Investigation on methods to improve heat load

prediction of the SGT-600 gas turbine

Arman Farhanieh
Division of Applied Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics

Master Thesis
Department of Management and Engineering
LIU-IEI-TEK-A–15/02403–SE
Investigation on methods to improve heat load
prediction of the SGT-600 gas turbine

Master Thesis
Department of Management and Engineering
Division of Applied Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics
Linköping University
by
Arman Farhanieh

LIU-IEI-TEK-A–15/02403–SE

Supervisors: Hossein N. Nadali

IEI, Linköping University
Christoph Mau and Mats Annerfeldt
Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB

Examiner: Matts Karlsson

IEI, Linköping University

Linköping, 09 November, 2015

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© Arman Farhanieh
Abstract
In modern gas turbines, with the increase of inlet gas temperature to raise the
work output, the importance of accurate aero-thermal analysis has become of vital
importance. These analysis are required for temperature prediction throughout
the turbine and to predict the thermal stresses and to estimate the cooling required
for each component.
In the past 20 years, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods have be-
come a powerfool tool aero-thermal analysis. Due to reasons including numerical
limitation, flow complications caused by blade row interactions and the effect of
film cooling, using simple steady state CFD methods may result in inaccurate
predictions. Even though employing transient simulations can improve the accu-
racy of the simulations, it will also greatly increase the simulation time and cost.
Therefore, new methods are constantly being developed to increase the accuracy
while keeping the computational costs relatively low. Investigating some of these
developed methods is one of the main purposes of this study.
A simplification that has long been applied in gas turbine simulations has
been the absence of cooling cavities. Another part of this thesis will focus on
the effect of cooling cavities and the importance of including them in the domain.
Therefore, all transient and steady state simulations have been examined for two
cases; a simplified case and a detailed case. The results are then compared to
the experimental measurements to evaluate the importance of their presence in
the model. The software used to perform all simulations is the commercial code
ANSYS CFX 15.
The findings suggest that even though including cooling cavities would improve
the results, the simulations should be run in transient. One important finding was
that when performing transient simulations, especially the Time Transformation
method, not only is the pitch ratio between every subsequent blade row important,
but also the pitch ratio between the stators is highly influential on the accuracy
of the results.

v
Acknowledgments

This master thesis was carried out at the R&D department at Siemens In-
dustrial Turbomachinery AB, between March and September 2015. A number of
individuals deserve thanks for their support and help. It is therefore my greatest
pleasure to express my gratitude to them all in this acknowledgement.
Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors at Siemens Industrial Turboma-
chinery AB, Christoph Mau and Mats Annerfeldt for their insightful comments
and encouragement. I am particularly grateful of Christoph for his constant sup-
port and for providing me with numerous useful and practical advises throughout
the project.
Furthermore, I am deeply grateful for the continuous support of Prof. Matts
Karlsson, who was pivotal to the realization of this project. In addition, I would
like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor at Linköping University, Hossein
N. Najafabadi. His continuous support, patience and insightful comments provided
me with the motivation necessary to carry out my research and finalize the thesis.
I would also like to express my love and gratitude to my dearest "Bahman"
friends; Omid, Zahra, Raha, Roham, Samaa, Sevda and Shahriar. Thank you for
being such amazing friends in all these years. Also thanks to Amir, Konstantin,
Andreas, Hampus and many others who have made my years in Linköping ex-
tremely enjoyable. And of course, a special thanks to my lovely Catalina without
whom, this past year would have been extremely difficult.
Last but not least, I want to say thank you to my lovely parents, Bijan and
Marita and my two amazing older brother, Salman and Iman. Your endless love
and support means everything to me. None of this would have been possible if I
didn’t have you all in my life. Thank you.

Linköping, November, 2015

Arman Farhanieh

vii
Contents

1 Introduction 3
1.1 History of Turbomachinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Ideal Brayton Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Mechanical Stress in Turbines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 CFD in Turbomachinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Literature Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Theory 11

3 Method 17
3.1 Experimental Rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Computational Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.1 Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.2 Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2.3 Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4 Results 35
4.1 Aerodynamic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.2 Cavities and Fillets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.2.1 Steady State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.2.2 Transient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.3 Near Shroud Temperature Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.3 Transient Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.1 One Passage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.2 Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.3.3 Transient Effect on Cavities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.4 Sector vs One Passage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.4.1 Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.4.2 Detailed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.5 Blade Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5 Discussions 55

6 Conclusion 61

ix
Bibliography 63

A Blade Surface Temperature 67

A.1 Stator 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
A.2 Rotor 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
A.3 Stator 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
A.4 Rotor 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Nomenclature
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
HP High Pressure
CT Compressor Turbine
TIT Turbine Inlet Temperature
LE Leading Edge
TE Trailing Edge
MP Mixing Plane
FR Frozen Rotor
PT Profile Transformation
TT Time Transformation
FT Fourier Transformation

u Velocity vector m/s

P Pressure N/m2
T Temperature °C
Pr Turbulent Prandtl number -
Cp Specific Heat Capacity J/kgK
µ Dynamic Viscosity kg/ms
ρ Density kg/m3

1
2 Contents
Chapter 1

Introduction

A gas turbine is a device that produces mechanical work from the thermal energy of
a fuel based on the Brayton cycle. The gas turbine operation consists of three main
processes: compression, combustion and expansion. The components responsible
for each of these processes are the compressors, combustors and turbines, figure 1.1.
Gas turbines applications can mainly be divided into two groups of power-system
applications such as auxiliary units, gas-turbine power plants and turbochargers
and propulsion applications such as turbojet, turboprob and turbofan engines.
Some of the advantages and disadvantages gas turbines are:
Advantages

• Higher power-to-weight ratio compared to reciprocating engines

• Smaller in size than their reciprocating counterparts

• Higher reliability

Disadvantages

• High cost

• High speeds and high operating temperatures

1.1 History of Turbomachinery

The first turbomachines can be dated as far back as 50 AD, with Hero’s Engine
(Aeolipile), but the first patented gas turbine that used the thermodynamic cycle
was of John Baptist in 1791. Although this engine included a compressor, combus-
tion chamber and a turbine, it did not produce any power. The first working gas
turbine was created by the Norwegian inventor Aegidius Ellin with a net output of
11 hp. As shaft-power gas turbines were reaching successful operation, the turbo-
jets were being developed independently. The first person to invent the turbojets
was Sir Frank Whittle. His invention was later used by the British Royal Air
Force on the Power Jet W.1. Since the end of World War II, gas turbine engines

3
4 Introduction

have been continuously under development, but no revolutionary changes has been
made. The development have mainly been focused on one overriding factor-the
increase in turbine-inlet temperatures.

Figure 1.1: Schematic diagram of a single spool gas turbine

1.2 Ideal Brayton Cycle

In a gas turbine, air enters the compressor and after an increase in pressure, it
passes through the combustion chamber where fuel is added and burned which
would result in an increase in temperature. Finally, the heated and pressurized
mixture of air and fuel exhaust expands through the turbine and give up its energy.
Part of the energy extracted in the turbine is used to drive the compressor and
the rest is used to produce mechanical work, figure 1.1.

3
3'
1 4
2 3

2'
2 4'
4

Figure 1.2: Temperature-entropy diagram of an ideal (straight lines) and real (dotted lines)
Brayton cycle
1.2 Ideal Brayton Cycle 5

In an ideal Brayton cycle, figure 1.2, the compression and expansion processes
are isentropic (constant entropy throughout the process) whereas in an actual
Brayton cycle, these processes will be adiabatic (no heat or matter transfer between
system and surroundings), therefore the work required in the compressor increases
and the work obtained from the turbine decreases. The heating in the combustion
chamber is an isobaric process in an ideal cycle, however, due to pressure losses,
the process becomes irreversible and consequently, non-isobaric in an actual cycle.
Other effects, such as mass leakage for cooling and sealing, also occurs in gas
turbines which will decrease its performance and efficiency.
Since part of the work produced in the turbine is used to pressurize the air
in the compressor, the net work produced in an ideal Brayton cycle gas turbine
is the difference between the turbine and compressor work. The net work can be
expressed in terms of total temperature.

