Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2008: Power for Land, Sea and Air

GT2008
June 9-13, 2008, Berlin, Germany

GT2008-51088

EFFECTS OF INLET CONDITIONS ON THE TURBINE PERFORMANCE OF A

RADIAL TURBINE

Fredrik Hellstrom∗
Industrial PhD student, GM Powertrain, Sweden
Department of Mechanics
The Royal Institute of Technology
SE-100 44 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: fredrik.hellstrom@mech.kth.se

Professor Laszlo Fuchs

KTH CICERO
Department of Mechanics
The Royal Institute of Technology
SE-100 44 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: laszlo.fuchs@mech.kth.se

ABSTRACT
For a turbocharger working under internal combustion en-
gine operating conditions, the flow will be highly pulsatile and
the efficiency of the radial turbine will vary during the engine cy-
cle. In addition to effects of the inflow unsteadiness, there is also
always a substantial unsteady secondary flow component at the
inlet to the turbine depending on the geometry upstream. These
secondary motions may consist of swirl, Dean vortices and other
cross-sectional velocity components formed in the exhaust man-
ifold. The strength and the direction of the vortices vary in time
depending on the unsteady flow in the engine exhaust manifold,
the engine speed and the geometry of the manifold itself. The
turbulence intensity may also vary during the engine cycle lead-
ing to a partially developed turbulent flow field. The effect of the
different perturbations on the performance of a radial nozzle-less
turbine is assessed and quantified by using Large Eddy Simula-
tions. The turbine wheel is handled using a sliding mesh tech-
∗ Address all correspondence to this author.
1 Copyright
nique, whereby the turbine wheel, with its grid is rotating, while
the turbine house and its grid are kept stationary.
The turbine performance has been compared for several in-
flow conditions. The results show that an inflow-condition with-
out any perturbations gives the highest shaft power output, while
a turbulent flow with a strongly swirling motion at the inlet re-
sults in the lowest power output. An unexpected result is that a
turbulent inflow yields a lower shaft power than a turbulent in-
flow with a secondary flow formed by a pair of Dean vortices.
The flow field for the different cases is investigated to give a bet-
ter insight into the unsteady flow field and the effects from the
different inlet conditions.
NOMENCLATURE
p Pressure (Pa)
T Temperature (K)
ρ Density (kg/m3 )
ui Velocity components (m/s)
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 U,V,W Velocity components (m/s)
h Specific enthalpy (J/kg)
ṁ Mass flow rate (kg/s)
qi Heat flux (W/m2 )
t Time (s)
xi Cartesian coordinates (m)
ω Angular velocity (rad/s)
P Power (W)
T Torque (Nm)
κ Utility factor
µ Dynamic viscosity (Ns/m2 )
η Efficiency
C p Specific heat at constant pressure (J/kg K)
γ Ratio of specific heat γ=C p /(C p -R)
PR Pressure ratio
R Gas constant (287 J/kg K)
Re Reynolds number
1 Turbine inlet
2 Turbine outlet
0 Stagnation
SS Suction side
PS Pressure side
INTRODUCTION
One way to reduce the fuel consumption for passenger cars
is to downsize the engine. To maintain the power output, a tur-
bocharger is used to better utilize the smaller engine volume. To
further increase the work output from the turbocharger working
under IC-engine operating conditions, it is important to enhance
the understanding of the flow in the turbine. A number of in-
vestigations of the performance of different designs of radial tur-
bines under non-pulsatile and pulsatile inflow conditions have
been conducted. For a turbine working in pulsatile flows, the
efficiency of the turbine will vary during the engine cycle, see
for example the work performed by Winterbone et al. [1], Dale
and Watson [2], Palfreyman and Martinez-Botas [3] and Lam et
al. [4]. There are several sources of losses. One such example is
the separated flow from the blades which depends strongly on the
inflow conditions to the wheel. These conditions will vary dur-
ing the engine cycle and deviate from optimal conditions. Pal-
freyman and Martinez-Botas [3] conducted an experimental and
numerical study with pulsatile inflow conditions for a mixed flow
turbine. The flow field with in the turbine was highly disturbed
by the pulsatile flow which gave a fluctuating shaft power out-
put. The computations were performed with the sliding mesh
technique, without the presence of a secondary flow at the in-
let, as probably exists in the experimental case. Still, the com-
parison between the measured and the computed results shows
reasonable agreement for both cycle-averaged and instantaneous
values.
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Different geometry aspects have also been investigated; for
example Palfreyman et al. [5] performed a combined numerical
and experimental investigation of the performance of four differ-
ent mixed flow turbine wheels with different number of blades,
blade inlet angle and the length of the blade chord. The com-
parison between measured and computed efficiency shows good
agreement and the computations predict the correct magnitude,
form, and location of the flow field when comparing it with mea-
sured LDV data. They concluded that a reduced chord length
(with 18.75%) gave the largest deterioration of the efficiency, fol-
lowed by a reduced number of blades (from 12 to 10), and then
a different inlet blade angle. Doran et al. [6] investigated exper-
imentally the effects of different shroud profiles for a 99.0 mm
radial turbine for different mass flow. The results showed that
the isentropic efficiency differed by about 3 to 4 % for the best
and worst case at the highest flow condition. For the lower flow
condition, the efficiency varied with approximately 1% for the
different designs. The effects of different stator throat areas were
investigated experimentally by Artt and Spence [7] for a 99.0
mm radial turbine. To be able to evaluate the losses in the sta-
tor, different numerical stator loss models were proposed and the
best numerical model showed that both the stator and the rotor
