Mirko Micio

Analysis of Gas Turbine Rotating Cavities by an One-Dimensional Model

Reliable design of secondary air system is one of the main tasks for the safety, unfailing and performance of gas turbine engines. To meet the increasing demands of gas turbines design, improved tools in prediction of the secondary air system behavior over a wide range of operating conditions are needed. A real gas turbine secondary air system includes several components, therefore its analysis is not carried out through a complete CFD approach. Usually, that predictions are performed using codes, based on simplified approach which allows to evaluate the flow characteristics in each branch of the air system requiring very poor computational resources and few calculation time. Generally the available simplified commercial packages allow to correctly solve only some of the components of a real air system and often the elements with a more complex flow structure cannot be studied; among such elements, the analysis of rotating cavities is very hard. This paper deals with a design-tool developed at the University of Florence for the simulation of rotating cavities. This simplified in-house code solves the governing equations for steady one-dimensional axysimmetric flow using experimental correlations both to incorporate flow phenomena caused by multidimensional effects, like heat transfer and flow field losses, and to evaluate the circumferential component of velocity. Although this calculation approach does not enable a correct modeling of the turbulent flow within a wheel space cavity, the authors tried to create an accurate model taking into account the effects of inner and outer flow extraction, rotor and stator drag, leakages, injection momentum and, finally, the shroud/rim seal effects on cavity ingestion. The simplified calculation tool was designed to simulate the flow in a rotating cavity with radial outflow both with a Batchelor and/or Stewartson flow structures. A primary 1D-code testing campaign is available in the literature [1]. In the present paper the authors develop, using CFD tools, reliable correlations for both stator and rotor friction coefficients and provide a full 1D-code validation comparing, due to lack of experimental data, the in house design-code predictions with those evaluated by CFD.Copyright

Development of Numerical Tools for Stator-Rotor Cavities Calculation in Heavy-Duty Gas Turbines

In high performance heavy-duty engines, turbine inlet temperature is considerably higher than the melting point of the metals used for turbine components e.g. nozzle guide vanes, turbine rotor blades, platforms and discs, etc. Cooling of those components is therefore essential and is achieved by diverting a few percent of the compressed air from extraction points in the compressor and passing it to the turbine through stationary ducts and over rotating shafts and discs. All those elements form the so-called secondary air system of the gas turbine, whose correct design is hence fundamental for safety, reliability and performance of the engine. Secondary air system analysis is generally performed using one dimensional calculation procedures, based correlations both for pressure losses and heat transfer coefficient evaluations. Such calculation approach, usually used in industry, takes advantages in terms of reduced computational resources. Besides, for those elements of air systems where multidimensional flow effects are not negligible and the flow field structure is highly complex, the one-dimensional–correlative modeling needs to be supported by CFD investigations. Among these elements, rotating cavities need a careful modeling in order to correctly estimate discs temperature and the minimum amount of purge air to prevent hot gas ingestion. Ansaldo Energia is facing the investigation of secondary air system of Vx4.3A gas turbine models also by using numerical tools developed by Dipartimento di Energetica “Sergio Stecco” of University of Florence. They include both a one-dimensional cavity solver and a 3D unstructured finite volume code of compressible Navier-Stokes Equation based on open source C++ Open-Foam libraries for continuum mechanics. The first numerical tool has been widely employed in simplified analysis of stator-rotor cavities and is undergoing to be integrated into a in-house lumped-parameters fluid network solver simulating the entire secondary air system. This paper is aimed at discussing some interesting results from numerical tests performed with the above discussed programs on stator-rotor cavities of a V94.3A2 gas turbine. Such numerical analysis was addressed both for better understanding the flow phenomena in the wheel space regions and for testing and verifying the experimental correlations and the calculation procedure implemented in the one-dimensional program. A detailed comparative analysis between the two different codes will be shown, both in adiabatic and heat transfer conditions.Copyright

Numerical Investigation to Support the Design of a Flat Plate Honeycomb Seal Test Rig