Wt = Cp (T03 − T04 ) (1.1)

Wc = Cp (T02 − T01 ) (1.2)

Wnet = Wt − Wc = Cp (T03 − T04 ) − Cp (T02 − T01 ) (1.3)

The thermal efficiency of an ideal Brayton cycle gas turbine is the ratio of the
net work produced to the heat added in the combustion chamber (Qin ).
Wnet
ηth = (1.4)
Qin
The thermal efficiency can be expressed in terms of pressure ratio and also in
terms of total temperatures. Since the compression and expansion are isentropic
processes, the pressure ratio in the compressor and turbine can be written as
equation 1.5, where γ is the specific heat ratio.
 γ
 (γ−1)  γ
 (γ−1)
P02 T02 P03 T03
π= = ,π = = (1.5)
P01 T01 P04 T04
Following the previous equation, the thermal efficiency can be expressed as:

Cp (T03 − T04 ) − Cp (T02 − T01 )

ηth =
Cp (T03 − T02 )
 
T01 ( TT04 − 1 (1.6)
Cp (T04 − T01 ) 01
=1− =1−  
Cp (T03 − T02 ) T T03
−1
02 T02

1
ηth = 1 − (1.7)
π (γ−1)/γ
Another important parameter in gas turbine design is the specific work output
which is the ratio of the net work output to the available energy in the air entering
the turbine.
6 Introduction

 
Wnet T04 1  
= 1− − π (γ−1)/γ − 1 (1.8)
CP T01 T01 π (γ−1)/γ
Based on these equations, the thermal efficiency of an ideal Brayton cycle gas
turbine is independent from the temperature ratio and solely depends on the pres-
sure ratio, whereas the specific work output is a function of both the temperature
ratio ( TT04
01
) and the pressure ratio. It is not possible to maximize the specific
work produced in the turbine and the thermal efficiency simultaneously and for
any given temperature ratio, the specific work output is a maximum for a certain
pressure ratio. Generally, higher turbine inlet temperatures and pressure ratios
are commonly used which affects the efficiency and life of the turbine.

1.3 Mechanical Stress in Turbines

Increasing the inlet temperature and pressure ratio decreases turbine life and in-
creases the manufacture and maintenance costs. Not only must the manufacturer
design and develop finer components and use more expensive material, but also
the blades would need to be frequently replaced. Eventually, increasing the mate-
rial quality will not be enough and the components most be cooled internally and
externally. Turbine cooling has detrimental effects on the turbine performance for
several reasons. Most importantly, it will add extra cost to manufacture blades.
Also, since the cooling air must be pressurized which happpens in the compressors
and bypasses the combustion chamber, the work it can produce in the turbine will
severely decrease.
Since the creation of the first gas turbines, constant developments have been
made on them. A significant portion of the developments has been focused on
upgrading the strength of the materials. Since turbines are constantly exposed to
high temperatures and high pressures, they have mostly been the focus of these
upgrades. In general for turbines, four different types of mechanical stresses can
be named

• Centrifugal stresses
• Gas bending stress
• Centrifugal bending stress
• Thermal stress

The maximum allowable stress is a function of target blade life, blade tem-
perature and the material properties. In order to increase the life of the blades
and other components, the allowable stress must be lower. An important param-
eter that highly affects the allowable stress is the blade temperature. The blade
temperature is often highest at the leading edge where the gas temperature is the
highest. Temperature distribution on the blade is not uniform in the spanwise and
streamwise direction. Therefore, at each position, a temperature difference with
the position close to it will be present. This temperature difference will cause a
1.4 CFD in Turbomachinery 7

local thermal stress. This thermal stress will have a high impact on the life and
performance of the blade, especially if the cooling passages are small. For these
reasons, internal and external cooling of these components is necessary in order to
ensure their desired lifetime.

1.4 CFD in Turbomachinery

At Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery, a test was conducted on the SGT-600
turbine using ETD Thermo Crystals to measure the metal and gas temperatures
in vanes 1-4 (only 1 and 2 for metal temperature) and blades 1-4 during full load.
There were several reasons to conduct this test. Most important reason was that
the radial temperature distribution was needed to accurately predict the stress life
on components.
The Siemens SGT-600 is a heavy-duty industrial gas turbine that has a 2
stage compressor turbine and a 2 stage power turbine. The compressor turbine
is positioned right after the combustion chamber, where the temperature could
reach 1500 K, which is why air cooling is necessary for these components.
The turbine inlet temperature has been rapidly increasing in the past 25 years.
Therefore more practical methods must be used to predict the temperature close
to the vanes and blades to design the most efficient air cooling system to cool the
components exposed to high temperatures as effectively as possible. Experimen-
tal methods are often used to obtain accurate results. However, experiments are
time consuming and expensive. An alternative to experimental methods are nu-
merical methods such as CFD. Past and present CFD models have a high level of
uncertainty to predict the temperature distribution correctly, especially for heav-
ily cooled components. Therefore, there is a need to improve the CFD modeling
methods to obtain thermal boundary conditions for the thermal stress analysis.
Due to the high preparation and operational costs of test facilities, CFD has
grown more popular in the past decades with the increase of computational power.
The use of CFD on cooled transonic high pressure turbines has become one of the
most challenging issues in the field. The complications in this issue include the
transient and unsteady behavior of the fluid, the compressibility and the high Mach
number of the flow. Therefore, many studies have been made to improve the CFD
modeling method. The improvement of this method has resulted in the design of
gas turbines with higher operating temperatures and higher fuel efficiency.
The initial three-dimensional CFD models that were developed for multistage
axial flow turbomachinery did not include the unsteady behavior of the flow. This
unsteady behavior is caused by the rotational and stationary blade rows. In 1979,
the mixing-plane model was first introduced by Denton and Singh [1] which has
become the industry standard for rotor-stator simulations. In the mixing-plane
model, the flow properties between the rotor and stator are circumferentially av-
eraged. The problem with this model, however, is that all unsteady and transient
behavior between the rotor and stator will be removed. Despite these limitations,
due to its compromise between accuracy and efficiency, it is still widely used in
industrious applications. With the development of more advanced computers, use
8 Introduction

of transient simulations to achieve more accurate results have grown more popular.

1.5 Literature Survey

One of the essential papers that presented a complete report of the multi-row un-
steady CFD modeling in turbomachinery, was the paper written by Adamczyk [2]
in 1999. This paper inspired many researchers to study gas temperature and heat
transfer predictions in turbines as well as unsteady loading and loss predictions.
Previously, many of the codes that had been developed in this field were two dimen-
sional solvers. It was well known that three dimensional solvers are necessary due
to the presence of secondary flows. Nowadays, a large number of different solvers
have been developed for these studies such as: Rolls-Royce HYDRA, MSU-Turbo,
HYBFLOW, MULTI3D, TBLOCK and the General Electric (GE) in-house solver
Tacoma. Recently, with the development of commercial softwares such as ANSYS
CFX and Fluent, NUMECA FINE/TURBO and also CD-adapco STAR-CCM+,
even more research has been done on this subject.
Prior to 1993, Simoneau and Simon [3] reviewed the state-of-the-art heat trans-
fer prediction method for gas turbines. In 2001, Dunn [4] studied the convective
heat transfer in axial flow turbines using CFD and did an extensive review on the
state-of-the-art methods. Dunn showed that CFD codes are capable of predicting
the surface-pressure data at vane and blade midspan, but not as well near the
hub or tip of the blade. The codes capability at predicting the surface-pressure
data was significantly better than predicting the temperature distribution. Dunn
showed that since the boundary conditions are not well known, the heat transfer
predictions for engine turbines are difficult. Finally, Dunn determined that CFD
is a promising tool for predicting heat transfer, although many issues need to be
investigated until it can become a completely reliable tool.
The most important subject studied by researchers has been the unsteady
blade row aerodynamic interaction. Not considering this interaction will cause
inaccurate predictions in turbine performance and thermal durability. Researchers
have studied the different mechanism of blade row interactions, some of them
include periodic wake impingement which was studied by Binder et al. [5] and
Hodson [6], periodic movement of the vane trailing edge shock wave studied by
Doorly and Oldfield [7] and Giles [8] and also convection of the vane secondary
flow-field through the rotor by Binder [9].
To improve the design ability in compressors and turbines, various numeri-
cal techniques to overcome the problems caused by the unsteady nature of the
flow have been developed and investigated. Connel et al. [10] compared the Pro-
file Transformation, Time Transformation and Fourier Transformation for cases
with unequal numbers of blades and vanes. They showed that for single stage
calculation where the temporal accuracy is of no importance, the Profile Trans-
formation method is a reliable method, but for time accuracy of the solutions,
the Time Transformation or Fourier Transformation should be utilizd. Biesinger
et al. [11] compared the Shape Correction (Fourier Transformation) and Time
Inclined method (Time Transformation) with a full domain reference case and
1.6 Aim 9