losses decreased with increasing throat area up to a stator-rotor
throat area ratio of 0.5 [8]. Artt and Spence [7] have showed in
a 3-D numerical study of a 99.0 mm radial turbine with varying
blade angles that the isentropic efficiency could be increased at
off-design conditions by using a back swept angle of 30◦ . The
size of the gap between the blade tip and shroud also affects the
efficiency, since the pressure gradient over the blade drive the
flow over the tip, which creates a jet and a tip vortex, which give
losses. Futral and Holeski [9] performed an experimental study
with the objective to study the effects of tip clearance for a ra-
dial turbine. The results showed that an increase of the axial tip
clearance at the rotor entrance gave a decrease of the total effi-
ciency with 0.15 % for each percent increase of tip clearance. At
the exit of the rotor, an increase of the radial tip clearance from
1 to 3% of the passage height gave a decrease of the efficiency
of 1.6% for each percent increase of tip clearance. But, the tip
clearance height is not the only parameter that affects the flow
over the tip, and hence, the tip vortices and the losses that they
introduce. Dambach and Hodson [10] conducted an experimen-
tal investigation of the flow over tip for different axial and radial
tip-clearances for a radial turbine. The tip gap was varied from
0.6% to 1.2% of the local blade height. They showed that differ-
ent blade tip gap height to blade width ratio gave different behav-
ior for the tip leakage flow. If the ratio was below approximately
1
6 , the tip leakage flow was mixed with the boundary layer at the
shroud, resulting in a tip leakage flow with low momentum, and
hence, a less strong tip vortex at the suction side. If the ratio was
larger than approximately 16 , the inertia effects dominated over
the viscous effects, and the momentum of tip leakage flow from
the pressure to suction side was higher, which gave a stronger tip
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 vortex. Also, they showed that the pressure difference over the
gap was relative constant for the tested tip gap heights. Capo-
bianco and Marelli [11] also performed experimental investiga- ∂ ∂ ∂p ∂p ∂ui ∂q j
tions of the behavior of a small turbocharger for gasoline en- (ρ · h) + (ρ · u j · h) = +uj + τi j − (3)
∂t ∂x j ∂t ∂x j ∂x j ∂x j
gines under steady and pulsatile inflow conditions. The purpose
with the steady tests was to investigate the effects of opening the
waste gate valve; and the results showed that the overall turbine
efficiency decreased with the waste-gate valve open.
In addition to effects of the pulsatile flow driven by the en- p = ρ· T ·R (4)
gine cycles, there is also a cross-sectional motion added to the
axial flow velocity component at the inlet to the turbine. This
where τi j is the stress tensor, defined as:
secondary motion may consist of swirl, Dean vortices and other
non-axial velocity components which are created in the exhaust
manifold ( [12], [13], [14], and [15]). The strength and the di-
rection of the vortices vary in time depending on the pulsatile ∂ui ∂u j 2 ∂uk
τi j = µ · ( + − δi j · ) (5)
flow, the firing sequence of the engine and the geometry of the ∂x j ∂xi 3 ∂xk
manifold. The rate of decay for these secondary flows is very
low, see for example the work performed by Steenbergen and The turbulence of the flow has been handled by Large Eddy
Voskamp [16], especially for these kinds of geometries, where Simulation (LES). The objective of LES is to explicitly compute
the distance between the bends in the manifold and the turbine the large scales of the turbulence, while modeling the effects of
is often less than a few pipe diameters. The turbulence inten- the small scales. A major role of the small scales is to dissi-
sity will also vary during the cycle, since the Reynolds number pate the turbulent energy that is transferred (in the average sense)
varies. from the larger scales to the small ones through the so-called en-
Previous investigations have focused on geometrical effects, ergy cascade. By resolving the temporal and spatial behavior of
numerical modeling considerations and effects of the engine fre- the large scales one can capture and separate coherent structures
quency and flow amplitude, and have not taken effects of the from the random turbulence eddies. Such information that cannot
secondary flow into consideration. Therefore, in this study, the be obtained by the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes modeling
effect of perturbations on the turbine performance is assessed (RANS) approach is important in many applications, for example
and quantified by performing a systematic numerical study with where large scale structures play important. The scale separation
Large Eddy Simulation where different perturbations have been (to resolved and unresolved scales) is achieved by low-pass spa-
applied at the inlet to the turbine. The flow field for the cases tial filtering of the governing equations. If Θ(x,t) is a generic
is also investigated and the vortex cores are visualized to enable flow variable, the corresponding filtered variable is defined as:
a better insight into the unsteady flow field and the effects from
the perturbation. The turbine that is considered in this study is a
nozzle-less radial turbine with 9 blades, with a size that is typical
for a turbocharger mounted on a 2.0 liter IC engine of a passenger Θ̄ = G∆ · Θ (6)
car.
where G∆ is the spatial filter characterized by a filter width
∆ which is, in this case, a function of space and defined as ∆ =
1 NUMERICAL METHODS 1/3
The governing equations that describe the conservation of VCell . In order to avoid the need for subgrid scale modeling in the
mass (1), momentum (2) and energy (3) are the Navier-Stokes continuity equation, the density averaging is introduced:
(NS) equations and the energy equation complemented with the
equation of state (4):
Θ̃ = ρΘ/ρ̄ (7)
∂ρ ∂
+ (ρ · u j ) = 0 (1)
∂t ∂x j
The filtered NS-equations (1), (2) are:

∂ ∂ ∂p ∂τi j ∂ρ̄ ∂
(ρ · ui ) + (ρ · ui · u j ) = − + (2) + (ρ̄ · ũ j ) = 0 (8)
∂t ∂x j ∂xi ∂x j ∂t ∂x j

