Dieter Bohn

Double-Jet Ejection of Cooling Air for Improved Film Cooling

Film cooling in gas turbines leads to aerodynamic mixing losses and reduced temperatures of the gas flow. Improvements of the gas turbine thermal efficiency can be achieved by reducing the cooling fluid amount and by establishing a more equal distribution of the cooling fluid along the surface. It is well known that vortex systems in the cooling jets are the origin of reduced film-cooling effectiveness. For the streamwise ejection case, kidney vortices result in a liftoff of the cooling jets; for the lateral ejection case, usually only one dominating vortex remains, leading to hot gas flow underneath the jet from one side. Based on the results of numerical analyses, a new cooling technology has been introduced by the authors, which reaches high film-cooling effectiveness as a result of a well-designed cooling hole arrangement for interaction of two neighboring cooling jets (double-jet film cooling (DJFC)). The results show that configurations exist, where an improved film-cooling effectiveness can be reached because an anti-kidney vortex pair is established in the double-jet. The paper aims at the following major contributions: (1) to introduce the DJFC as an alternative film-cooling technology to conventional film-cooling design; (2) to explain the major phenomena, which leads to the improvement of the film-cooling effectiveness by application of the DJFC; and (3) to prove basic applicability of the DJFC to a realistic blade cooling configuration and present the first test results under machine operating conditions.

Conjugate Flow and Heat Transfer Investigation of a Turbo Charger

In this paper a three-dimensional conjugate calculation has been performed for a passenger car turbo charger. The scope of this work is to investigate the heat fluxes in the radial compressor, which can be strongly influenced by the hot turbine. As a result of this, the compressor efficiency may deteriorate. Consequently, the heat fluxes have to be taken into account for the determination of the efficiency. To overcome this problem a complex three-dimensional model has been developed. It contains the compressor, the oil cooled center housing, and the turbine. Twelve operating points have been numerically simulated composed of three different turbine inlet temperatures and four different mass flows. The boundary conditions for the flow and for the outer casing were derived from experimental test data (Bohn et al.). Resulting from these conjugate calculations various one-dimensional calculation specifications have been developed. They describe the heat transfer phenomena inside the compressor with the help of a Nusselt number, which is a function of an artificial Reynolds number and the turbine inlet temperature.

Conjugate Flow and Heat Transfer Investigation of a Turbo Charger: Part II — Experimental Results

In this paper a three-dimensional conjugate calculation has been performed for a passenger car turbo charger. The scope of this work is to investigate the heat fluxes in the radial compressor which can be strongly influenced by the hot turbine. As a result of this, the compressor efficiency may deteriorate. Consequently, the heat fluxes have to be taken into account for the determination of the efficiency. To overcome this problem a complex three-dimensional model has been developed. It contains the compressor, the oil cooled center housing, and the turbine. 12 operating points have been numerically simulated composed of three different turbine inlet temperatures and four different mass flows. The boundary conditions for the flow and for the outer casing were derived from experimental test data (part II of the paper). Resulting from these conjugate calculations various one-dimensional calculation specifications have been developed. They describe the heat transfer phenomena inside the compressor with the help of a Nusselt number which is a function of an artificial Reynolds number and the turbine inlet temperature.Copyright

Prediction and Measurement of Thermoacoustic Improvements in Gas Turbines With Annular Combustion Systems

Environmental compatibility requires low emission burners for gas turbine power plants. In the past, significant progress has been made developing low NO x and CO burners by introducing lean premixed techniques in combination with annular combustion chambers, Unfortunately, these burners often have a more pronounced tendency to produce combustion-driven oscillations than conventional burner designs, The oscillations may be excited to such an extent that the risk of engine failure occurs. For this reason, the prediction of these thermoacoustic instabilities in the design phase of an engine becomes more and more important. A method based on linear acoustic four-pole elements has been developed to predict instabilities of the ring combustor of the 3A-series gas turbines, The complex network includes the whole combustion system starting from both compressor outlet and fuel supply system and ending at the turbine inlet. The flame frequency response was determined by a transient numerical simulation (step-function approach). Based on this method, possible improvements for the gas turbine are evaluated in this paper. First, the burner impedance is predicted theoretically and compared with results from measurements on a test rig for validation of the prediction approach. Next, the burner impedance in a gas turbine combustion system is analyzed and improved thermoacoustically, Stability analyses for the gas turbine combustion system show the positive impact of this improvement. Second, the interaction of the acoustic parts of the gas turbine system has been detuned systematically in circumferential direction of the annular combustion chamber in order to find a more stable configuration. Stability analyses show the positive effect of this measure as well, The results predicted are compared with measurements from engine operation. The comparisons of prediction and measurements show the applicability of the prediction method in order to evaluate the thermoacoustic stability of the combustor as well as to define possible countermeasures.

Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis for Film Cooling Configurations With Different Hole Geometries

Secondary flows in the cooling jets are the main reason for the degradation of the cooling performance of a film-cooled blade. The formation of kidney vortices can significantly be reduced for shaped holes instead of cylindrical holes. For the determination of the film cooling heat transfer, the design of a turbine blade relies on the conventional determination of the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer conditions for test configurations. Thus, additional influences by the interaction of fluid flow and heat transfer and influences by additional convective heat transfer cannot be taken into account with sufficient accuracy. Within this paper, calculations of a film-cooled duct wall with application of the adiabatic and a conjugate heat transfer condition have been performed for different configurations with cylindrical and shaped holes. It can be shown that the application of the conjugate calculation method comprises the influence of heat transfer on the velocity field within the cooling film. In particular, the secondary flow velocities are affected by the local heat transfer, which varies significantly depending on the local position.Copyright

The NEKOMIMI Cooling Technology: Cooling Holes With Ears for High-Efficient Film Cooling

Further improvement of the thermal efficiency of modern gas turbines can be achieved by a further reduction of the cooling air amount. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the cooling effectiveness, so that the available cooling air fulfils the cooling task even if the amount has been reduced. Due to experimental and numerical efforts, it is well understood today that aerodynamic mixing processes are enhanced by counter-rotating vortices (CRV) in the cooling jets and lead to jet lift-off effects. Thus, the film-cooling effectiveness is reduced soon behind the cooling air ejection through the holes. Due to that basic understanding, different technologies for improving film cooling have been developed. Some of them focus on establishing anti-counter-rotating vortices (ACRV) inside the cooling jet that prevent the hot gas from flowing underneath the jet and, thus, avoid the lift-off effect. One of these technologies is the double-jet film cooling (DJFC), invented by the authors, where the special arrangement of two cylindrical holes lead to a cooling jet with such an anti-vortex system. However, beside the advantage that the holes are simple cylindrical holes, one disadvantage is that appropriate supply with cooling air for both holes is sometimes difficult to be established in real configurations. Thus, the authors have followed the idea to transfer the original double-jet film cooling principle to a special configuration with merged holes. Thus, in that case only one air supply is necessary but the anti-vortex effect has been preserved. The derived cooling technology has been named NEKOMIMI technology. The paper explains the principle of that technology. Results from experimental investigations including film cooling effectiveness measurements for the new technology are presented. The results are compared to conventional cooling hole configurations showing the tremendous positive effect in reaching highest film cooling effectiveness for the new configuration at M = 1.5 and partly for M = 1. Numerical investigations for the M = 1.5 case indicate that the existence of the ACRV is the likely reason for the enhanced cooling performance of the new configuration.Copyright

Numerical Simulation of the Unsteady Flow Field in an Axial Gas Turbine Rim Seal Configuration

The fluid flow in gas turbine rim seals and the sealing effectiveness are influenced by the interaction of the rotor and the stator disk and by the external flow in the hot gas annulus. The resulting flow structure is fully 3-dimensional and time-dependant. The requirements to a sufficiently accurate numerical prediction for front and back cavity flows are discussed in this paper. The results of different numerical approaches are presented for an axial seal configuration. This covers a full simulation of the time-dependant flow field in a 1.5 stage experimental turbine including the main annulus and both rim cavities. This configuration is simplified in subsequent steps in order to identify a method providing the best compromise between a sufficient level of accuracy and the least computational effort. A comparison of the computed cavity pressures and the sealing effectiveness with rig test data shows the suitability of each numerical method. The numerical resolution of a large scale rotating structure that is found in the front cavity is a special focus of this study. The existence of this flow pattern was detected first by unsteady pressure measurements in test rig. It persists within a certain range of cooling air massflows and significantly affects the sealing behaviour and the cavity pressure distribution. This phenomenon is captured with an unsteady calculation using a 360 deg. computational domain. The description of the flow pattern is given together with a comparison to the measurements.Copyright

