45th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit 2 - 5 August 2009, Denver, Colorado

AIAA 2009-4835

Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Flow Characteristics of a Vaneless Counter-Rotating Turbine at Off-Design Conditions
Qingjun Zhao1 Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China Jiafei Qiao2 Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 1, Beijing, 100190, China Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 2, Beijing, 100049, China Huishe Wang,3 Xiaolu Zhao,4 and Jianzhong Xu5 Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

In this paper, a lot of experimental and numerical investigations are performed to explore the flow characteristics of a vaneless counter-rotating turbine at off-design conditions. The experimental investigations were carried out on a blow-down short duration turbine test facility, and the numerical simulations were performed by means of a three-dimensional multiblade row steady Navier-Stokes code. Depending on the experimental and numerical investigations, the operating characteristics of the vanless counter-rotating turbine are obtained. The investigation results indicate that the ratio of specific work of the high-pressure turbine to that of the low-pressure turbine and the efficiency of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine are increased as the rotation speed of the rotor increases under the same expansion ratio. And the research results show that when the rotation speed of the rotor increases, the specific work of the low pressure turbine is decreased, and the effective operation range of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine is reduced. The investigation results also indicate that the numerical code in this paper can qualitatively predict the flow characteristics of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine at off-design conditions. The prediction ability of the numerical code is credible.

Nomenclature
N nrs P6 SWR/RW
1 2

= = = =

power nondimensional rotation speed static pressure at the outlet of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine the ratio of specific work of the high-pressure turbine to that of the low-pressure turbine

Assistant Professor, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Post Office Box 2706. Doctor Candidate, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Post Office Box 2706. 3 Associate Professor, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Post Office Box 2706. 4 Professor, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Post Office Box 2706. 5 Professor, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Post Office Box 2706. 1 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Copyright 2009 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

 t

= isentropic efficiency = expansion ratio of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine

I. Introduction
Vaneless Counter-Rotating Turbine (VCRT) is composed of a highly loaded single stage high pressure turbine (HPT) and a single stage vaneless counter-rotating low pressure turbine/rotor (LPT/LPR). Comparing with the conventional two stage turbine, the VCRT can offer significant benefits due to the parts elimination and size reduction. These benefits include elevating thrust-to-weight ratio, reducing cooling flow and cost, and so on. From the 1950s, counter-rotating turbines have been carefully investigated. Wintucky et al. (1958, [1]) analyzed the effects of loading coefficient, turbine exit whirl and rotational speed ratio on the efficiency of the counterrotating turbine. Louis (1985, [2]) carried out an investigation on two counter-rotating turbines with different configurations. The results indicate that the efficiencies of these two counter-rotating turbines are higher than conventional turbines with the same stage loading coefficient. In other words, the counter-rotating turbines have higher stage loading coefficients compared with conventional turbines with the same efficiency. The work performed by Sotsenko and Ponomariov (1990, [3, 4], 1992, [5]) illustrates the potential of counter-rotating turbine. Compared with conventional turbine, the investigation results indicate that the counter-rotating configuration can obtain 5% increased pressure ratio of the compressor, 23% shorten engine length, 35-40% decreased airfoil number of the gas turbine and 45-50% decreased airfoil number of the power turbine at the same fuel consumption. Weaver et al. (2000, [6]) focused on understanding the physical parameters influencing the unsteady forces causing the blade excitation in a transonic vaneless counter-rotating turbine. In this investigation, the blade surface unsteady pressures were measured and analyzed. Using these measured data, the proper CFD modeling requirements to engineering design assessments were determined. Haldeman et al. (2000, [7]) investigated the pressure loading on a vaneless counter-rotating turbine by means of a short-duration shock tunnel facility and CFD tool. The results indicate that the CFD code can qualitatively capture the flowfield physics. However, some additional calibration on the code needs to be performed in order to fully match experimental data quantitatively. Keith et al. (2000, [8]) introduced the tests on the Controlled Pressure Ratio Engine (COPE) turbine system. The turbine system consists of a single stage high pressure turbine and a two stage vaneless counterrotating low pressure turbine. The experimental results show that the performance levels of the HPT meets the pretest expectations, and the LPT also meets performance objectives across the tested range. Zhao et al. (2007, [9], 2008, [10], 2009, [11, 12]) performed numerical and experimental investigations on unsteady flow characteristics and inlet hot streak effects in a vaneless counter-rotating turbine. In these investigations, the unsteady pressure fluctuations on the surface of airfoils and tip region of the HPT rotor were captured. And the effects of temperature ratio and tip leakage flow on hot streak migration also were obtained. These results will be used into the unsteady design of vaneless counter-rotating turbine in the future. In this paper, the flow characteristics of a vaneless counter-rotating turbine at off-design conditions will be explored by means of a blow-down short duration turbine test facility and a three-dimensional multiblade row steady Navier-Stokes code.