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 when the residuals for the respectively parameter have decayed
with about two order of magnitude. Since the time step is rather
∂ ∂ ∂ p̄ ∂τ̃i j ∂τSGSi j small, the residuals are in the same order as the round off error
(ρ̄ · ũi ) + (ρ̄ · ũi · ũ j ) = − + + (9) for the used computer.
∂t ∂x j ∂xi ∂x j ∂x j

where τSGSi j is the subgrid stress tensor that has to be mod-

eled. This term can be modeled in different ways, for example
by the Smagorinsky model where the effects of the unresolved
scales of the turbulence on the resolved scales are modeled as an
increase of the viscosity. Many of the SGS-models, such as the
Smagorinsky model are known to be too diffusive. In this study
an Implicit LES approach has been used, which implies that no
explicit subgrid scale model is explicitly added to the filtered NS-
equations; i.e. τSGSi j =0. Instead, only the numerical dissipation
accounts for the subgrid scale dissipation at the smallest scales.
This approach works well for both free and wall bounded flows
provided that the cut-off wave number lies within in the iner-
tial sub-range, see for example the investigation performed by
Fureby and Grinstein [17]. Some discretization schemes have
also a dispersive component and thereby can to some extent ac-
count for the so called back-scatter. It should be, however, em-
phasized that such dissipation and back-scatter depends of the
grid size and numerical scheme and has no physical meaning.
The effect of these factors on the resolved scales is often small
provided that the grid resolution is small as compared to the re-
solved scales that are of interest. Marginally resolved flows may
suffer from lack of accuracy.
The commercial CFD code STAR-CD ver. 3.26 has been
used in this study. In the used code, the filtered governing equa-
tions are discretized by the finite volume method. The finite vol-
ume approach has the advantages to preserve the conservation
properties of the parent differential equations. For the temporal
discretization a first order Euler implicit scheme has been used.
As long as the time step is small enough the order of accuracy
for the numerical results are determined by the order of the spa-
tial discretization scheme. Since the grid resolution is high, for Figure 1. The complete turbine geometry and the wheel.
resolving the relevant fluctuations, one has also use correspond-
ingly small time-steps with Courant number smaller than unity
for consistency with the physics. Given that the smallest turbu- The turbine wheel has been modeled with the sliding mesh
lent time scales behave only as Re−0.5 , the temporal resolution technique, which implies that the rotor is described by a grid that
handles all time-scales and therefore also lower order temporal rotates relative to the grid that is used to describe the turbine
schemes provide the required accuracy. A formally second order house. At the interface between the moving and the stationary
Monotone Advection and Reconstruction Scheme (MARS) has part, the moving mesh is made to slide past the stationary part.
been used for spatial discretization of the convective terms. This At the sliding interface, the connectivity for cells on either side
scheme employs a total variation diminishing (TVD) scheme, of the interface changes at each time step. This is implemented
making it particularly well suited to capture the strong gradients in a way that there are no restrictions on the relative position of
expected for these cases. For the viscous terms, a blended cen- the cell faces on either side of the sliding interface, i.e. cell faces
tral difference scheme has been used. A modified version of the across the sliding interface do not to have a one-to-one corre-
PISO solver has been used to solve the equations at each time- spondence. This also means that there are no circumferentially
step, where the number of corrector stages is determined by the averaging over the interface between the wheel and the turbine,
convergence criteria. Each time step is assumed to be converged as it is in some rotating reference techniques, and the accuracy of

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 the results will then be better. In order to preserve flux continuity
across the sliding interface and to avoid non-physical perturba-
tions, the interpolation over the sliding interface must be done in
appropriate way. Also, the used time step and the cell sizes on
both side of sliding interface must not be too large. Too large
cell sizes at parts of the sliding interface will imply that solution
will be smeared out; for example when the leading edge of the
wheel is passing a region with large cells on the other side of the
sliding region. The rotational speed of the wheel and cell sizes at
the sliding interface will also set demand on the used time step;
the time step must be small enough to ensure that cells on both
sides of the sliding interface do not pass each other completely
during one time step.

1.1 GEOMETRY AND COMPUTED CASES

The turbine used in this numerical study is a commercial
available turbine with a size that is typical for a turbocharger
mounted on a 2.0 liter IC engine of a passenger car. The tur-
bine is a nozzle-less, 9 bladed radial turbine with the waste-gate
valve closed. The complete turbine and the turbine wheel are
shown in Figure 1. The leading edge tip radius of the wheel is
22.10 mm and the trailing edge tip radius is 18.75 mm. The total
number of cells for the mesh used for the perturbation study are 1
111 720 and the cell distribution is reported in Table 1. The com-
plete computational model and the grid for one blade passage are
shown in Figure 2. In the wheel, only hexahedron cells are used,
while in the rest of the domain a grid with dominantly hexahe-
dron cells are used. The gap between the blade tips and shroud
are resolved by 4 cells in the radial direction. The near-walls re-
gions have better resolution than the regions in the “core-region”,
but one should note that it is difficult to define the number of grid
points in the “boundary layer”, since the thickness of that layer Figure 2. Numerical model of the different parts of the turbine and one
varies in the domain, due to wakes, and separation regions. To blade passage.
give some figures of the near-wall resolution the maximum y+
for the entire domain is approximately 95, and the maximum y+
Table 1. GRID RESOLUTION FOR THE GRID USED IN THE PERTUR-
for the region where the wheel is located is approximately 45.
BATION STUDY
The concept of using y+ is very appropriate on plane channel
and boundary layer flows but one can discuss if it is relevant for
not fully developed boundary layers such as those encountered
in the turbocharger. The used time-step for the computations is Number of cells
10−6 seconds which corresponds to a rotation of the wheel of
Volute 275 084
0.6◦ /iteration.
Five different inlet conditions have been considered, see Ta- Wheel 297 648
ble 2. For all cases, a turbulent velocity profile and the tempera- Diffuser 538 988
ture are specified at the inlet boundary and different perturbations
are added to this velocity profile. The mass flow at the inlet to Complete turbine 1 111 720
the turbine is kept constant at 0.08144 kg/s by varying the ve-
locity and the temperature at the inlet is specified to 1000◦ C for
all cases. The mass flow for the cases with perturbation deviates
with less than 0.2% compared to the non-perturb case. At the are modeled as being smooth and adiabatic. For all cases, the ro-
outlet, a non-reflecting boundary condition is applied. The walls tational speed of the turbine wheel is set to 97 897 rpm. In Figure

