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Two dimensional rotor blade numerical analysis using ANSYS

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Two dimensional rotor blade numerical analysis using ANSYS

Shlok Anand, Satvik Shenoy and Srinivas G*

Department of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology,

Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India

*[email protected]

Abstract. Turbo-pump is an essential component in any rocket engine. The airfoil (NGTE
10C4 series) section of a rotor blade in the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engine) was modelled
along with a far-field of suitable shape and dimensions. The model was suitably discretized
with proper amount of refinement, etc. A numerical simulation was then carried-out using
ANSYS software with several iterations of varying inlet boundary conditions to check for any
improvement in the performance of the rotor blade. Inlet velocity for optimum functionality of
the blade was identified.
Keywords: Turbo-pumps, rotor, pressure-ratio.

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Introduction to non-air-breathing engines
Air breathing engines are a class of propulsion systems which use a combusted mixture of air and
fuel to propel the adjoined structure (mainly an aircraft). In contrast to this there is another set of
engines which do not use air as one of its propellant mixture constituents. Such engines carry the
propellants required and are referred to as non-air breathing engines. These propellants undergo
combustion and are propelled through a convergent-divergent nozzle to produce thrust. Non-air
breathing engines do not have an inlet. The fuel and oxidizer are provided to the combustion chamber
by pipes and pumps. In the combustion chamber the propellants are burnt to produce the thrust.
Optimizing a rocket engine can be done in various ways, one of the ways is to improve turbines and
pumps that are used to supply the propellants from their respective tanks to the combustion chamber.

1.2. Importance of turbines:

A turbine helps to decrease the (static) pressure of engine gas. Total pressure remains unchanged
thus increasing the velocity (dynamic pressure) of the gas. In the present era, turbines contribute to
being
an important part of aircraft as well as rocket propulsion system. Gas-turbines (jet-engine) and turbo-
pumps (rocket engine) are two of the many applications of turbines. Turbo-pumps make use of several
stages (rotor and stator blades in series) to feed liquid fuel and oxidizer to the thrust chamber of a
rocket engine.

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Figure 1: SSME, RS-25[12]

The Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) (see figure 1) uses an RS-25 (Rocketdyne engine) with
cryogenic liquid hydrogen as fuel and liquid oxygen (LOx) as oxidizer. A rotor blade of the LOx
turbo-pump in the SSME was studied through a 2D numerical simulation.

1.3. Different Types of Rocket Engine Turbines

Rocket engines can be classified on the basis of number of stages of the turbine. Each set of
consecutive rows of rotor and stator blades in a turbine is called a stage. Turbines can be 3-stage, 5-
stage, 7-stage or even 9-stage depending on the desired temperature and pressure ratio. Increasing the
number of stages does not necessarily give higher efficiency. The temperature ratio of any stage in a
turbine is same and constant. The pressure ratio is calculated by the isentropic relations. Although not
linear, the pressure can be noted to be decreasing in every stage.

1.4. Recent Developments

In the present era Liquid Propellant Rocket (LPR), only a small portion of the fuel and oxidizer is
passed through the pre-burner. The “full-flow staged cycle” is an important advancement. The entire
fuel and oxidizer flows through the pre-burners but only a small amount is consumed. The increased
mass flow rate drives the turbo-pump to give higher pressure ratios with slightly lower temperature.
The performance of the turbo-pump is increased.
LE-9 is Japan‟s most recent booster engine and is an important component of the H3 launch vehicle.
The system is reliable, high performing and inexpensive all at the same time. The first test flight is
scheduled to be in the year 2020.
Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) which is basically liquid oxygen and liquid methane is the propellant in
the Liquid Upper Stage Demonstrator Engine (LUMEN). The working is based on the expander cycle
and the German Aerospace Centre desires to provide a test bed for any future components.