concluded that the Time Inclined method is the most efficient method since it
provides a speed up of about 16 times over reference case whereas the Phase Cor-
rection method is slower than the Time Inclined method by a factor of 3.
Although the use of CFD is a cheaper and less time consuming alternative
to experimental methods, there are some disadvantages in using CFD methods.
Modeling a complete turbine will add a great deal to the computational costs.
Mollahosseini et al. [12] used a complete turbine model to compute combustor hot
streak migration and mixing through turbine airfoil stages. The final mesh used
for their calculation consisted of 120 million nodes. The analysis they performed
was in full unsteady mode and 5 full rotations was run. The CPU time for each
rotation was in order of 168 hours and the data stored for the last rotation was
about 8 TB. These are considerable amount of computational requirements which
would not be suitable for industrial applications. Therefore, appropriate ways of
reducing computational costs must be found without sacrificing the accuracy of
the results. Many researchers have been focusing on small, but important ways of
reducing these costs without reducing the accuracy.
To be able to reduce the domain size, simplifications on the model is necessary.
One simplification is the turbine inlet temperature (TIT). The impact of different
inlet temperature profiles was investigated in many studies such as Rai [13] and
Dring [14]. Lately, Dyson et al. [15] compared the passage-to-passage variation in
thermal prediction for a 1D and 2D turbine inlet temperature. They discovered
that the first stage vane was highly influenced by the combustor profile and the
clocking impact was substantially different for the 1D and 2D profiles. Mathison et
al. [16] studied different implementation techniques and compared them to experi-
mental results from a one-and-one-half stage turbine. They came to the conclusion
that using an accurate temperature profile at the inlet will have a significant im-
pact on the temperature profile in front of the rotor blades at the outside span
but a small impact on the inner span.
Increasing the turbine inlet temperature has increased the need for film cooling.
A significant amount of research has been done on how to optimize the cooling by
studying the physics of the flow and how it will affect the temperature distribution
on the components. Ong et al. [17] [18] investigated the cooling of the Endwall
regions of a high pressure turbine rotor. They found that the presence of secondary
flow and vortex near the endwalls between blades would cause a strong migration
of hot fluid down the pressure surface.

1.6 Aim
At Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB, new methods are constantly being
investigated with the purpose of finding promising methods with higher accuracy
with relatively lower computational costs. This study is based on the 2 stage
compressor turbine (CT) of the Siemens SGT-600 gas turbine which the ETD test
was performed on.
In this study, different CFD modelling approaches and their influence on the
flow through the turbine will be investigated. The factors that will be studied are
10 Introduction

cavities and fillets, number of passages and the use of transient simulations.
The purpose of this study is to find the most appropriate method to predict
the temperature field on turbine components to be used as boundary conditions
for heat stress analysis in the future.
Chapter 2

Theory

To properly use the numerical calculation tools and understand the results, the
theory behind this method must be addressed. Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD) is a powerful tool for the analysis of systems involving fluid flow and heat
transfer. In this study, CFD methods have been extensively used. To better un-
derstand this tool, some basic information about CFD methods will be presented.
The governing equations of fluid dynamics describes the mathematical state-
ments of the conservation laws of physics. These equations that describe the
dynamics of a compressible Newtonian fluid consist of the conservation of mass
(continuity), the energy and momentum equations which are called the Navier-
Stokes equations. The summary of the conservative form of the system of equation
can be seen below, where U, p, ρ, h, τ and S are the velocity vector, pressure,
density, enthalpy, viscous stress tensor and the source terms respectively [19].

Continuity Equation
∂ρ
+ ∇ · (ρ U) = 0 (2.1)
∂t

Momentum Equations

∂(ρ U)
+ ∇ · (ρ U ⊗ U) = −∇p + ∇ · τ + S M (2.2)
∂t

Total Energy Equation

∂(ρ htot ) ∂p
− + ∇ · (ρ U htot ) = ∇ · (λ ∇T ) + ∇ · (U · τ ) + U · S M + S E (2.3)
∂t ∂t

The total enthalpy and stress tensor are obtained by:

1
htot = h + U2 (2.4)
2

11
12 Theory

 
T 2
τ = µ ∇U + (∇U) − δ ∇ · U (2.5)
3
All Newtonian compressible flow regimes are described by these equations and
laminar flow regimes can be solved analytically in simple cases, but not turbulent
flow regimes. However, most flows in engineering applications are turbulent which
will cause a random and chaotic variation in flow properties. Three main methods
of simulating turbulent flows are:
• Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS)
• Scale-Resolving simulations (SRS)
• Direct numerical simulations (DNS)
In the RANS method, the Navier-Stokes equations are averaged which results
in extra terms in the flow equations. These extra terms then are modeled with
turbulence models. In this method, the instantaneous fluctuations are discarded
in the time averaging of the Navier-Stokes equations, however a description of
the turbulence effects on the mean flow is needed. In a SRS model, a portion of
the turbulence spectrum is resolved in parts of the computational domain. LES,
DES and SAS are a few examples of SRS turbulence modeling. The DNS method
computes all turbulent fluctuations. This means that the turbulence is resolved
in the whole range of spatial and temporal scales which would make this model
computationally costly [20, p. 65-66].
Since in most industrial applications, the detail of the turbulent fluctuations is
not necessary, the RANS method has become the most popular method in industry
and is used in a wide range of various applications. To approximate the behavior
of turbulent flows, flow variables such as velocity, Ui must be decomposed into
a mean term, U i , and a fluctuating term, ui , where the mean term is calculated
from Reynolds time averaging, equation 2.7. For simplicity, the suffix notation
has been used, which means that i or j = 1, 2 or 3 corresponds to the variable in
x-direction, y-direction and z-direction respectively.

Ui = U i + ui (2.6)

t+∆t
Z
1
Ui = Ui dt (2.7)
∆t
t
Note that ∆t is a time scale large relative to turbulent fluctuations but small
relative to the time scale of the equation. For compressible flows, the averaging
is done using the Favre-averaging method where the density fluctuation is also
taken into consideration [20, p. 65], but for simplicity, the density fluctuations are
assumed to be negligible in the following equations. By substituting the mean
and fluctuating terms of the flow variables in the continuity and Navier-Stokes
equations the Reynolds average equations are obtained. In the following equations,
the bar indicating the average of a quantity is dropped, except for fluctuating
quantities [19].
 13

Continuity Equation
∂ρ ∂
+ (ρ Uj ) = 0 (2.8)
∂t ∂xj

Momentum Equations
∂ρUi ∂ ∂p ∂
+ (ρ Ui Uj ) = − + (τij − ρ ui uj ) + SM (2.9)
∂t ∂xj ∂xi ∂xj

Total Energy Equation

∂ρ htot ∂p ∂
− + (ρ Uj htot ) =
∂t ∂t ∂xj
 
∂ ∂T ∂
λ − ρ uj h + [Ui (τij − ρ ui uj )] + SE (2.10)
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj

Where the mean total entahlpy is calculated by:

1
htot = h + Ui Uj + k (2.11)
2
And the turbulence kinetic energy, k, is:
1 2
k= u (2.12)
2 i
In the resulting momentum equation, an additional unknown term is seen.
These extra terms are a description of the turbulence effects on the mean flow and
are called the Reynolds stresses. To be able to simulate the turbulent flows
using the RANS equations, the Reynolds stresses must be predicted. For this
purpose, turbulence models have been developed. Various turbulence models have
different methods of predicting the Reynolds stresses. Some of the most common
turbulence models are:

• k- [21]

• Spalart-Allmaras [22]

• Wilcox k-ω [23]

• Menter SST k-ω [24]

All these models are based on the assumption that there is an analogy between
the Reynolds stress and viscous stress. In Newton’s law of viscosity, the viscous
stress is proportional to the deformation rate. The second term in viscous stress
tensor, equation 2.5, which corresponds to velocity divergence, disappears for in-
compressible flows. In 1877, Boussinesq proposed that the Reynolds stresses might
be, similar to the viscous stress, proportional to the deformation rates. He came
up with this equation to approximate the Reynolds stress.
14 Theory

   
∂Ui ∂Uj 2 ∂Uk
− ρ ui uj = µt + − δij ρk + µt (2.13)
∂xj ∂xi 3 ∂xk
Where µt is the eddy viscosity, k is the turbulent kinetic energy per mass and
δij is the Kronecker delta.
The Spalart-Allmaras, k-ω and SST k-ω are all suitable turbulence models for
external aerodynamics. However, tests have shown that the SST k-ω gives more
accurate results for zero pressure gradient and adverse pressure gradient boundary
layers and free shear layers [20, p. 92]. For this reason, the SST k-ω turbulence
model will be utilized for this study.
The SST k-ω is a RANS based, two-equation eddy viscosity turbulence model1
that was first introduced by Menter in 1992 [25]. It is a modification of the original
k-ω model developed by Wilcox in 1988 [23], also a two equation eddy viscosity
turbulence model. The reason these models are referred to as two equation eddy
viscosity models is that they solve two transport equations, one for Turbulent
Kinetic Energy, k, and one for Turbulent Frequency, ω (turbulence eddy dissi-
pation, , for the k- model), and calculates the eddy viscosity from these two
variables. The Reynolds stresses are then calculated using the eddy viscosity. The
two transport equations for the k-omega models are:

  
∂(ρk) ∂ ∂ µt ∂k
+ (ρU j k) = µ+ + Pk − β 0 ρkω + Pkb (2.14)
∂t ∂xj ∂xj σk ∂xj

  
∂(ρω) ∂ ∂ µt ∂ω ω
+ (ρU j ω) = µ+ + α Pk − βρω 2 + Pωb (2.15)
∂t ∂xj ∂xj σω ∂xj k

Where β,β 0 , σk and σω are model constants and Pkb and Pωb are production
limiters for k. The eddy viscosity is then calculated using this equation:

k
µt = ρ (2.16)
ω
The k-ω model became popular due to its strong performance in low Reynolds
number applications and did not require a wall-damping function like the k-
models. Menter noticed that the k- is much less sensitive to free stream conditions
but its near wall performance is unsatisfactory. Menter proposed a hybrid model
of the k- and k-ω which would switch to the k-ω turbulence model at near-wall
regions and to k- model in fully turbulent freestream regions. Therefore, the k-ω
model is multiplied by a blending function F 1 and the transformed k- model by
a function of 1 − F 1. The value of F 1 is equal to one at near-wall regions and
will decrease with the increase of wall distance and eventually will become zero
outside the boundary layer. The corresponding transport equations for k and ω
will thus become:
1 Since all simulations are done using ANSYS CFX, all equations presented in this section are

taken directly from ANSYS CFX Solver Theory Guide [19]

 15

  
∂(ρk) ∂ ∂ µt ∂k
+ (ρU j k) = µ+ + Pk − β 0 ρkω + Pkb (2.17)
∂t ∂xj ∂xj σk3 ∂xj

  
∂(ρω) ∂ ∂ µt ∂ω
+ (ρU j ω) = µ+ +
∂t ∂xj ∂xj σω3 ∂xj
1 ∂k ∂ω ω
(1 − F1 )2ρ + α3 Pk − β3 ρω 2 + Pωb (2.18)
σω2 ω ∂xj ∂xj k

The coefficients of the new model are a linear combination of the corresponding
coefficients of the underlying models. None of the previous models had considered
the transport of the turbulent shear stress. Therefore, in the SST k-ω model, a
limiter was added to the formulation of the eddy viscosity which resulted in the
proper transport behavior.
α1 k
νt = (2.19)
max(α1 ω, SF2 )
µt
νt = (2.20)
ρ
As it can be seen, an additional blending function F2 , similar to F1 , has been
used. This function restricts the limiter to the wall boundary layer. S is an
invariant measure of the strain rate. Each of these blending functions is based
on the distance to the nearest surface. The formulations for these functions are
shown below.

F1 = tanh(arg41 ) (2.21)

√ ! !
k 500ν 40ρk
arg1 = min max ,, (2.22)
β 0 ωy y 2 ω
CDkw σω2 y 2
 
1 ∂k ∂ω
CDkw = max 2ρ , 1.0 × 10−10 (2.23)
σω2 ω ∂xj ∂xj

F2 = tanh(arg22 ) (2.24)

√ !
2 k 500ν
arg2 = max , (2.25)
β 0 ωy y 2 ω
Where y is the distance to the nearest surface and ν is the kinematic viscosity.
16 Theory
Chapter 3

Method

In this chapter, the methodology that was employed during the project will be
explained. The experiment on which this study is based on will be discussed.
Afterwards, the details of the computational methods used in the study will be
extensively explained.

3.1 Experimental Rig

In 2005, an extensive test using ETD thermo-crystals was conducted at Siemens
Industrial Turbomachinery on the SGT-600. The purpose of this test was to:

• Measure the metal temperature in vanes 1-2 and blades 1-4 at full load by
use of thermos crystals

• Measure the gas temperature in front of vanes 1-4 and blades 1-4 during full
load by use of thermos crystals

• Measure the turbine efficiency

• Evaluate the mass flow throughout the turbine

This was the first test of this kind made on this gas turbine. There had been
similar but less extensive crystal tests performed on the SGT-700 and SGT-800
which proved that using thermo-crystals is an accurate method for measuring the
temperature of the turbine component and gas path.
There were several reasons for performing this test on the SGT-600. One reason
was to understand and solve the problems with cracks (LCF) on vane 1. Another
reason was that the radial temperature distribution was needed for more accurate
prediction of creep life calculations on components, which is the main focus of this
study. The results of the crystal test would also be used in the further development
of SGT-600.
The temperature measured by the thermos-crystals, is the recovery tempera-
ture, Trec ,which is calculated using equation 3.1.

17
18 Method

u2
Trec = Tstat + P r1/3 (3.1)
2Cp
Where Tstat is the static temperature, P r is the turbulent Prandtl number, u
the flow velocity and Cp the specific heat capacity. The ETD thermo-crystals have
an error of about 10°C.

Figure 3.1: Positioning of the thermo-crystals for temperature measurement on the

vanes/blades for each row

The positioning of the thermos-crystals for each vane and blade are illustrated
in figure 3.1. The gas temperature crystals were placed on ceramic pins situated
on the leading edge (LE) of the component. The effect of heat conductivity of
the ceramic pins have been taken into consideration. Possible effect of radiation
from the surroundings on gas temperature has not been taken into account. The
number of thermo-crystals used on each component is shown in table 3.1
The average temperature profiles in front of each vane or blades are shown
in figure 3.2. The results that will be used further in this study are the average
3.2 Computational Method 19

Table 3.1: Number of thermo-crystals installed on each component in each row

Number of components Number of cyrstals

Stator 1 4 10
Rotor 1 3 7
Stator 2 3 10
Rotor 2 3 10

temperatures obtained from the ETDs.