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 3 the axial and azimuthal velocity components at the inlet to the
turbine are plotted for the different cases. For Case 1, no pertur-
bation is added, which corresponds to laminar inflow conditions.
Case 2 has only 3-dimensional time resolved turbulent fluctua-
tions added to the inlet velocity. The turbulence intensity for
Cases 2-5 is 5% and the turbulent fluctuations at the inlet bound-
ary are created by the method proposed by Klein et al. [18]. Case
3 has both turbulent fluctuations and secondary flow added to the
velocity profile, where the secondary flow consists of a pair of
counter-rotating Dean vortices, see Figure 4. Case 4 and Case 5
has, in addition to the turbulent fluctuations, a swirling motion
added, where Case 5 has the strongest swirl of the two cases, see
Table 2. The strength of the swirl at the inlet is defined as the az- Figure 3. Axial and secondary velocity components at the inlet.
imuthal velocity at the edge of the inlet boundary divided by the
axial bulk velocity. The strength of the Dean vortices is defined
as the area averaged value of the secondary component divided
by the axial component at the inlet.
To determine typical strength of the swirl and the Dean
vortices, a time resolved LES computation has been performed
for an exhaust manifold mounted on a four cylinder IC engine.
The respectively inlet boundary to the manifold are situated just
downstream of respectively exhaust valve. At each inlet bound-
ary, (8 in total, since the engine has 2 exhaust valves per cylin-
der), a time-resolved mass flow and temperature is specified with
the correct phasing regarding to the firing order of the engine.
The mass flow trace and the temperature have been taken from
a 1-dimensional IC-engine simulation tool. At the outlet of the
manifold, a non-reflecting boundary condition is applied, and the
strength of the swirl and Dean vortices have been computed half
a diameter upstream of the outlet boundary.

Table 2. COMPUTATIONAL CASES

Case Turbulence Secondary Strength of

intensity flow secondary flow
1 0% - -
2 5% - -
3 5% Dean 0.10
4 5% Swirl 0.28 Figure 4. The secondary flow at the inlet for Case 3 and Case 5, respec-
5 5% Swirl 1.5 tively.

All cases are restarted from a case with no perturbation at

the inlet that has been running for 3 turbine wheel revolutions evaluated have been running for additional 17 revolutions, and
to ensure that transient effects from the initial state have been the statistics are gathered for the last 4 revolutions, which mean
convected out from the computational domain. The cases that are that altogether 36 blade passages are used for the time averaging.

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 2 RESULTS
The results presented herein are aimed at understanding the
effects of inlet conditions on the turbine performance. The per-
formance of the turbine can be expressed in terms of shaft power
output and efficiency. Some more detailed analysis of the flow in-
side the turbine is aimed at explaining the global results. To start
with, results from a grid dependency study and a comparison of
computed and measured turbine performance are presented.
The grid used for this computation is the same grid as the grid
that is used for the inlet perturbation study. Unfortunately, the
position of the measurement stations and the uncertainty of the
measured data are not known. The pressure ratio is the total to
static pressure ratio over the inlet and outlet boundary and the to-
tal temperature is the total temperature at the inlet. For the com-
putations, the pressure and the temperature at the inlet and outlet
is the mass flux averaged pressure and temperature, respectively.

2.1 NUMERICAL ACCURACY AND VALIDATION Table 4. MEASURED AND COMPUTED PERFORMANCE
The numerical accuracy study is performed on a simplified
turbine geometry, where the complete wheel and only parts of the
volute and the diffuser is modeled to reduce the computational Measured data Computed data
time. The rotational speed for the rotor is 97 897 rpm and a fixed
Rotational speed (RPM) 83169 83169
mass flow is specified at the inlet.
Mass flow (kg/s) 0.0265 0.0265

Table 3. COMPUTATIONAL ACCURACY STUDY PR 1.17 1.20

Shaft Power (kW) 0.75 0.84
Grid Number Averaged Shaft Pressure ηis 0.64 0.73
number of cells cell torque drop
in the rotor size (mm) (Nm) (kPa)
As can be seen in Table 4, the computations over-predict the
1 76 662 0.65 0.362 30.90 total to static pressure ratio (PR) over the turbine with approx-
imately 2.5%. The shaft power PS is also over-predicted by the
2 297 648 0.42 0.276 30.28
computations as compared to the measured data. The shaft power
3 541 008 0.34 0.287 29.86 PS is defined as:
4 968 229 0.28 0.290 29.83
PS = T̄Sha f t · ω̄ (10)

