Sociedade Brasileira de Vácuo

AEROTHERMODYNAMICS DESIGN AND OVERALL

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS FOR A 600 kW CYCLE GAS
ENGINE
Rubén Alexis Miranda Carrillo, ruben.miranda@unifei.edu.br1
Marco A. R. Nascimento, marcoantonio@unifei.edu.br2
1Grupo de Estudos em Tecnologias de Conversão de Energia – GETEC, Universidade Federal de Itajubá – UNIFEI,

Av. BPS, 1303 – Pinheirinho, CEP: 37.500-903, Itajubá/MG.

2Grupo de Estudos em Tecnologias de Conversão de Energia – GETEC, Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica – IEM,

Universidade Federal de Itajubá – UNIFEI, Itajubá/MG.

1. INTRODUCTION

This work presents the meanline (1D) aerothermodynamic design

and overall performance analysis for a 600 kW cycle gas engine using a
one-dimensional computer FORTRAN code (OFC). This procedure now
involves a code allowing off-design predictions. In order to find the most
promising design option, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation
has been used to study the performance, the aerothermodynamic design
and the flow characteristics of the turbine components (Miranda, 2010).

2. A MEANLINE (1D) MODELING

This analysis is based on the assumption that there is a mean

streamline running through the machine and the conditions on this
streamline are representative of the stations being considered. The
objective of a meanline analysis is to not reveal the full details of the flow
state and velocity through the machine, but conversely, it is limited to
determine the machine’s overall performance or the combination of overall
geometric parameters achieving maximum efficiency. Tab. (1) describes the
methodology design.
Table 1. The methodology design.
Figure 2. Radial-inflow turbine geometry.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 3(a) presents the total to static efficiency as function of total to
static pressure ratio at the nominal rotational speed, generated by CFD
and OFC for the design point. The both programs have the same
behavior in quite narrow band of pressure ratio 3.0 to 4.8 (Miranda,
2010). This value is 1.14% lower than of the value obtained by CFD. Fig.
3(b) presents the total pressure distribution on meridional plane.

This program initially calculates the velocity triangle and the Mach
(a) (b)
number at the rotor inlet, simultaneously with the thermodynamic relation
at this point. The next step is the calculation of the velocity triangle at the Figure 3. Simulations: (a) Total to static efficiency by CFD and comparison
discharge, aimed at finding the discharge end speed and the relative Mach with OFC, (b) Total pressure distribution on meridional plane.
number. Once the velocity triangles are established, the OFC initiates the
calculation of the non-dimensional performance parameters and the 4. CONCLUSIONS
specific speed. In this phase of the project the turbine itself was
_This program runs very fast; answers are obtained in seconds and many
developed, finding the appropriate geometry, the required number and size
of vanes and blades of the nozzle and rotor, respectively. Fig. (1) shows of the codes run on a PC in a matter of minutes or less. It can run
hundreds of parametric studies in seconds, while the same task would be
the meanline method. Fig. (2) shows de radial-inflow turbine geometry.
prohibitively time-consuming for a 3D CFD solver.

5. REFERENCES
_Miranda, R. A. C., 2010. “Projeto e Analise de Desempenho de Turbinas
Radiais”, Dissertação (Mestrado em Conversão de Energia) - Instituto de
Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá, Brasil,
pp 224.

6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Figure 1. The meanline method.