avoid blade tip burnout and a failure of the machine, blade tip cooling is commonly used. This paper presents the physical study and an improved design of a recessed blade tip for a highly loaded axial turbine rotor blade with application in high pressure axial turbines in aero engine or power generation. With use of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the flow field near the tip of the blade for different shapes of the recess cavities is investigated. Through better understanding and control of cavity vortical structures, an improved design is presented and its differences from the generic flat tip blade are highlighted. It is observed that by an appropriate profiling of the recess shape, the total tip heat transfer Nusselt number was significantly reduced, being 15% lower than the flat tip and 7% lower than the base line recess shape. Experimental results also showed an overall improvement of 0.2% in the one-and-a-half-stage turbine total efficiency with the improved recess design compared to the flat tip case. The CFD analysis conducted on single rotor row configurations predicted a 0.38% total efficiency increase for the rotor equipped with the new recess design compared to the flat tip rotor.

Influence of Stator-Rotor Interaction on the Aerothermal Performance of Recess Blade Tips

This paper investigates the influence of stator-rotor interaction on the stage performance of three blade tip geometries. A reference flat tip is used to assess two different recess blade geometries. The study is made in the context of the realistic turbine stage configuration provided by the ETHZ 1.5-stage LISA turbine research facility. This numerical investigation describes the details of unsteady recess cavity flow structure and confirms the beneficial effects of the improved recess geometry over the flat tip and the nominal recess design both in terms of stage efficiency and tip heat load. The tip flow field obtained from the improved recess design combines the advantages of a nominal recess design (aerodynamic sealing) and the flat tip configuration. The turbine stage capacity is almost unchanged between the flat tip and the improved recess tip cases, which simplifies the design procedure when using the improved recess design. The overall heat load in the improved recess case is reduced by 26% compared with the flat tip and by 14% compared with the nominal recess. A key finding of this study is the difference in effects of the upstream stator wake on the recess cavity flow. Where cavity flow in the nominal design is only moderately influenced, the improved recess cavity flow shows enhanced flow unsteadiness. The tip Nusselt number from a purely steady-state prediction in the nominal recess case is nearly identical to the time-average prediction. The improved design shows a 6% difference between steady-state and time-average tip Nusselt number. This is due to the strong influence of the wake passing on the recess cavity flow. In fact, the wake enhances a small flow difference at the leading edge of the recess cavity between the nominal and improved recess cavities, which results in a completely different flow field further downstream in the recess cavity.

Influence of Labyrinth Seal Leakage on Centrifugal Compressor Performance

The focus of this paper lies on the leakage flow across the shroud of a centrifugal compressor impeller. It is common practice to use shrouded impellers in multi stage compressors featuring a single shaft. The rotating impeller then has to be sealed against the higher pressure in the downstream diffuser by means of labyrinths. The relative amount of leakage is higher for stages designed for low flow, meaning that the associated losses gain in relevance. In addition to this loss source, the injection of the leakage flow has a serious influence on the main flow in a region where it is prone to separation, i.e. at the suction side of the impeller blades close to the shroud, where the highest relative velocities are found. The present paper discusses the numerical results of several geometrical arrangements where the leakage flow was mixed with the main flow in different ways. The distance between the location of injection and the leading edge of the impeller as well as the orientation of the injected flow showed a distinct influence on the performance of the entire stage, mainly on stability.Copyright