where the shaft torque, T̄Sha f t is obtained by integrating the

The pressure drop over the turbine and the shaft torque are
element forces due to the shear and pressure forces over the tur-
evaluated with the method proposed by Celik [19]. As can be
bine wheel:
seen in Table 3, the convergence for grid number 2, 3, and 4
is monotone (better than first order), and the uncertainty for the
shaft torque for the finest grid is about seven percent and for the Z
pressure drop 0.3%. To perform a GCI study for the velocity field T̄Sha f t = r̄ × ( f¯ · n̂)dS (11)
for time resolved unsteady flow is very computational expensive, S
since in this case with a rotating wheel, phase averaged data has
to be used. Therefore, only integrated values are used in the The possible sources for these discrepancies are discussed
grid convergence study. As can be seen in Table 1 and Table below. Since the walls are treated as being smooth and adiabatic
3, the finest grid for the wheel used in the GCI-study is not used in the computations the shaft power and the isentropic efficiency,
for the computations for the complete turbine due to the very ηis are over-predicted. Flaxington et al. [20] estimates that the
long computation times. Therefore a computational grid with peak efficiency is typical 3% lower for a turbine with a cast house
the same number of cells in the rotor-region as for grid 2 in the compared to a machined house. The isentropic efficiency is de-
grid convergence study has been used for the inlet perturbation fined here as:
study.
To verify the numerical results, the computed turbine per- PS
formance for the complete turbine is compared with measured ηis = γ−1 (12)
p2 γ
performance reported in a turbine map for the actually turbine. ṁ · c p · T01 · (1 − p01 )

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 When the steady-state performance of the turbine is measured in
a gas-stand the compressor is used to compute the turbine power
output, and therefore the bearing losses are included in the cal-
culated power. These losses are not included in the CFD predic-
tions. Also, there are no losses at the back-plate in the computa-
tions, since this is part of the turbine is not modeled. In the mea-
surements, the heat transfer from the turbine to the compressor
also affects the measured isentropic efficiency of the compressor,
which implies that the predicted efficiency of the turbine is too
high [21], and hence, the computed shaft power from the mea-
surements is also too high. Also, the inflow conditions, such as
secondary flow components and the axial velocity distribution,
to the turbine in the gas-stand are not known. All this together
shows that it is very hard to verify the computed shaft power
against measured data.
The used CFD code has also been used to investigate the perfor- Figure 5. The energy spectra for the streamwise velocity component for
mance and the flow field in turbines by Palfreyman and Martinez- Case 3 at a point located in the volute between the inlet of the turbine and
Botas [3], who investigated the flow field in a medium sized the wheel. The straight line shows the -5/3 slope.
mixed flow turbocharger turbine for a pulsating operating con-
dition. The unsteady RANS computations with the Sliding Mesh
technique were compared to experimental data and flow field 2.2 SHAFT POWER AND EFFICIENCY
measurements by Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV). They con- In a turbocharger, the most important figure is the actual
cluded that the agreement for both cycle averaged and instanta- pressure of the air that is delivered by the compressor. Since
neous data was reasonable. Palfreyman et al. [5] used the same the compressor is driven by the turbine, the turbine shaft power
code with a RNG k-ε turbulence model to compute the non- is very important, and hence, this is one of the global parame-
pulsatile flow field in a mixed flow turbine. They concluded ters that are evaluated. In Figure 6 the time resolved shaft power
that the computed flow field agreed well with measured LDV
data at the turbine exit. The turbine efficiency also agrees well
with measured efficiency over the test range. All this together
show that the used code can be used to predict the performance
of the turbine and that the code predicts the time resolved three-
dimensional flow field in a reasonable way.
To decide whether the grid resolution is good enough to resolve
all scales of interest, the energy spectra for the respectively ve-
locity component should have the characteristics -5/3 slope over
a range that varies from almost one order of magnitude and
larger. As can be seen in Figure 5, the energy spectra for the
streamwise component at this location has the characteristic -5/3
slope, which indicates that the resolution is high enough down
to the order of the Taylor micro-scale. Thus, the grid resolves Figure 6. The time resolved shaft power for the different cases during 3
well over 95% of the total turbulent kinetic energy (assuming turbine wheel revolutions.
that the spectrum can be extended to 0 wave-length). For the
spectra shown in Figure 12 and Figure 13, the range where the
-5/3 slopes occurs is smaller, since in the regions near the blades for the different cases is shown. The shaft power fluctuates with a
the turbulence is not isotropic because the flow is strongly af- frequency that corresponds to the blade passage frequency, which
fected by the rotating wheel. The energy spectras for Case 1 will be discussed later. Fluctuations with lower frequencies are
show also that the flow for this case has not developed to a fully also present for all cases, depending on flow unsteadiness in the
turbulent flow at these stations. volute. In Table 5 the time averaged shaft power and two dif-
ferent ways of expressing the efficiency are reported. For the
time mean value of the shaft power, there are differences between
the cases. The time mean shaft power for Case 5 is 19% lower
than Case 1, which is greater than the estimated numerical un-