420 400
410 390
400 380
Radius [mm]

Radius [mm]
390
370
380
360
370
360 350

350 340
340 330
1000 1050 1100 1150 1200 1250 1300 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 1100 1150 1200
Temperature [ °C] Temperature [ °C]
(a) (b)
410 440
400
420
390
Radius [mm]

Radius [mm]

380 400

370 380
360
360
350
340 340
330 320
900 920 940 960 980 1000 1020 1040 1060 870 875 880 885 890 895 900 905 910 915
Temperature [ °C] Temperature [ °C]
(c) (d)

Figure 3.2: Spanwise temperature profiles at leading edge (LE) of (a) 1st stage stator vane, (b)
1st stage rotor blade, (a) 2nd stage stator vane and (a) 2nd stage rotor blade.

3.2 Computational Method

In this section, details about the computational method such as the domain, mesh
and setup will be presented.

3.2.1 Domain
The SGT-600 has a compressor turbine and a power turbine. Since the compressor
turbine is positioned right after the combustion chamber and is exposed to high
temperatures, this study will be focused solely on the compressor turbine. The
compressor turbine has 2 stages consisting of a stator and a rotor in each stage.
Both rotors rotate with a rotational speed of 9989 rpm. The blade/vane number for
each row is shown in table 3.2. On the hub and shroud, cavities exist which supply
the cooling air needed to keep the components from reaching critical temperatures.
One of the aims of this study is to investigate the influence of fillets and cavities.
Two different domains have been created, one with fillets and cavities, and a
20 Method

Table 3.2: Number of vane/blade in each turbine row

Row Stator 1 Rotor 1 Stator 2 Rotor 2

Number of vane/blades 30 60 52 60

simplified domain without fillets or cavities, figure 3.3.

(a) (b)

Figure 3.3: Schematics of the main domain for (a) simple geometry without cavities or fillets
(b) detailed geometry with cavities and fillets

Due to the complication of the actual turbine geometry, some simplifications

had to be made. The schematic in figure 3.3 is the cold geometry of the turbine
whereas the simulation will be run with the hot geometry. The high temperature
in the turbine will cause an increase in the hub and shroud radius. The distances
between each row is also changed due to thermal expansion. These displacements
caused by the heat load is taken into account for the computational domain. After
the changes to the main geometry, the cavity geometries, which are also of the cold
geometry, must be adapted into the hot geometry.
After extracting the geometry for both the simple and detailed domain and
importing them into the CFD software, the domains in figure 3.4 are obtained.
Another aim is to investigate the effect of modeling only one passage compared
to a sector of the turbine. To model a sector of the turbine, the number of blades
in each row must be divided by the greatest common divisor (GCD) of the number
of blades and vanes in each rotor and stator. The GCD for 36, 60 and 52 is 4.
However, using a quarter of the turbine is still a large domain to run a simulation
on. To decrease the domain even further, the 2nd stage stator is assumed to have
48 vanes which results in a GCD of 12. After dividing the blade/vane numbers by
the GCD, the blade/vane numbers 3, 5, 4 and 5 is obtained. The one passage and
sector domain are illustrated in figure 3.5

3.2.2 Mesh
The computational mesh was created in NUMECA AutoGrid5TM . AutoGrid5TM
is a fully automatic hexahedral mesh generator for all types of rotating machinery
such as axial turbines. The reason for using this meshing software is its ability to
3.2 Computational Method 21

(a)

(b)

Figure 3.4: Illustration of the computational domain for (a) simple geometry without cavities
or fillets (b) detailed geometry with cavities and fillets. The arrows indicate the inlet and outlet
boundaries.

create structured hexahedral meshes with high quality suitable for turbomachinery
simulations. The meshing steps in this software are:

1. Definition of the geometry

2. Generation of meridional flow paths

3. Generation and control of 2D meshes on spanwise surface.

4. Generation of the final 3D mesh.

After defining the blade, hub and shroud geometry (and cavity for the detailed
domain), the meridional flow paths are generated which defines the meridional
trace of the surface revolution on which the 3D mesh will be built, figure 3.6. This
gives a control on the number of nodes in the spanwise direction and the mesh size
near the hub and shroud.
When the number of flow paths in the meridional direction and the wall cell
width has been defined, the 2D meshes on the spanwise surface must be generated.
The blade to blade meshes in this software are created using a two dimensional
multiblock structured topology.
One of the main advantages of using NUMECA AutoGrid5TM is its ability to
mesh meridional effects such as cavities and include blade fillets in the domain.
After defining the geometry of the cavities and the type of connection with the
main blade channel, the cavity meshes are generated by blocking the entities and
setting the mesh point clustering for each block, figure 3.7. By specifying a radius
22 Method

(a)

(b)

Figure 3.5: Illustration of computational domains with inlet and outlets for (a) single passage
model (b) sector model

for the fillets, the software automatically creates the fillets and meshes the domain.
The drawback of including the fillets in the mesh is a decrease in mesh quality.
Using different settings for the meridional flow paths and blade to blade topol-
ogy, three different mesh for the simplified geometry were generated to study the
mesh independency. The mesh sizes are shown in table 3.3. The circumferentially
averaged temperature distribution in front of the leading edge for both vanes and
blades were compared for each mesh, figure 3.8. As it can be seen, the simulation
is mesh independent at 4.5 million cells and a maximum y+ of about 30.

Table 3.3: Size of generated mesh for mesh independence study

Coarse Mesh Medium Mesh Fine Mesh

Number of nodes 3.8 Million 4.5 Million 6.1 Million

The mesh size for each simulation is displayed in table 3.4. It will be shown
in the next section that for the one passage tansient simulations, to decrease the
pitch ratio, two passages has been used for all but Stator 1. The domains used for
steady and transient sector simulations are the same.
3.2 Computational Method 23

Figure 3.6: Meridional view of the domain in AutoGrid5TM to define the flowpath mesh

Figure 3.7: Meshing a cavity in AutoGrid5TM

Table 3.4: Number of nodes for each domain. 1p : one passage, sec : sector, st : steady, trn :
transient, smpl : simple, detl : detail

Case Number of nodes Case Number of nodes

1p-st-smpl 4.5 Million 1p-st-detl 8.2 Million
1p-trn-smpl 7.9 Million 1p-trn-detl 14.9 Million
sec-smpl 19.3 Million sec-detl 35.8 Million

3.2.3 Setup
All CFD calculations have been performed using ANSYS CFX 15.0 (ANSYS, Inc.,
Canonsburg, PA, USA). CFX is a coupled pressure based, fully implicit solver and
uses an unstructured multiple element finite volume method. Basic parameters
such as velocity and pressure are defined at nodes at element corners [26].

General Settings
The angular velocity of domains B1 and B2 are set as 9989 rpm to account for
the rotation of the blades. It was seen earlier that the SST k-ω turbulence model
shows more accurate results compared to turbulence models such as the k- and
the Spalart-Allmaras [20, p. 92], therefore this turbulence option is utilized for
 24 Method

V1 LE B1 LE
100 100

80 80
Percent Spans

Percent Spans
60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200
Temperature [ oC] Temperature [ oC]
V2 LE B2 LE
100 100
B1 LE
100 80 80
Percent Spans

Percent Spans
60 60
80
40 40
Percent Spans

Coarse Mesh
60
Medium Mesh
20 20
Fine Mesh
40
0 0
550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 760 780 800 820 840 860 880 900
Temperature [ oC] Temperature [ oC]
20

1400
0
400
Figure
500 600
3.8:700Spanwise
800
temperature
900 1000
profiles
1100
from three generated meshes at leading edge (LE)
1200
of (a) 1st stageTemperature
stator vane,
[ oC] (b) 1st stage rotor blade, (a) 2nd stage stator vane and (a) 2nd stage
rotor blade. to studyB2 LEthe mesh independence.
100

80
the simulations. The High Resolution option has been set for both the Advection
Percent Spans

60 Scheme and the Turbulence Numerics. Since a minimum y+ value of 30 was

40
obtained, the wall function method is being used for the near wall treatment.
For transient simulations, a 2nd order backward Euler transient scheme is used.
20 During this project, the number of time steps required for each passing was not
0 studied due to limited computational resources. A time step per passing period
0 1050 760 780 800 820 840
of 50 was chosen based
Temperature [ oC]
on860a study
880 900
from Conell et al.[10] where they investigated
different transient methods on a high pressure and low pressure turbine.

