Flow phenomena leading to surge in a centrifugal compressor

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd.Surge is a global flow instability occurring in centrifugal compressors at low mass-flow rate operation. Due to its violent nature, it is the limiting factor for operability. To enhance the operating range, understanding of the flow instability inception when approaching surge is essential. Therefore, the flow evolution along a speed line is analysed by performing unsteady, three-dimensional flow simulations using a centrifugal compressor geometry with ported shroud. A stable operating condition, at high mass-flow rates, is compared to lower mass-flow rate operating conditions close to and at surge. The particularities of the flow-fields are analysed and described. A smooth flow-field is observed for the stable operating condition, whereas flow reversal manifesting as tip leakage at the outer periphery of the impeller occurs for all off-design operating conditions. The reversed flow exhibits swirling motion in the impeller rotation direction. This induces a globally swirling flow upstream of the impeller, which influences the flow incidence angles at the blades and hence, their efficiency. Proper orthogonal decomposition and dynamic mode decomposition have been performed to analyse the flow structures appearing with surge more thoroughly. For the lowest mass-flow rate operating condition, low frequency modes describing the filling and emptying processes during surge have been found

Fluidic injection scenarios for shock pattern manipulation in exhausts

Screening numerically internal fluidic injection scenarios for the manipulation of the double diamond shock pattern in convergent-divergent nozzle exhausts, we demonstrate the individual importance of design parameters. We find that the evolving shock pattern is sensitive to the injection location, while the persistence of the induced counterrotating vortex pairs is primarily governed by the injection pressure. Injection close to the nozzle exit generates secondary vortical structures amplifying the fluctuations in the nozzle vicinity

Effect of clocking on compressor noise generation

The effect of stator clocking on the acoustic noise generation characteristics in an axial high-pressure compressor is analysed. A realistic geometry with one-and-a-half stages is assessed using high fidelity and low-order numerical methods for different clocking positions at approach operating conditions. The compressor efficiency and the acoustic noise emission is found to vary insignificantly between the simulated clocking configurations. Nonetheless, the pressure distribution is altered significantly right upstream of the inlet guide vanes. Although the cut-on modes exhibit at least 10 dB higher amplitudes, the cut-off modes contribute decisively to the wave pattern in the near field. Optimal acoustic liner design can expand on the differently evolving interference pattern of acoustic waves at discrete frequencies. The low-order model is found to predict the directionality of the acoustic waves and the cut-on criteria for the individual modes in excellent agreement with the high fidelity simulations. However, the phase cannot be estimated due to the simplicity of the low-order formulation.The authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to Rolls-Royce plc for the permission to publish this paper, which partly developed through the Rolls-Royce plc and Innovate UK Aerospace Technology Institute funded research programme, ACAPELLA

Acoustic signature of flow instabilities in radial compressors

Rotating stall and surge are flow instabilities contributing to the acoustic noise generated in centrifugal compressors at low mass flow rates. Their acoustic generation mechanisms are exposed employing compressible Large Eddy Sim- ulations (LES). The LES data are used for calculating the dominant acoustic sources emerging at low mass flow rates. They give the inhomogeneous char- acter of the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) wave equation. The blade loading term associated with the unsteady pressure loads developed on solid surfaces (dipole in character) is found to be the major contributor to the aerodynamically generated noise at low mass flow rates. The acoustic source due to the velocity variations and compressibility effects (quadrupole in character) as well as the acoustic source caused by the displacement of the fluid due to the accelerations of the solid surfaces (monopole in character) were found to be not as dominant. We show that the acoustic source associated with surge is generated by the pressure oscillation, which is governed by the tip leakage flow. The vortical structures of rotating stall are interacting with the impeller. These manipulate the flow incidence angles and cause thereby unsteady blade loading towards the discharge. A low-pressure sink between 4 and 6 o’clock causes a halving of the perturbation frequencies at low mass flow rates operat- ing conditions. From two point space-time cross correlation analysis based on circumferential velocity in the diffuser it was found that the rotating stall cell propagation speed increases locally in the low pressure zone under the volute tongue. It was also found that rotating stall can coexist with surge operat- ing condition, but the feature is then seen to operate over a broader frequency interval

Large eddy simulation of fluidic Injection into a supersonic convergent-divergent duct

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Transforming the shock pattern of supersonic jets using fluidic injection

Double shock diamonds establish in the exhaust of modular convergent-divergent nozzles. These consist of two shock structures; one originating from the nozzle throat and another from its exit. Analyzing the shock pattern developing for different fluidic injection operating conditions, it is shown that fluidic injection allows the rearrangement of the shock structures relative to each other. Overlapping the two structures caused large pressure oscillations in the exhaust and high amplitudes of shock associated noise, whereas staggering the shock structures mitigated these effects. The screech tone frequency did not change for all injection operating configurations, although the shock diamonds had been shifted drastically with respect to each other. Hence, the screech phenomenon is dominated by the primary shock spacing originating from the nozzle throat

G-equation modelling of thermo-acoustic oscillations of partially-premixed flames

Numerical simulations aid combustor design to avoid and reduce thermo-acoustic oscillations. Non-linear heat release rate estimation and its modelling are essential for the prediction of saturation amplitudes of limit cycles. The heat release dynamics of flames can be approximated by a Flame Describing Function (FDF). To calculate an FDF, a wide range of forcing amplitudes and frequencies needs to be considered. For this reason, we present a computationally inexpensive level-set approach, which accounts for equivalence ratio perturbations on flames with arbitrarily-complex shapes. The influence of flame parameters and modelling approaches on flame describing functions and time delay coefficient distributions are discussed in detail. The numerically-obtained flame describing functions are compared with experimental data and used in an acoustic network model for limit cycle prediction. A reasonable agreement of the heat release gain and limit cycle frequency is achieved even with a simplistic, analytical velocity fluctuation model. However, the phase decay is over-predicted. For sophisticated flame shapes, only the realistic modelling of large-scale flow structures allows the correct phase decay predictions of the heat release rate response.This work was conducted within the EU 7th Framework Project Joint Technology Initiatives - Clean Sky (AMEL- Advanced Methods for the Prediction of Lean-burn Combustor Unsteady Phenomena), project number: JTI-CS-2013-3-SAGE- 06-009 / 641453. This work was performed using the Darwin Supercomputer of the University of Cambridge High Performance Computing Service (http://www.hpc.cam.ac.uk/), provided by Dell Inc. using Strategic Research Infrastructure Funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council

Flow induced energy losses in the exhaust port of an internal combustion engine

A numerical study of the flow in the exhaust port geometry of a Scania heavy-duty diesel engine is performed using the large eddy simulation (LES) and an unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulation approach. The calculations are performed at fixed valve positions and stationary boundary conditions to mimic the setup of an air flow bench experiment, which is commonly used to acquire input data for one-dimensional engine simulations. The numerical results are validated against available experimental data. The complex three-dimensional (3D) flow structures generated in the flow field are qualitatively assessed through visualization and analyzed by statistical means. For low valve lifts, the major source of kinetic energy losses occurs in the proximity of the valve. Flow separation occurs immediately downstream of the valve seat. Strong helical flow structures are observed in the exhaust manifold, which are caused due an interaction of the exhaust port streams in the port geometry.</jats:p