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 certainty. For Cases 2-4, the differences in the shaft power com- that Cases 3-5 have a secondary flow and also that the axial ve-
pared to Case 1 or Case 5 are in the same order as numerical the locity between the different cases varies, which will be discussed
uncertainty. Despite this, the computations show that different later. The utility factor follows the same trend as the shaft power,
perturbations at the inlet to the turbine do affect the performance where Case 1 has the highest utility factor followed by Cases
of the turbine. 2-4 and Case 5 has the lowest utility factor. The pressure ratio
over the turbine also follows the same trend as the shaft power,
with the highest pressure ratio for Case 1, since this case extracts
Table 5. SHAFT POWER, AVAILABLE POWER AT THE INLET, ISEN-
most energy from the gas. Case 5 has the lowest pressure drop
TROPIC EFFICIENCY, UTILITY FACTOR AND PRESSURE RATIO
over the turbine, since this case has the lowest shaft power. All
this together proves that different perturbations at the inlet to the
turbine do affect the performance of the turbine. In summary, the
Case PSHAFT PINLET ηis κ PR results show that the perturbation that has the largest effect on the
(kW) (kW) performance of the turbine is having turbulence in combination
with certain large scale eddies at the inlet.
1 5.02 82.18 0.66 0.061 1.41
2 4.34 82.14 0.66 0.053 1.34 2.3 ANALYSIS OF THE FLOW FIELD
3 4.41 82.26 0.64 0.054 1.36 The flow field in the volute will of course affect the power
output from the turbine, since it determines the inflow conditions
4 4.40 82.12 0.66 0.053 1.35
to the wheel. A result from the different perturbations at the inlet
5 4.05 82.35 0.64 0.048 1.32 to the turbine is that the axial velocity component at the inlet
to the turbine is different among the different cases, see Figure
3, due to different absolute pressure at the inlet. An increase
in pressure gives an increase in the density if the temperature is
As also can be seen in Table 5, the isentropic efficiency does constant, see equation (4). This implies, since the mass flow is
not reflect the fact that the shaft power is almost 20% lower for kept constant, that the velocity component perpendicular to the
Case 5 as compared to Case 1. This is so since the isentropic effi- turbine inlet decreases. Although Case 1 has the largest pressure
ciency also takes account for the available energy in the flow after ratio over the turbine of the five cases, this case has the lowest
the turbine, which can be used to drive a second turbo-charger. absolute pressure at the inlet and outlet, since the turbine has
A better definition of the efficiency is the utility factor, κ: extracted most energy from the gas for this case. The lowest
pressure for Case 1 results in the highest perpendicular velocity
at the inlet, and hence, the highest velocity in the volute of the
PSHAFT computed cases, as can be seen in Figure 7 and Figure 8. This
κ= (13) gives the highest velocity into the wheel, see Figure 11, resulting
PINLET
in a high shaft power output. The higher velocity at the inlet to
the rotor for Case 1 is also an effect of the lower shear stresses in
where PINLET is the available power at the inlet boundary,
the volute for this case, depending on an inflow condition without
defined as:
any perturbations.
Z   For all cases, a coherent structure is created at the inlet to
1
PINLET = · ui · ui + h ρUn dA (14) the waste-gate channel and is convected downstream, as seen in
Inlet 2 Figure 9, where the vortex structures in the volute are plotted
for Case 1, Case 3 and Case 5. The vortices are visualized us-
where the velocity ui , density ρ and the enthalpy h is at the ing the λ2 technique [22]. For Case 1, Case 2 and Case 4, the
inlet boundary. Un is the normal velocity component. This defini- coherent structure has almost the same extension and location,
tion of the efficiency better reflects the turbines ability to extract and therefore the plots of the coherent structure for Case 2 and
power from the provided power, but it works as long as the walls Case 4 are not shown. For Case 1, Case 2 and Case 4 the coher-
are assumed to be adiabatic. If the walls are not adiabatic, the ent structure interacts with the wake downstream of the tongue.
heat flux through the walls should be subtracted from the avail- For Case 3 the vortex created at the inlet to waste-gate channel
able power at the inlet. The difference in the available energy at interacts with one of the Dean vortices from the inlet, and is con-
the inlet for the different cases is less than 0.3%, which is much vected downstream into the volute where they create a swirling
smaller than the computed differences in shaft power. The differ- motion. The structures from the inlet and the waste-gate channel
ences between the PINLET for the different cases depend on both also affect the wake downstream of the tongue. For Case 5 the

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 Figure 7. Snapshot of the velocity magnitude in the volute and rotor,
Case 1 and Case 2.

vortex created at the inlet to waste-gate channel is not interacting

with the wake at the tongue, since it is convected downstream
at the side of the tongue, as shown in Figure 9. In the volute,
the strength of this vortex increases due to the radial pressure
gradient. The mechanism of this is the same as for Dean vor-
tices. These two counter-rotating vortices, which are shown in
Figure 10 are meandering in the cross-stream plane and create a
non-uniform velocity distribution into the turbine wheel in both
space and time. In Figure 11, the radial component of velocity
at the inlet to the wheel is plotted for an azimuthal angle of 90◦ ,
and as can be seen, Case 1 has the highest velocity component Figure 8. Snapshot of the velocity magnitude in the volute and rotor,
into the wheel. The velocity is also highest at the shroud side, Cases 3-5.
due to the curvature of the volute and the wheel. For Case 5, the
counter-rotating vortices, affects the radial velocity component,
which has a local minimum between the hub and shroud side. Case 5 are plotted for a location near the entrance to the turbine
The radial velocity for Case 3 also shows the same behavior, but wheel 90◦ downstream in the volute. The W-component is the
not as strong as for Case 5, and this is an effect of the Dean vor- velocity component that is parallel to the turbine shaft. As can be
tices at the inlet to the turbine. seen in the Figure 12, the energy content for the W-component is
In Figure 12 the spectra for the W-component for Case 1 and much higher for Case 5 compared to Case 1. This is in particular