Inlet and Outlet

The flow entering the first stage of the turbine is the outflow from the combustion
chamber, therefore all flow properties used at the inlet is directly imported from the
simulation results of the combustion chamber, except the radial temperature profile
which is taken from experimental measurements, figure 3.9. The properties that
were implemented from the combustion chamber outlet in the boundary condition
are the radial distribution of the total pressure, cylindrical components (axial,
radial and tangential) of the flow direction, turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent
eddy dissipation.
Since some simplifications were made in both the combustion chamber domain
and the turbine domain, matching the exact position of the turbine inlet with
combustion chamber outlet is a difficult task. To resolve this issue, the total
temperature and total pressure distribution profiles were transformed to match
the mass flow averaged values in front of the leading edge of vane 1 from the
experiment, shown in table 3.5.
The outlet static pressure was chosen so that the pressure ratio from the sim-
3.2 Computational Method 25

0.46

0.44

0.42

Radius [mm]
0.4

0.38

0.36

0.34
600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400
Temperature [oC]

Figure 3.9: Inlet temperature profile from experimental measurements.

ulation would match the pressure ratio of the experiment, table 3.5. After several
trial and errors, a relative static pressure of 3.632 bar was found produce an ac-
curate pressure ratio.
Table 3.5: Properties from experiments that were used to set the inlet and outlet boundary
conditions

Total Pressure at Total Temperature Pressure Ratio of

V1 LE at V1 LE the CT
14.4638 bar 1217.79°C 3.63582

Cavity Cooling
For the simplified geometry, the cavity domains were not included in the model.
The effect of the cooling air however, cannot be ignored. To take the effect of
the cooling air into account in the model, regions of the hub, shroud and blade
were set as inlet/outlet boundary conditions, figure 3.4. It should be noted that in
reality, due to the high static pressure at the stagnation point at the leading edge,
no cooling will eject here and will spread in the areas with lower pressure. This
effect is modeled by using a wall close to the leading edge, as seen in figure 3.10.
For the detailed geometry, both the cavities and fillets are included in the
domain, figure 3.4. The cavities starting from one row and ending in another have
completely been included in the model to produce even more realistic results.
The total temperature and mass flow used for the boundary condition at the
cavity inlets were obtained from SIT’s in-house software “2ndFlow” which calcu-
lates these values to conserve energy balance throughout the whole turbine domain,
figure 3.11. The turbulence intensity at each cavity inlet has been set at 5%.

Periodic surfaces
To minimize the computational costs, the domain size was decreased to include
either one passage or a section of the full turbine. For the reduced model to
26 Method

Figure 3.10: Cooling cavity inlet on a simple geometry

Figure 3.11: Schematics of the cooling flowpaths taken from the in-house software 2ndFlow at
Siemenst Industrial Turbomachinery AB

resemble the complete annular model, rotational periodic boundary condition has
been used on opposite sides of each passage.

Rotor-Stator Interface Models [19]

When performing a multistage analysis, different rotor-stator interfaces can be
used. For steady state simulations, two methods are available:

1. Mixing Plane (MP)

The mixing plane method (named stage interface in CFX) which is based
on the works of Denton and Singh [1], is the most common and standard
type of rotor-stator simulation in the industry. This method only requires
one rotor blade and one stator vane for each stage. Flow properties are cir-
cumferentially averaged on the interface between the rotor and stator. This
will produce fairly accurate results, but all transient rotor-stator interactions
will be removed. This method is utilized for the steady state-one passage
simulations.
3.2 Computational Method 27

Table 3.6: Mass flow and total temperature of cooling cavities exported from 2ndFlow.

Cavity Name Mass Flow [kg/s] Total Temperature [°C]

Stator 1
H1 0.78525 389
S1 0.9764892 398.7
V1 2.9900016 389
Rotor 1
H3 1.65615 364
H4 (Outlet) 0.3342 -
S2 1.135176 398.7
B1 1.41576 418.4
Stator 2
H5 0.7538076 649.8*
S3 0.8709844 408.5
S3a 0.39776412 398.7
V2 1.3528372 418.4
Rotor 2
H6 0.37494 415.3
S4 (Outlet) 0.01684 -
S5 1.309626 415.2*
*The cooling air at these cavities are mixed with the hot air from the outlet cavities before them.
A script was used for the total temperature of these 2 cavities which calculated the mass average
of total temperature during the simulation.

2. Frozen Rotor (FR)

In this method, the rotor and the stator are fixed relative to each other.
To account for the rotation of the rotor blades, a frame transformation is
included. This method will only produce results for a single position. There-
fore, rotating wakes, secondary flows, leading edge pressure increases etc. will
always stay in exactly the same position. This method is used for the steady
state-sector simulations.

Mass, momentum and energy is conserved at the interface for these methods.
In figure 3.12, the temperature contour before and after an interface has been
illustrated to show how each method effect the flow properties across a rotor-stator
interface.
Even though these methods might give relatively accurate results, all unsteady
effects such as forced response, hot streak migration, secondary flows and etc.
will be removed or will stay in the same position. To fully capture these effects,
transient simulations must be performed. Since the pitch ratios of the rotor and
stator passages in most real turbomachines are non-integer, full wheel modeling
is required. This will result in high computational costs. To decrease the compu-
tational costs for transient simulations, multistage methods have been developed
where only a single or few passages are needed to run the simulation. Three of
the most frequently used pitch-change methods in transient rotor-stator interface
28 Method

Figure 3.12: Changes in the temperature field across the rotor stator interface for each method

models are:

1. Profile Transformation (PT):

Whenever the pitch ratio of rotor and stator is not equal to one, the profiles
across the interface are stretched or compressed by the pitch-ratio while
mass, momentum and energy is conserved. In this fully implicit method,
single passages per row can be used. However, in some cases with large pitch
ratios, adding passages can improve the accuracy by reducing the pitch-ratio.
The Profile Transformation uses conventional periodicity at periodic bound-
aries, that is, has no special time lag for phase shift treatment. Although
overall performance is well predicted, detailed flow features such as blade
passing signals will be inaccurate. This has been used for the transient-
sector simulations.

2. Time Transformation (TT):

The Time Transformation method is based on the time-inclining work of
Giles [8]. This method achieves what is effectively "Phase Shifted" periodic
conditions, figure 3.13. The basic principle of a phase-shifted periodic con-
dition is that the pitch-wise boundaries R1/R2 and S1/S2 are periodic to
each other at different instances in time.
The unequal pitch problem is overcome by applying a time transformation to
the flow equations that enable the use of simple periodic boundary conditions
on the pitch-wise boundaries. The equations used to enforce the flow spatial
periodic boundary conditions on the rotor and stator are:
3.2 Computational Method 29

Figure 3.13: Phase Shifted boundary condition [19]

UR1 (r, θ, z, t) =UR2 (r, θ + PR , z, t − ∆T )

US1 (r, θ, z, t) =US2 (r, θ + PS , z, t − ∆T ) (3.2)

After applying the following transformation to equations 3.2 will result in

regular spatial periodic boundary conditions, equations 3.3.

r0 =r θ0 =θ
z 0 =z t0 =t − λR,S θ

PR −PS
Where λR,S = ∆T /PR,S and ∆T = uϕ .

UR1 (r0 , θ0 , z 0 , t0 ) =UR2 (r0 , θ0 + PR , z 0 , t0 )

US1 (r0 , θ0 , z 0 , t0 ) =US2 (r0 , θ0 + PS , z 0 , t0 ) (3.3)

With this transformation, the periodicity is maintained at any instant in

time in the computational domain. In this transformed system, the rotor
and stator passages will march at different time steps. In reality, the rotor
and stator experiences a different period, equation 3.4.

PR PS
TS = TR = (3.4)
uϕ uϕ

For the transformed system to have a regular spatial periodic boundary

condition, the period in the rotor and stator must be discretized in equal
number of timesteps.
30 Method

TS = n∆tS TR = n∆tR (3.5)

Combining equations 3.4 and 3.5, the relation between the timestep sizes of
the rotor and stator is found.

PR ∆tS
= (3.6)
PS ∆tR
A summary of these explanations can be seen in figure 3.14.