2. Literature Review
D.G. Ainley et al. [1] and J. Dunham et al. [8] used a numerical approach to calculate the
performance of a conventional axial flow turbine. Derived data from the study of several turbine tests
in a separate research paper was used in this method. The method proved to be consistent with the data
received by the National Gas Turbine Establishment (N.G.T.E.) and the efficiency was calculated to be
within the vicinity of +2.0% error. Improvements were then made in the numerical method.
James Boynton et al. [2] experimented to conclude on the effect of tip clearance on the functioning
of an axial hydraulic turbine. The maximum clearance given was up to 8% of passage height and the
trials were conducted in water. The shrouded blades provided the highest efficiency at design
clearance and design operation. The efficiency of the second stage was about 10 points lower than the
first one. The reduction in the efficiency with each percent increase in the tip clearance were
approximately 1.2% for the first stage and 4.1% in the repeating stages. The experimental results were
validated by a numerical analysis.
B. Lakshminarayana et al. [3] used both theoretical and experimental methods to examine the effect
of a gap in an isolated airfoil spanning a tunnel. Flow models of each a small gap ratio and a
considerably large gap ratio were recommended. Increase in drag and decrease in lift for small gap
ratios were noted to be very small. Due to flow circulation along the gaps, there were turbulences at
the tip. It was noted that with change in gap size, the location and strength of the tip vortices vary. At
large chord-gap ratios, the chord is not aligned with the direction of the leakage flow. The theoretical

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

predictions match with the experimental observations made.

C. H. Sieverding et al. [4] experimented on secondary flows during the period, 1975-1985. The
research article, although outdated, holds good relevance in present era studies. A detailed analysis
about secondary flow vortex structures was carried out. The effects on end wall boundary layer
characteristics as well as losses through straight turbine blade passages were studied. The article lacks
in providing sufficient numerical or theoretical validation to the results obtained.
S. Sjolander et al. [5] have examined the configuration of the three-dimensionaltip leakage
flow and its effect on the blade loading in a large series (or cascade) of turbine blades. The variation in
tip clearance was 0-2.86% of blade chord. Furthermore, to validate the data obtained,oil and smoke
were used for an extensive visualization. Not much information was provided about the effect of the
inlet boundary layer thickness, load distribution and the blade geometry. The reduction in the pressure
induced by the leakage vortices on the suction side was larger than the pressure side.
A. K. Saha et al. [6] numerically studied the effect of a pressure side winglet on the flow and the
heat transfer over a blade tip. A flat tip and a squealer tip were studied. A finite-difference RANS code
and a 2-eqn. model for turbulence was used for calculation purposes. The pressure-side winglet for a
flat-tip led to considerabledecreases in the local heat transfer coefficient on the tip of the blade. The
winglet showed some notable decrease in the strength of leakage flow and the associated vorticity. For
the squealer tip, the winglet produced only minor improvements. For the suction sided squealer tip, the
pressure side winglet provides no substantial improvement.
C. M. Rhie et al. [7] presented a finite volume numerical solution for the two-dimensional
incompressible, steady Navier-Stokes equation, in general curvilinear coordinates. Turbulent flow
models were applied over different airfoils at different orientations with and without edge separation.
The flow process is described by the k-e model. An ordinary grid system is used rather than a
staggered grid. The numerical simulation carried an objective to study the flow over an isolated airfoil
and to check whether the results concur with the experimental data. The airfoils used were NACA
0012 and NACA 4412 at angles of attack 0 and 6 degrees similar to [13,14]. Accuracy of the solution
was observed to be highly dependent on degree of resolution of the strong leading and trailing edge
gradients.

Figure 2: Far-Field (with breadth of 6 times the chord length)

Figure 3. Airfoil section of the rotor blade of LOX turbo-pump of the SSME

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

This detailed analysis of the method brought about certain changes to the formula for tip clearance loss
predictions. In addition to this the accuracy of the improved results and formula were also checked.
This method is a very simple approach but holds great value during preliminary design.
S. C. Kacker et al. [9] worked on mean line loss system (based on work by Ainley-Mathieson), a
prediction method capable of estimating the design point efficiencies of axial turbines in present era
gas turbine engines. The method was discovered against the „Smith‟s chart‟ and the known efficiencies
of all 33 turbines of the then relevant designs. Regardless the fact that the logical tools available for
the optimum design of turbine blading are very distinguished, the optimization of the turbine gas path
and efficiency predictions will always require a mean line design.