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Figure 9. Vortex visualization with λ2 for Case 1, Case 3 and Case 5,
respectively.
for the frequency range of 3-4 kHz. A typical length scale for the
volute is the diameter which for this case is approximately 20 mm
and a typical velocity scale is the bulk velocity at the inlet which
is about 100 m/s. The Strouhal number based on the diameter,
bulk velocity and a frequency of 4 kHz is 0.8. Previous studies on
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Figure 10. A snapshot of the in-plane velocity components in the volute,
wheel and parts of the diffuser for Case 5, showing the counter-rotating
vortices.
Figure 11. The radial velocity component for the different cases at the
inlet to wheel at a location that corresponds to an azimuthal angle of 90◦ .
Positive velocity is defined as being directed inwards.
the turbulent flow in a curved pipes performed by Hellstrom and
Fuchs [14] show that the Dean vortices oscillate with a Strouhal
number of approximately 1. This indicates that oscillations in the
cross-stream plane at the inlet to rotor are scaled by the correct
length and velocity scales. The secondary flow motions at the
inlet also feed the wake behind the tongue and the flow down-
stream of the wake is disturbed. This effect can be seen in the
energy spectra at a location just downstream of the tongue and
also in the plot of the velocity magnitude in the volute, where the
flow in the area around the wake is more disturbed for Cases 3-5
compared to Case 1 and Case 2. Spectra at the same point for
the different cases show that Case 3 has the largest energy at that
point. This is so since one of the vortices from the inlet interacts
Copyright
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 Figure 12. Energy spectra for the velocity component aligned with the
shaft direction, at the inlet to the wheel at a location that corresponds to
an azimuthal angle of 90◦ . Case 1 and Case 5.
with vortex from the waste gate channel and is convected down-
stream and affects the wake at the tongue. As expected, Case 1
has the lowest energy content in the wake, since this case has no
perturbations at the inlet. In Figure 13, the energy spectra of the
fluctuation part of cross-plane velocity component at a point lo-
cated downstream of the tongue are plotted for Case 1 and Case
3, and it is clear Case 3 has the largest fluctuation energy at this
point. The wake disturbs the flow into the wheel, which gives a
non-uniform velocity distribution between the blades and affects
the pressure distribution and the shaft torque
The tip vortices, (denoted by A in Figure 15), at the leading
edge of the blade are present for all computed cases. However,
the strength of these vortices varies among the different cases.
When comparing the flow field for the different cases, it can be
seen that the strength of the tip vortices created at the inlet is
highest for Case 1 and lowest for Case 5. This is so despite the
fact that Case 1 has the highest power output and Case 5 has the
lowest power output. The reason for the stronger tip vortices for
Case 1 is that the azimuthal and radial velocity components in the
volute are the largest for Case 1, resulting in stronger azimuthal
pressure gradient in between the blades. In Figure 14, the ax-
ial component of the vorticity is plotted for Case 1 and Case 5,
showing the strength and extent of the tip vortices. As also can
be seen in these figures, the tip vortices at the leading edge starts
to roll up after approximately 40◦ after the blade has passed the
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Figure 13. Energy spectra of the fluctuation part of the velocity for Case
1 and Case 3 at a point located in the wake downstream of the tongue.
tip of the tongue and then the strength of the vortices increases
during the revolution. When the blade passes the tongue, the
tip vortex detaches due to the highly disturbed flow and moves
inwards in the radial direction. When the blade has passed the
region with disturb flow, a new tip vortex is created. The tip vor-
tices formed at the leading edge of the blade is not attached to the
blade through the blade passage. At the corner of blade tip at the
inlet to the rotor, the tip vortex detaches from the blade and it is
convected downstream between pairs of blades. The secondary
velocity field in the blade passage is directed inwards toward the
hub at the pressure side of the blade, and directed outwards in
the radial direction at the suction side. This creates a swirling
motion between the blades. Between the inlet and outlet of the
rotor, the detached tip vortex merges with the swirling motion.
In between the blades, the pressure gradient drives the flow
in the boundary layer at the shroud from the pressure side to-
ward the suction side. When the flow in the boundary layer at
the shroud is affected by the strong jet that is formed at the tip, it
is reflected inwards between the blades and a vortex starts to roll
up (denoted by C in Figure 15). This vortex is counter-rotating
compared to the tip vortex. The strength of these counter-rotating
vortices in between the blades seems to be equal for all the com-
puted cases. In the corner at the hub and the suctions side of the
blade, a small vortex is formed, denoted by B in Figure 15.
At the suction side of the blade, just downstream of the inlet
to the wheel, a recirculation zone (denoted by D in Figure 15) is
Copyright
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 Figure 15. λ2 visualization of the different structures in between two
blades. The arrow shows the direction of rotation.

Figure 14. Axial component of the vorticity for Case 1 and Case 5 at an
axial plane crossing the middle of the leading edge of the blades. The
black dot shows the location of the tongue. The arrow shows the direction
of rotation.

created due to the high curvature and velocity. The extent and
location of these recirculation zones differ among the different
cases, depending on the radial velocity at the inlet to wheel.
In Figure 16 and Figure 17 the axial velocity component for the
different cases is plotted at a plane perpendicular to the turbine
shaft just downstream of the inlet to the wheel. The axial veloc-
ity is highest for Case 1, which depends on that Case 1 has the
highest velocity into the wheel. This case also has the strongest
recirculation together with Case 2, which is a result of the high-
est radial velocity at the shroud side of the inlet to the wheel. For Figure 16. Snapshot of axial velocity at an axial plane in between two
Case 5, the recirculation only occurs at certain instants, depend- blades, Case 1 and Case 2. The axial plane is located precisely down-
ing on variations in the radial velocity into the wheel, especially stream of the leading edge. The arrow shows the direction of rotation.
at the shroud side. Case 5 has also the highest velocity at the
hub side at the inlet to the wheel of the computed cases, resulting
in a region of high axial velocity at the hub through the blade the shaft torque, but it increases the viscous losses. The detached
passage. This region with high velocity does not contribute to tip vortices from the leading edge also affects the axial velocity