Among the various type of seals used in gas turbine secondary air system to guarantee sufficient confinement of the main gas path, honeycomb seals well perform in terms of enhanced stability and reduced leakage flow. Reliable estimates of the sealing performance of honeycomb packs employed in industrial gas and steam turbines, are however missing in literature, thus, in order to evaluate the complete characteristic curve of the seals in the wide range of working conditions, an experimental campaign is planned. This work reports the findings of the numerical investigation exploited to properly design such test rig. Computations are performed with the steady-state RANS solver implemented in Ansys CFX ® using k-ω SST turbulence model with automatic wall treatment and exploiting symmetry condition when possible. Due to the generally large amount of honeycomb cells typically present in real seals, it would be convenient to treat the sealing effect of the honeycomb pack as an increased distributed friction factor on the plain top surface that is why the simplest configuration, the honeycomb facing a flat plate, is employed in this paper. The geometry of the hexagonal cell and the investigated clearances were chosen to well represent actual honeycomb packs employed in industrial compressors. First the pressure distribution within the seal was analysed verifying that downstream the first 5 rows of cells where entrance effects are predominant, the relative pressure drop is almost constant thus the use of an equivalent friction factor is appropriate to characterize the seal. Furthermore the calculated pressure field was used to assess potential effects of pressure probe positioning. Subsequent analysis focused on the characterization of the friction factor as function of the Reynolds number with the aim of establishing the proper geometrical scaling to achieve flow conditions similar to real turbine most critical ones. The eventual direct influence of both geometrical scaling and operating conditions was investigated as well. Additional CFD computations were used to assess the entrance length effects and the spanwise extension of the honeycomb pack. Finally the different behaviour of the honeycomb sealing depending on the hexagonal cell arrangement was evaluated both in terms of flow structure and friction factor showing an increase of 15% circa with the facing edge arrangement.© 2013 ASME

Flat Plate Honeycomb Seals Friction Factor Analysis

Among the various type of seals used in gas turbine secondary air system to guarantee sufficient confinement of the main gas path, honeycomb seals well perform in terms of enhanced stability and reduced leakage flow. Due to the large amount of honeycomb cells typically employed in real seals, it is generally convenient to treat the sealing effect of the honeycomb pack as an increased distributed friction factor on the plain top surface. That is why this analysis is focused on a simple configuration composed by a honeycomb facing a flat plate.In order to evaluate the sealing performance of such honeycomb packs, an experimental campaign was carried out on a stationary test rig where the effects of shaft rotation are neglected. The test rig was designed to analyze different honeycomb geometries so that a large experimental database could be created to correlate the influence of each investigated parameter. Honeycomb seals were varied in terms of hexagonal cell dimension and depth in a range that well represents actual honeycomb packs employed in industrial compressors. For each geometry five different clearances were tested.This work reports the findings of such experimental campaign whose results were analyzed in order to guide actual seals design and effective estimates of shaft loads. Static pressure measurements reveal that the effects of investigated geometrical parameters on friction factor well correlate with a corrected Mach number based on the cell depth.The presence of acoustic effects in the seals was further investigated by means of hot wire anemometry. Acoustic forcing due to flow cavity interaction was found to be characterized by a constant Strouhal number based on cell width. Numerical simulations helped in the identification of system eigenmodes and eigenfrequencies providing an explanation to the friction factor enhancement triggered at a certain flow speed.Finally the generated dataset was tested comparing the predicted leakage flow with experimental data of actual seals (with high pressure and high rotational speed) showing a very good agreement.Copyright

Numerical Characterization of Swirl Brakes for High Pressure Centrifugal Compressors

High pressure centrifugal compressors continue to experience vibrations due to rotordynamic stability. The main cause for aero-induced exciting forces that affects the stability, is the tangential velocity component of the gas entering the many labyrinth seals throughout the machine. In order to control or limit these swirling flows, swirl brakes are generally implemented both at the impeller eye seals and at the balance piston or division wall seal of a centrifugal compressor. This paper deals with the aerodynamic characterization, by means of CFD, of such kind of devices. Several design parameters, such as teeth lean, angle of attack and pitch-to-chord ratio have been considered and also the operating conditions (pressure level and swirl at the swirl brake inlet) are accounted for. This paper aims to improve the physical understanding of the fluid flow of centrifugal compressors swirl brakes allowing an optimization of such systems.© 2013 ASME

Some Improvements in a Gas Turbine Stator-Rotor Systems Core-Swirl Ratio Correlation

The present work concerns the turbulent flow inside a rotor-stator cavity with superimposed throughflow. The authors focused their analysis on a simple two-faced disk cavity, without shrouds, with interdisk-spacing sufficiently large so that the boundary layers developed on each disk are separated and the flow is turbulent. In such a system, the solid body rotation of the core predicted by Batchelor can develop. The evolution of the core-swirl ratio of the rotating fluid with an outward throughflow is studied by applying a classical experimental correlation, inserted in a one-dimensional (1D) in-house developed code. Results are compared to those predicted by CFD computations. Due to the discrepancies revealed, the authors provided a correction of the experimental correlation, based on CFD computation. Results thus obtained are finally in good agreement with CFD predictions.