Figure 4. Meshing of the airfoil section

3. Methodology
3.1 Modelling
Airfoil data [3] was extracted. The airfoil was modelled using ANSYS Space-Claim modelling
software. (see figure 3) A suitable far-field was modelled around the airfoil as shown in the figure 2.
Boolean operations were carried out to separate the tool body and target body, in order to optimize the
area of interest.

3.2 Meshing
The two-dimensional model created in the previous section is a continuous surface and has infinite
degrees of freedom which makes the solving of such type of surfaces a challenge. To solve, a mesh is
laid on the said surface to reduce the degree of freedom to a finite number which makes the solution of
such problems possible. Accordingly, the domain is broken down into various pieces. Each piece
represents an element. The model was given a layout of meshes, the scope of which was the body
around the airfoil(figure 4) up to the boundaries of the far field and the method used was „all triangles
method‟. After using the said method, edge sizing was employed at the edges of the airfoil to have a
finer meshing near the key subject. The definition type was „element size‟ (element size was set at 1.e-
02). In addition to these, two sets of refinements have been given to the far field surface and the edges
of the airfoil (the value of refinement was set to 2).

3.3 Boundary Conditions

Applied-
To define the boundary conditions, certain perquisites are required, such as identifying the location
of the boundaries and supplying correct information about the boundaries. The data required at the
boundary is dependent on the boundary type and the physical model applied. The data provided as the
boundary condition must be precise or at least be reasonably approximated. The boundary conditions
were derived from [10].
During laying of meshes in the two-dimensional design the naming of certain sections of the
heterogeneous far field was done as inlet, outlet, shear-wall, and airfoil. The cell zone named „airfoil‟
is a stationary wall with no slip condition with a standard roughness, these conditions are also applied
for the shear-wall with the same constant sand-grain roughness of 0.5. The inlet has been set as

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

velocity inlet (velocity=29.5 m/s) with a direction set as normal to boundary. The outlet is a pressure
outlet with a backflow reference frame set to absolute and the backflow direction as normal to
boundary. The boundary conditions were applied to the meshed model with 1-equation viscous model
Spalart-Allmaras and water as the medium.
Improved-
The boundary conditions given in the above section are to validate the model and meshes designed.
In addition to that some more iterations with changed boundary conditions are done to get better
results. It was seen that a variation of 1m/s from the base value of 29.5 m/s (28.5 to 31.5) gave a series
of unique solutions for the designed model and mesh. Study of the obtained data was done keeping the
purpose of a turbine in mind.
Table 1. Reference values and numerical simulation values

Reference Numerica
Values l Analysis
Velocit Pressure Pressure PTE - Pressure Pressure PTE - PLE
y LE TE PLE LE TE
PLE PTE PLE PTE
28.5 1.44E+06 7.87E+05 - 2.31E+0 1.62E+06 -6.90E+05
6.48E+05 6
29.5 1.46E+06 8.01E+05 - 2.44E+0 1.70E+06 -7.40E+05
6.59E+05 6
30.5 1.48E+06 8.14E+05 - 2.58E+0 1.79E+06 -7.90E+05
6.70E+05 6
31.5 1.51E+06 8.28E+05 - 2.71E+0 1.88E+06 -8.30E+05
6.81E+05 6

Figure 5: Residual Plot for „n+1‟th iteration in ANSYS Fluent

4. Results and Discussion

A grid independence check was carried out with the same boundary conditions as described in the
previous section. The number of elements and nodes were increased for several iterations by adding
refinement to the discretization and by decreasing the edge sizing, making the mesh even finer.
Results were noted post every iteration. An „n+1‟th iteration showed nearly same results (figure 5)
as the „n‟th iteration suggesting a successful grid independence check.
Table 2 shows the last 5 modifications in the element sizing and the corresponding values of
maximum velocity over the airfoil.