II. Experimental Facility

The IET (Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) blow-down turbine facility is a transient wind tunnel, which can be used to simulate flow conditions for most modern high pressure axial turbines. The blow-down short duration turbine facility is able to substitute a continuous turbine facility in a majority of turbine testing on flow and heat transfer measurements. The valuable test time in the IET facility is about 300-500 milliseconds. This test time is sufficiently long compared to the flow and heat transfer characteristic time in a high speed turbine stage. So, the turbine operates in a quasi-steady state during test process. The blow-down short duration turbine facility has some advantages compared to the continuous long duration facility. One advantage of the short duration facility is the lower cost of construction, operation and maintenance. 2 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The other is more convenient measurement of heat transfer characteristic. The metal temperature is the same as room temperature because the test time is short compared to the thermal transient of the turbine blade. An almost constant gas-to-metal temperature ratio is maintained during the test time. The relatively favorable environment is suitable for the application of the heat flux gauges. Then, the heat transfer data are readily acquired in the short duration test. The schematic of the blow-down short duration turbine facility is given in Figure 1. Major components shown from upstream to downstream are the supply tank (12 m3), fast response valve, test section, tail cone and vacuum tank (20 m3). Cross-sectional view of the VCRT internal flow path is shown in Figure 2.

Fast Response Valve

Test Section

Tail Cone

Supply Tank

Vacuum Tank

Figure 1. Schematic of the IET blow-down short duration turbine facility.

HPT Stator HPT Rotor LPT Rotor

Figure 2. Cross-sectional view of the VCRT internal flow path.

III. Numerical Algorithm

NUMECA software systems are employed to study this problem. The numerical method is described in details in the user manual (2005, [13]). Here only a brief description about the main features is reported. The governing equations in NUMECA are the time dependent, three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations. The solver of NUMECA is FINE/Turbo and it is based on a cell centered finite volume approach, associated with a central space discretization scheme together with an explicit four-stage Runge-Kutta time integration method. Residual smoothing, local time-stepping, and multi-gridding are employed to speed up convergence to the steady state solution. Various turbulence models have been included in the solver for the closure of governing equations. The widely used approach based on one transport equation (Spalart and Allmaras, 1992, [14]) has been selected in this paper. The Spalart-Allmaras model has become quite popular in the last years because of its robustness and its ability to treat complex flows. The main advantage of Spalart-Allmaras model when compared to the one of BaldwinLomax is that the turbulent eddy viscosity field is always continuous. Its advantage over the k- model is mainly 3 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

its robustness and the lower additional CPU and Memory usage. The time step limitations arising from the turbulent source terms are accounted for in the model so that computations can be performed with the maximum allowable CFL number without penalizing numerical efficiency.

IV. Boundary Conditions

The theory of characteristics is used to determine the boundary conditions at the inlet and exit of computational domain. At the inlet, total pressure, total temperature and circumferential and radial flow angles are specified as many constants in the simulation. Due to selecting the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model, the kinematic turbulent viscosity should be specified in the inlet boundary conditions. In this paper, it is 0.0001m2/s. At the exit, the circumferential and radial velocity components, entropy and the downstream running Riemann invariant are extrapolated from the interior of the computational domain. The static pressure, P6, is specified at the hub of the exit and the static pressure values at all other radial locations are obtained by integrating the equation for radial equilibrium. Periodicity is enforced along the outer boundaries of H-O-H grids in the circumferential direction. No-slip boundary conditions should be enforced at solid wall surfaces for viscous simulations. In this paper, absolute no-slip boundary conditions are enforced at the hub and tip end walls of the HPT stator regions, along the surface of the HPT vane, and along the casing walls of the HPT rotor and LPR regions. Relative no-slip boundary conditions are imposed at the hub end walls of the HPT rotor and LPR regions, and the surfaces of the HPT rotor and LPR blades. It is assumed that the normal derivative of pressure is zero at the solid wall surfaces, and that the walls are adiabatic.

V. Vaneless Counter-Rotating Turbine

The VCRT studied in this paper is composed of a highly loaded single stage HPT coupled with a vaneless counter-rotating LPT/LPR. It has high expansion ratio and operates in transonic regimes. The design conditions of the VCRT are shown in Table 1. Table 1. The flow conditions in the VCRT Inlet total temperature (K) 500 Inlet total pressure (kPa) 300 Mass flow (kg/s) 17.7 Rotational speed of HPT rotor (RPM) 7162 Rotational speed of LPR (RPM) -6778 Expansion ratio of HPT 2.93 Expansion ratio of LPT 2.07 SWR 1.77 For these calculations, no tip clearance of the rotor is modeled. And the typical y+ values of less than 15 are used at the boundaries. The three-dimensional H-O-H grid topologies are showed in Figures 3 to 5.

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HPT-Rotor-Down

HPT-Rotor-Outlet LPT-Rotor-Down LPT-Rotor LPT-Rotor-Outlet

HPT-Inlet HPT-Stator HPT-Rotor-Inlet HPT-Rotor-Up HPT-Rotor LPT-Rotor-Inlet LPT-Rotor-Up

Figure 3. H-O-H grid topology of the VCRT-S1 Section. (Midspan)

Figure 4. H-O-H grid topology of the VCRT-S2 Section. (Midpitch)

Figure 5. H-O-H grid topology of the VCRT-3D grid.