Figure 3.14: Rotor and stator periodic boundaries in space-time [19]

This method supports a fully implicit method. However, there are two lim-
itations to this method. First, it is not extendable to multi-disturbance
problems such as a multistage model and therefore another method (MP or
PT) must be used between stages. Second, there is a physical constraint on
the range of possible pitch ratios as described by the inequality below, where
numerical instabilities would not occur.

Mω PS Mω
1− < <1+ (3.7)
1 − Mθ PR 1 + Mθ
In the inequality above, Mω is the Mach number associated with the rotor
rotational speed and Mθ is the Mach number associated with the tangential
Mach number. The Time Transformation method is used for the transient-
one passage simulations. To avoid any numerical instabilities, two passages
are modeled for stator 2 and both rotors, figure 3.15.

3. Fourier Transformation (FT):

Like the Time Transformation method, the Fourier Transformation method
also achieves a phase shifted periodic boundary conditions but in a different
approach. This method is based on the Shape Correction works of He [27]
3.2 Computational Method 31

Figure 3.15: Illustration of the computational domain for transient simulations using the Time
Transformation (TT) method

Table 3.7: Performance comparison of different rotor-stator interface methods. [10]

Number of Number of
Passages
Method periods to computing
required
convergence units1
Periodic2 5 4 20
Periodic3 23 4 92
FT 2 12 24
TT 2 4 8

and chorochronic interface periodicity of Gerolymos [28]. In this method, the

flow history on the phase shifted pitchwise boundaries is stored using Fourier
series at the blade passing frequency and its higher harmonics, the solution
is then reconstructed on each side of the interface using Fourier coefficients
from the opposite side [10]. In this method, both single passage and two
passage models can be used. For the single passage, the data is collected
from the periodic boundaries, whereas for the two passage model the data
is collected from the interface between the two passages [11]. Unlike the TT
method, the FT method can be used for any rotor speed, any pitch ratios
and can handle multistage turbomachinery configurations.

In a study by Connell et al. [10], a summary of the comparison between these

methods used on a turbine with 92 blades and 36 vanes was obtained, table 3.7.
1 A computing unit is defined as the CPU time required to perform one period (fifty time

steps) on one passage.

2 In this method, no transformation is applied and a quarter of the wheel is modeled for a

pitch ratio of unity.

3 In this method, since the pitch ratio is not unity, Profile Transformation is applied.
32 Method

As seen in table 3.7, the TT method requires less computational time and less
number of periods to reach convergence compared to the other methods.
When applying a rotor-stator interface model, the position of the interface
could highly affect the results. Between Rotor 1 and Stator 2 where a cooling inlet
is on the shroud and a cooling outlet on the hub, figure 3.16, the position of the
interface was studied. A comparison of the temperature distribution in front of
the leading edge of Vane 2 can is shown in figure 3.17.
It can be seen that close to the hub region, where the outlet cooling is, the po-
sition of the interface does not have a large effect on the temperature distribution.
However, close to the shroud where the cooling inlet is, changing the position of
the interface from before the cooling inlet to after the inlet will cause a notable
decrease in temperature.
The reason for this difference is due to the circumferential averaging of the
Mixing Plane. Placing the interface right after the cooling inlet and close to the
Vane 2 leading edge will dismiss the effect of the stagnation point in front of Vane
2 leading edge which would prevent the cool air to reach the measurement points
in front of the leading edge. Therefore, all rotor-stator interfaces are placed before
cooling inlets.

Figure 3.16: Position of the rotor-stator interface before and after the cooling cavities

Walls

The roughness of the walls is set based on the material used in the manufacturing
of the components, table 3.8. The walls that are part of the rotating components
of the turbine are set with an angular velocity of 9989 rpm and walls that are
part of stationary components are set as stationary. All walls have been treated
as adiabatic.
 3.2 Computational Method 33
1passage Steady Detailed
1passage Steady Detailed 2
V2 LE B2 LE Experimental
100 100
1passage Steady Detailed
1passage Steady Detailed 2
V2 LE 80 B2 LE 80 Experimental
100 100

Percent Span

Percent Span
60 60
80 80

40 40
Percent Span

Percent Span
60 60

20 20
40 40

0 0
20 700 750 800 850 20 900 950 1000 1050 1100 760 780 800 820 840 860 880 900 920 940 960
Recovery Temperature [ oC] Recovery Temperature [ oC]

0 0
700 750 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 1100 760 780 800 820 840 860 880 900 920 940 960
Figure 3.17:
Recovery Spanwise
Temperature [ oC] distribution of temperatureRecovery
at the leading
Temperature [ oC] edge of Vane 2 for detailed
geometries with interfaces on either sides of the cavity inlets

Table 3.8: Wall roughness in each row.

Component Stator 1 Rotor 1 Stator 2 Rotor 2

Hub 4.368 µm 4.368 µm 8.736 µm 4.368 (8.736*) µm
Shroud 4.368 µm 4.368 µm 8.736 µm 4.368 (8.736*) µm
Blade 4.368 µm 4.368 µm 8.736 µm 4.368 µm
*Roughness of hub and shroud at rotor 2 exit

Fluid Properties
There are two different fluids present in the simulation. First fluid is the hot
gas entering the turbine from the combustion chamber which is a mixture of air
and exhaust caused by burnt fuel. Second is cooling which is bypassed from the
compressor and skips the combustion chamber to be released in the turbine cavities
as cooling air to keep the temperature on the components from rising to critical
levels. The composition and molecular mass of each fluid is shown in table 3.9.
The fluid properties such as dynamic viscosity, specific heat capacity and thermal
conductivity are specified in the setup. The fraction of hot gas in each cell is
obtained by solving a transport equation and the properties of the mixed fluid are
calculated for an ideal mixture.
Table 3.9: Components of the turbine inlet fluid and the cooling fluid

Mass Fraction Mass Fraction Molar Mass

Components
(Turbine Inlet) (Cooling Air) [kg/kmol]
SO2 0 0 0
H2O 5.263 0.603 18.015
CO2 5.795 0.045 44.01
N2 73.501 75.07 28.013
O2 14.189 23 31.999
Ar 1.251 1.278 39.948

As it has been discussed in this chapter, different models are created to study
34 Method

the effect of several parameters to find the most appropriate model for estimating
the temperature distribution profile in front of each blade/vane to be used as a
boundary condition for heat load analysis. A list of the models created is illustrated
in figure 3.18.

Turbine
Temperature
Prediction

Simplified Detailed
Geometry Geometry

One One
Sector Sector
Passage Passage

Steady Transient Steady Transient Steady Transient Steady Transient

Figure 3.18: Summary of the models that will be invesitgated during this study
Chapter 4

Results

In this chapter, the results from all cases will be presented and compared to the
experimental measurements to find the methods with the most accurate results.
These factors, as previously stated, are:

• Including cavities and fillets in the geometry

• Modeling a sector instead of a single passage

• Using transient simulations

In order to investigate the influence of each of these factors, the temperature

attenuation in front of the leading edge of each blade from all cases are com-
pared with each other and with the measurements by the ETS thermo-crystals.
Some important notes about the presentation of the results are addressed in the
following:

• Due to the large number of simulations and the difficulty in isolating the
effect of each factor, in each section, only similar cases will be compared
with each other .

• The variable used for comparing the results is the Recovery Temperature,
equation 3.1. For convenience, in this chapter, whenever the word tempera-
ture is mentioned, it is meant as the recovery temperature. To discuss the
static temperature, it will be explicitly mentioned so.

• The temperature distribution is obtained by calculating the mass flow aver-

age of the temperature on a narrow plane in front of the leading edge where
the measurement point coordinates are located.

• The temperature distributions at the leading edge for the sector simulations
are the average of the distribution of each component at each row.