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Table 2: Iterations for Grid Independence Check

Element Size Velocit
y
7.00E-03 86.302
7.10E-03 84.993
7.50E-03 85.851
8.00E-03 85.750
8.80E-03 85.749

The contours for different inlet velocities were studied. Figures 6, 7 show contours for inlet velocity
of
29.5 m/s.

Results for 29.5m/s inlet velocity:

The velocity at the leading edge was found out to be 26.21 m/s, and that at the trailing edge 43.68
m/s and the maximum velocity over the airfoil was 83 m/s.The pressure at leading was seen to be
2.44e6 Pa, 1.7e6 Pa at trailing edge and 2.77e3 Pa at mid-chord.

Results for 28.5 m/s inlet velocity: (figures 8, 9)

The velocities at the leading edge, trailing edge, and mid-chord are 17.5 m/s, 39.37 m/s and 74.37
m/s respectively and the corresponding static pressure values are 2.31e6 Pa, 1.62e6 Pa, 3.502e4 Pa.

Results for inlet velocity of 30.5m/s: (see figures 10, 11)

The velocities at the leading edge, trailing edge, and mid-chord are 20.52 m/s, 41.04 m/s and 82.09
m/s respectively and the corresponding static pressure values are 2.58e6 Pa, 1.79e6 Pa, 1.16e4 Pa

Results for inlet velocity of 31.5m/s: (see figures 12, 13)

The velocities at the leading edge, trailing edge, and mid-chord are 26.5 m/s, 42.39 m/s and 84.79
m/s respectively and the corresponding static pressure values are 2.71e6 Pa, 1.88e6 Pa, 2.13e5 Pa

The pressure values at leading and trailing edge were tabulated (Table 1) to show variation in
performance characteristics of the blade.

Figure 6. Velocity Contour for 29.5m/s inlet

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Figure 7: Static Pressure Contour for 29.5m/s inlet

Figure 8: Velocity Contour for inlet of 28.5m/s

Figure 9: Contours for Static Pressure at an inlet velocity of 28.5m/s

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Figure 10:Contours of Static Pressure for 30.5m/s inlet

Figure 11: Velocity Contour for 30.5 m/s inlet

Figure 12: Static Pressure Contour for 31.5 m/s inlet

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

Figure 13: Velocity Contour for 31.5 m/s inlet

Comparision
Numerical data Reference Data

0.00E+00
-2.00E+05 28 28.5 29 29.5 30 30.5 31 31.5 32
Pressure

-4.00E+05
-6.00E+05
-8.00E+05
-1.00E+06
Velocity

Figure 14: Performance Comparison of Numerical Analysis and Reference Data based on Table 1

5. Conclusions
In order to improve the pressure ratio of a LOX turbo-pump in an SSME, a numerical analysis was
carried out on a 2D model of the turbine rotor blade on ANSYS Fluent. Appropriate fluent settings and
suitable boundary conditions were applied.
Results obtained were validated with an allowed tolerance of less than 10%. Increase in entry
velocity was the choice of further improvement, a sharp increase in the pressure ratio of the turbine
rotor blade was observed. With an increase in inlet velocity better results were observed. Finally, at an
inlet velocity of 31.5 m/s the pressure difference of 8.3e5 (figure 14)across the rotor blade was
considered to be the best result.

Acknowledgements
We are greatly indebted to Professor Srinivas G. for guiding us towards the completion of this
article.

References
[1] D.G. Ainley, G.C.R. Mathieson, A method of performance estimation for axial flow turbines,
Aero Research Council Reports and Memoranda 2974, Her Majesty‟s Stationery Office,
London, 1951

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First International Conference on Advances in Physical Sciences and Materials IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1706 (2020) 012221 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1706/1/012221

[2] J. Boynton, H. Rohlik, Effect of tip clearance on performance of small axial hydraulic turbine,
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