Aerothermal Analysis of a Turbine Casing Impingement Cooling System

Heat transfer and pressure drop for a representative part of a turbine active cooling system were numerically investigated by means of an in-house code. This code has been developed in the framework of an internal research program and has been validated by experiments and CFD. The analysed system represents the classical open bird cage arrangement that consists of an air supply pipe with a control valve and the present system with a collector box and pipes, which distribute cooling air in circumferential direction of the casing. The cooling air leaves the ACC system through small holes at the bottom of the tubes. These tubes extend at about 180° around the casing and may involve a huge number of impinging holes; as a consequence, the impinging jets mass flow rate may vary considerably along the feeding manifold with a direct impact on the achievable heat transfer levels. This study focuses on the performance, in terms of heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop, of several impinging tube geometries. As a result of this analysis, several design solutions have been compared and discussed.

Experimental Investigation on Leakage Loss and Heat Transfer in a Straight Through Labyrinth Seal

Labyrinth seals are extensively used in turbomachinery to prevent high pressure gas from flowing into a region of low pressure. Because of thermal expansions and centrifugal forces, the actual seal clearance can vary based on engine conditions. Pressure ratio, Reynolds number, tip geometry, and seal clearance all affected the sealing performance. This paper deals with its influence on the leakage flow and heat transfer coefficient through a thirteen teeth straight through labyrinth seal. Three gaps were experimentally investigated using a stationary test rig. The experiments covered a range of Reynolds numbers between 5000 and 50000 and pressure ratios between 1.0 and 2.7. Cavity pressure measurements along the seal were also performed in order to characterize each constriction. In addition, 2D PIV measurements were made on the plane containing the seal teeth to obtain a high local resolution of the velocity distribution and the flow field within the seal. Experimental results show a strong influence of clearance on both leakage loss and heat transfer as well as on the development of the flow fields. A simplified model to calculate the leakage mass flow rate is presented and validated comparing its prediction capability with experimental data. In order to improve the agreement between numerical and experimental results a correction of published correlations is proposed.Copyright

Experimental Investigation on Leakage Losses and Heat Transfer in a Non Conventional Labyrinth Seal

Different labyrinth seal configurations are used in modern heavy-duty gas turbine such as see-through stepped or honeycomb seals. The characterization of leakage flow through the seals is one of the main tasks for secondary air system designers as well as the evaluation of increase in temperature due to heat transfer and windage effects. In high temperature turbomachinery applications, knowledge of the heat transfer characteristics of flow leaking through the seals is needed in order to accurately predict seal dimensions and performance as affected by thermal expansion. This paper deals with the influence of clearance on the leakage flow and heat transfer coefficient of a contactless labyrinth seal. A scaled-up planar model of the seal mounted in the inner shrouded vane of the Ansaldo AE94.3A gas turbine has been experimentally investigated. Five clearances were tested using a stationary test rig. The experiments covered a range of Reynolds numbers between 5000 and 40000 and pressure ratios between 1 and 3.3. Local heat transfer coefficients were calculated using a transient technique. It is shown that the clearance/pitch ratio has a significant effect upon both leakage loss and heat transfer coefficient. Hodkinson’s and Vermes’ models are used to fit experimental mass flow rate and pressure drop data. This approach shows a good agreement with experimental data.Copyright

Modular Tool for Design and Off-Design Analysis of Compression Trains for Oil and Gas Applications

Compression trains for oil and gas applications must meet, now more than ever, the requirement of versatility. Production rates and compression demands of extraction fields significantly change during their operational life; this has pushed customers to ask for equipments designed to efficiently operate all over their lifespan in order to comply with energy saving and pollution reduction needs. For this reason modular simulation codes turn out to be the best choice compared with dedicated tools for specific compression plant configuration, since they provide flexibility without losing accuracy.This paper presents the implementation, within a previously developed modular tool, of a design and off-design procedure for compression plant simulation. This tool is based on a wide library of elementary components analytically defined through equations that model their physical behaviour. For impellers, descriptive equations represent an in-house database of real stages characteristic curves, for all the other elementary components the equations arise from fundamental mechanical and thermodynamic laws. Physical properties of real gases are assessed by the use of suitable thermodynamic libraries. An implemented trust-region Gauss-Newton method, called TRESNEI, has been adopted to solve the mathematical model.Numerical calculations, performed on two real compression train arrangements, have been devoted to validate the code over design and off-design simulation mode. Results have been compared with those obtained with a pre-existing in-house tool and with experimental data. Comparisons show both a satisfactory agreement between numerical and experimental data and a perfect matching between the simulation codes.© 2016 ASME