VI. Investigation Results

The experimental and numerical power characteristic curves on the HPT are shown in Fig. 6. The results indicate that a good power characteristic is obtained for the HPT. The power performance meets the anticipative objective. Due to incapable prediction on some actual flow loss, such as tip clearance leakage flow loss, influence of transducers, and so on, a discrepancy between numerical data and experimental data is observed. Although the predicted power is more than the test value, the numerical data are sufficient for engineering requirement. The numerical code can qualitatively predict the power characteristic of the HPT. The results in Fig. 6 indicate that the power of the HPT is increased as the rotor rotation speed increases.

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600 500 N/kW 400 300 200 100 2 3 4 5 6 7

nrs=0.41 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.41 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.60 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.60 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.80 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.80 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.97 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.97 (Numerical Results)

t

Figure 6. Power characteristic curves of HPT. Figure 7 shows the experimental and numerical power characteristic curves on the LPT. The numerical code qualitatively predicts the power performance of the LPT. The power performance of the LPT meets the design requirement at full operating range. The results in Fig. 7 indicate that the increase of the rotor rotation speed tends to decrease the power of the LPT. The comparison between HPT data and LPT data illustrates that there is a more optimized rotation speed ratio for the VCRT. In this paper, the optimum rotation speed ratio of the VCRT is closed to 1.8. The results also indicate that the power performance of the LPT still has a potential to be improved.
400
nrs=0.38 (Experimental Results)

400
nrs=0.38 (Numerical Results)

nrs=0.57 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.57 (Numerical Results)

300 N/kW 200 100 0

300 N/kW 200 100 0

t

t

nrs 0.38
400 300 N/kW
nrs=0.73 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.73 (Numerical Results)

nrs 0.57
400 300 N/kW 200 100 0
nrs=0.94 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.94 (Numerical Results)

200 100 0

t

t

nrs 0.73 nrs 0.94 Figure 7. Power characteristic curves of LPT. Figure 8 shows the experimental and numerical power characteristic curves on the VCRT. The power performance meets the design objective. The numerical tool has qualitative prediction ability. The results indicate

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that the increase of the rotor rotation speed tends to increase the power of the VCRT. And the effect of the rotor rotation speed on the power of VCRT becomes weaker at higher rotation speed region.

1000 800 N/kW 600 400 200

nrs=0.40 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.40 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.59 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.59 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.77 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.77 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.97 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.97 (Numerical Results)

t

Figure 8. Power characteristic curves of VCRT.

The SWR characteristic curves of the VCRT are shown in Fig. 9. The numerical data are very agreement with the experimental data. The prediction accuracy of this code is verified. It is competent for this investigation. The results in Fig. 9 show that the increase of the rotor rotation speed tends to increase the SWR of the VCRT. And when the rotor rotation speed is increased, the operation range of the VCRT is reduced.

5 4 RW 3 2 1 0 2 3 4 5 6 7

nrs=0.40 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.40 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.59 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.59 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.77 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.77 (Numerical Results) nrs=0.97 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.97 (Numerical Results)

t

Figure 9. SWR characteristic curves.

Figure 10 shows the experimental and numerical isentropic efficiency characteristic curves on the VCRT. The results show that the efficiency of the VCRT is increased with the increase of the rotor rotation speed. The predicted results are well agreement with experimental data. It illustrates the numerical code can qualitatively predict the efficiency of the VCRT.

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100 90 80

nrs=0.40 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.40 (Numerical Results)

100
nrs=0.59 (Experimental Results)

90 80

nrs=0.59 (Numerical Results)

70 60 50 2 3 4 5 6 7

70 60 50 2 3 4 5 6 7

t

t

nrs 0.40
100 90 80

nrs=0.77 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.77 (Numerical Results)

nrs 0.59
100 90 80

nrs=0.97 (Experimental Results) nrs=0.97 (Numerical Results)

70 60 50 2 3 4 5 6

70 60
t

50

t

nrs 0.77 nrs 0.97 Figure 10. Isentropic efficiency characteristic curves of VCRT.

VII. Conclusions
In this paper, the flow characteristics of a vaneless counter-rotating turbine at off-design conditions are investigated by means of a blow-down short duration turbine test facility and a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code. About 100 operating modes are simulated in this investigation. Depending on the experimental and numerical data, the performance curves of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine are obtained. The qualitative prediction ability of the numerical code is also verified. The following main conclusions have been drawn: 1) The increase of the rotor rotation speed tends to increase the ratio of specific work of the high pressure turbine to that of the low pressure turbine and the efficiency of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine. 2) When the rotation speed of the rotor increases, the specific work of the low pressure turbine is decreased, and the effective operation range of the vaneless counter-rotating turbine is reduced.

Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Award Fund of the President of CAS. The support of the Wu Chung Hua Award Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

References
1

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2 3

90-GT-63, 1990.
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GT-195, 1990.

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Small GTE, ASME Paper 92-GT-414, 1992.

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13 14

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