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Figure 17. Snapshot of axial velocity at an axial plane in between two
blades, Cases 3-5. The axial plane is located precisely downstream of
the leading edge. The arrow shows the direction of rotation.
distribution in between the blades, and for Cases 1-4, the axial
flow in the vortex core of the detached tip vortex is reversed at
some instants. The non-uniform and in time varying axial ve-
locity distribution in between the blades will of course affect the
pressure distribution at the blades. In Figure 18 the instantaneous
pressure coefficients C p are plotted for both the suction and the
pressure side of a blade for the five cases along the chord be-
tween the tip and the hub. C p is computed for the same blade
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Figure 18. The instantaneous pressure coefficient along the chord at the
pressure and suction side of a blade.
Figure 19. Snapshot of the pressure distribution when the blade passes
the tongue at an axial plane, crossing the middle of the leading edges of
the blades. The arrow shows the direction of rotation.
and at the same time step for the different cases. Case 1 has the
best pressure distribution while Case 5 has the worst. Since the
flow for all cases is unsteady, the pressure distribution varies de-
pending on where the blade is located during the revolution, but
also in time for an equal blade position due to fluctuations of the
flow field. The largest deviations between the different cases are
at the suction side, since this side is most sensitive to changes
of the relative incidence angle. No significant differences in the
relative incidence angle among the different cases are found, it is
in the range of 15-25◦ for all cases, except for the region near the
tongue, where the relative incidence shows much larger fluctua-
tions due to the wake at the tongue.
On the shaft torque trace, a fluctuation with the same fre-
Copyright
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 radial direction the vortex changes its direction and it rotated in
the same direction as the wheel. The axial velocity distribution
at the outlet plane varies both in time and space, which will give
a non-uniform inlet profile into a catalytic converter mounted di-
rect after the turbine. The shaft to the waste-gate valve, which is
not modeled in this study, most probably disturbs the flow in the
diffuser and probably creates an even more disturbed flow which
enters into the catalytic converter.

3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The effects of the different secondary flow at the inlet into a
turbine of a turbocharger have been studied using LES. The tur-
bine performance has been assessed and quantified in terms of
shaft power and efficiency. Five different cases have been inves-
tigated where the base case had a turbulent velocity profile with-
out any perturbations at the inlet to the turbine. The other cases
include different perturbations, which contribute marginally to
the input power to the turbine, while keeping an equal total mass
flow in all cases. The nozzle-less radial turbine under consider-
ation has nine blades and the rotational speed was set to 97 897
rpm.
The results show that both small and large scale perturba-
tions at the inlet to the turbine affect the shaft power. The undis-
turbed inlet profile gives the best power output from the turbine
while the case with the strongest swirl in combination with 3-
dimensional turbulent perturbations gives the largest deteriora-
tion of the shaft power output. For this case, a pair of Dean like
vortices is created in the volute, which introduce oscillations of
the velocity at the inlet to the rotor. The second case mostly af-
fecting the shaft power is the case with added turbulence. The
influence of the different perturbations at the inlet is not reflected
in the total to static isentropic efficiency, a better definition of
efficiency is the ratio between the shaft power and the available
power at the inlet to the turbine.
The different mechanisms for the reduction of the shaft
Figure 20. Snapshot of the velocity field at an axial plane in the diffuser
power are:
for Case 3. Vectors: in-plane velocity components. Contour: Axial veloc-
ity component. Positive velocity is defined as being directed toward the 1. The perturbations at the inlet result in a higher absolute pres-
outlet. sure at the inlet due to increased losses in the turbine. The
higher pressure at the inlet implies that the velocity at the in-
let is lower, since the mass flow is kept constant. This gives
quency as the blade passage frequency is superimposed. The lower velocity in the volute and through the wheel, resulting
local minima of the shaft torque occurs when the blades passes in lower shaft power output.
the tongue and at this instant the pressure at the suction side of 2. The swirling inlet conditions at the inlet gives oscillations
the blades at the tongue is higher than the pressure at the pressure in the cross-stream velocity at the inlet to the rotor due to
side, see Figure 19, which affects the torque in a negative way. the meandering, counter-rotating, vortices in the volute. The
Downstream of the wheel, the secondary flow is dominated counter-rotating vortices affect the radial velocity compo-
by a swirling motion, and the structures created in between the nent into the wheel, giving an unfavorable radial velocity
blades. At the center line downstream of the wheel, the direction distribution, which affects the flow in between the blades.
of the foot of the swirling motion is opposite to the direction of 3. The wake created downstream of the tongue gives large
rotation of the wheel, as shown in Figure 20. Further out in the scales velocity fluctuations into the wheel. The case with

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 the Dean vortices at the inlet has the largest energy content
at a point just downstream of the tongue, which is due to an
interaction of one of the Dean vortices and the vortex cre-
ated at the edge of the waste-gate channel that is convected
downstream to the tongue.
A qualitative comparison of the strength of the secondary
flow in between the turbine wheel blades shows that the case
without any perturbation at the inflow condition has the strongest
vortices whereas the case with the strongest swirl has the weakest
tip vortices. The strength of the tip vortices only has a secondary
affect on the shaft power, since the case with the strongest tip
vortices has the highest shaft power.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The work was sponsored by the Swedish Emission Research
Program, EMFO and GM Powertrain, Sweden. Thanks are also
due to the computer centers at KTH (PDC) and LiU (NSC) for
the provided computer resources required to carry out this work.
The authors also want to thank Dr. Markus Klein for kindly
providing the code for generating the unsteady inflow conditions.
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