Experimental and Theoretical Investigations of Heat Transfer in Closed Gas-Filled Rotating Annuli

The prediction of the temperature distribution in a gas turbine rotor containing closed, gas-filled cavities, for example in between two disks, has to account for the heat transfer conditions encountered inside these cavities. In an entirely closed annulus, forced convection is not present, but a strong natural convection flow exists, induced by a nonuniform density distribution in the centrifugal force field. Experimental investigations have been made to analyze the convective heat transfer in closed, gas-filled annuli rotating around their horizontal axes. The experimental setup is designed to establish a pure centripetal heat flux inside these annular cavities (hot outer, and cold inner cylindrical wall, thermally insulated side walls). The experimental investigations have been carried out for several geometries varying the Rayleigh number in a range usually encountered in cavities of turbine rotors (10 7 <RA<10 12 ). The convective heat flux induced for Ra=10 12 was found to be a hundred times lager compared to the only conductive heat flux. By inserting radial walls the annulus is divided into 45 deg sections and the heat transfer increases considerably. A computer program to simulate flow and heat transfer in closed rotating cavities has been developed and tested successfully for annuli with isothermal side walls with different temperatures giving an axial heat flux. For the centripetal heat flux configuration, three-dimensional steady-state calculations of the sectored annulus were found to be consistent with the experimental results. Nevertheless, analysis of unsteady calculations show that the flow can become unstable. This is analogous to the Benard problem in the gravitational field

The Computation of Adjacent Blade-Row Effects in a 1.5-Stage Axial Flow Turbine

This paper deals with the numerical simulation of flow through a 1.5-stage axial flow turbine. The three-row configuration has been experimentally investigated at the University of Aachen where measurements behind the first vane, the first stage, and the full configuration were taken. These measurements allow single blade row computations, to the measured boundary conditions taken from complete engine experiments, or full multistage simulations. The results are openly available inside the framework of ERCOFTAC 1996. There are two separate but interrelated parts to the paper. First, two significantly different Navier-Stokes codes are used to predict the flow around the first vane and the first rotor, both running in isolation. This is used to engender confidence in the code that is subsequently used to model the multiple blade-row tests; the other code is currently only suitable for a single blade row. Second, the 1.5-stage results are compared to the experimental data and promote discussion of surrounding blade row effects on multistage solutions.

Conjugate Calculations for a Film-Cooled Blade Under Different Operating Conditions

Conjugate heat transfer and flow calculation techniques (CCT: Conjugate Calculation Technique) developed by several numerical groups have been applied to more and more complex three-dimensional cooling configurations. With respect to gas turbine blade cooling, conjugate calculation codes are turning out as useful tools for the support of the thermal design process. Thus, the main focus of the present study is to investigate the applicability of the CCT on a realistic film-cooling configuration of a modern gas turbine blade under hot gas operating conditions. Thermal index paint measurements for the investigated configuration have been performed at KHI Gas Turbine R&D Center in order to provide thermal load data for comparison to results of conjugate blade analysis. The comparison shows that with respect to regions with high thermal load a qualitatively good agreement of the conjugate results and the measurements can be found although the calculation models contain several simplifications for the internal cooling configuration particularly. The tip region of the blade trailing edge is exposed to a high thermal load. This result can be found in the measurement data as well as in the numerical analysis. The influence of off-design flow conditions on the film cooling flow at the blade leading edge is also investigated. Despite the model simplification, the Conjugate Calculation Technique turns out to be applicable for the numerical testing of the cooling configuration investigated. With the numerical results, useful information for further improvement of the investigated cooling configuration can be provided.Copyright