• As it will be seen in this section, results from all methods show some discrep-
ancy from the measurement in the temperature distribution near the shroud

35
36 Results

in the second stage. Therefore, the discussion and comparison will mainly be
focused on the first 70% of the blade span and when properties at the near
end-wall region is discussed, it is meant the near hub region. The end-wall
region at the shroud will be explicitly mentioned so.
• In figures with radial temperature attenuation plots, to ease the comparison
between each two cases, the plots with similar line type (solid line or dashed)
but with different colors (blue and red) will be compared in the section they
are presented.
• All temperature contours in stators are shown in stationary frame and in
rotors are shown in relative frame. The + sign in temperature contours
indicate the measurement points.

4.1 Aerodynamic Properties

Before discussing the differences in radial temperature attenuation at the leading
edge, the impact of the factors are investigated with respect to aerodynamic prop-
erties. In figure 4.1, the axial distributions of the Mach number, total pressure
and total temperature for some of the cases are shown.
The impact of the parameters are investigated with respect to aerodynamic
properties

Figure 4.1: Axial distribution of aerodynamic properties: total temperature, static pressure
and Mach number
4.1 Aerodynamic Properties 37

Table 4.1: Percentage of maximum and minimum difference between difference methods in each
location

Total
Location Mach Number Static Pressure
Temperature
V1 LE 0.9 0.1 0.4
V1 TE 0.0 0.3 0.5
B1 LE 2.0 1.2 0.6
B1 TE 27.4 0.7 0.5
V2 LE 10.9 2.3 0.6
V2 TE 2.1 1.1 0.3
B2 LE 1.8 1.2 0.5
B2 TE 4.1 0.9 0.6

all cases result in fairly similar average results in regards to aerodynamic prop-
erties (except for the Mach Number between rotor 1 and stator 2)
As it can be seen in figure 4.1 and table 4.1, all cases result in fairly similar
average results in regards to aerodynamic properties (except for the Mach Num-
ber between rotor 1 and stator 2). Even when comparing the Degree of Reaction
between different cases in figure 4.2, the differences between each method is neg-
ligible. It is therefore not beneficial to use transient simulations or include fillets
and cavities in the model when the circumferential and spanwise deviation is not
of importance.
When performing thermal stress analysis, temperature distribution in tangen-
tial and radial direction is of high importance. Therefore, the investigation of the
effect of each method is focused on radial temperature attenuation.

Stage 1 Stage 2
0.35 0.45

0.4
0.3
0.35
0.25
0.3
0.2 0.25

0.15 0.2

0.15
0.1
0.1
0.05
0.05

0 0
1Passage 1Passage 1Passage Sector 1Passage Sector 1Passage 1Passage 1Passage Sector 1Passage Sector
Steady Steady Transient Transient Transient Transient Steady Steady Transient Transient Transient Transient
Simple Detailed Simple Simple Detailed Detailed Simple Detailed Simple Simple Detailed Detailed

Figure 4.2: Degree of reaction obtained in each stage for different methods

One of the main aerodynamic properties that could to be used for comparison
between cases is the isentropic efficiency. However, since the efficiency was not the
main focus of the study, it has not been investigated.
38 Results

4.2 Cavities and Fillets

One of the aims of this study has been to evaluate how including cavities and fillets
will influence the radial temperature attenuation. The main cause of difference
when including the cavities and fillets in the geometry is how the cooling air enters
the main flow. In the simplified geometry, since the cavities are implemented as
patches, the flow direction must be given, and since these values are not known,
they are estimated. But more importantly is how the mixing process is simulated
in each case. The influence of including cavities and fillets in the geometry will be
investigated separately for steady state and transient simulations.

4.2.1 Steady State

The radial temperature attenuation of all steady state simulations is shown in
figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all steady
state simulations

When comparing the single passage cases, in the first stage, it is seen that both
simple and detailed geometries show a good agreement with the measurements,
with the exception of one measurement point at the end-wall region near the hub
in the rotor. Since in the first stage, the unsteady blade row interactions has not
yet affected the flow, the differences between the two methods is mainly focused
at the end-wall regions close to cooling cavities. The differences at the end-wall
regions in the first stage are mainly due to cavities being located at the leading
edge of the blades. In figure 4.4 the cooling air flow from cavity h1 in simple and
detailed geometries are shown.
In the second stage of the turbine, the temperature distribution does not have a
4.2 Cavities and Fillets 39

(a) (b)

Figure 4.4: Effect of leading edge stagnation point on cooling air flow at cooling cavity h1 on
the hub of stator 1 in a single passage-state state simulation for (a) simple geometry and (b)
detailed geometry

parabolic shape as in the first stage due to the flow complexity after rotor 1 which
is a result of the unsteady blade row interactions and the cooling air entering the
main flow from several cooling cavity inlets. Although the trends in both methods
are somewhat similar, the detailed geometry shows a higher temperature at the
mid-span and lower temperature at the end-wall region compared to the simple
geometry.
In a study by Dyson et. al [15], they showed that steady simulations where the
MP method is utilized, result in lower temperature than experiments at end-wall
regions and higher temperature at mid-span. In figure 4.3, the single passage sim-
ple geometry shows better agreement with the measurements at end-wall regions in
the second stage, whereas the detailed geometry shows a lower temperature than
the measurements at end-wall regions which is in agreement with the findings of
Dyson et. al [15].
In order to better understand the reason for the differences between simple and
detailed geometry in steady state simulations, the temperature contours before and
after the stage 1 rotor-stator interface is shown in figure 4.5 to demonstrate how
the MP effects the temperature field at interfaces.

Simple Geometry Detailed Geometry

Stator 1
Outlet

Rotor 1
Inlet

Figure 4.5: Total temperature contour at stator 1 outlet and rotor 1 inlet for simple and
detailed geometry in a single passage and steady state case to illustrate the changes in properties
in a MP interface
40 Results

The difference in cooling air exit into the main flow between simple and detailed
geometry is an important factor. In the first rotor, when comparing the cooling
air exit into the main flow from cavity h3, shown in figure 4.6, clear differences in
cooling air flows are noticed.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.6: Dispersion of cooling air into the main flow at cooling cavity h3 on the hub of rotor
1 in a single passage-state state simulation for (a) simple geometry and (b) detailed geometry

In the sector domain, since the FR method is used, it can be assumed that
the effect of fillets and cavities is being investigated at an instance of a transient
simulation. In contrast to the single passage cases, the flow properties are not
circumferentially averaged at the rotor-stator interface in sector cases.
The same differences that were seen in the first stator of the single passage
cases is seen for the sector cases since it is before the first rotor-stator interface.
In the second stage, the detailed geometry does not have the same diversity in the
temperature attenuation as the simple geometry and follows the trend from the
experiment more closely. This could be an indication of a better mixing of cooling
air with main flow when cavities are included in the geometry instead of being
implemented as patches.
Since using the FR method is highly dependent on the position of the rotors
and stator, it is difficult to isolate the effect of the cavities and fillets. Therefore,
further investigation may be required.

4.2.2 Transient
After investigating the effect of cavities and fillets on steady state simulations,
their effect on transient simulations will be explored. The radial temperature
attenuation of the transient simulations is shown in figure 4.7.
As mentioned before, in the first stage (before the rotor 1 leading edge), the
unsteadiness of rotor-stator interactions are not fully developed. When comparing
the single passage cases, in the first stage, the same effects can be seen for both
steady state and transient simulations. In the second stage, the main effect of
cavities is seen at the end-wall region. As opposed to the steady state simulations
where the cavities cause higher temperature at the mid-span, in the transient sim-
ulations, including cavities is decreasing the temperature in the mid-span region.
When comparing the sector cases, it should first be reminded that the differ-
ence between the transient sector cases and steady state sector cases, is that in
4.2 Cavities and Fillets 41

Figure 4.7: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all
transient simulations

latter cases, the results are not dependent on the blade row positions. The in-
fluence of cavities in the first stator are similar to the single passage cases shown
previously, where the temperature at the near end-wall region is lower for the
detailed geometry.
In the second stage, both cases follow the measurement trends closely, however,
the detailed geometry corrects the trend at the end-wall region. This is especially
seen in the second stator. The temperature contour in front of stator vanes for
transient simulations of sector domains is shown in figure 4.8.

(a)

(b)

Figure 4.8: Transient average of Total temperature contour at stator 2 inlet for sector-transient
simulations with (a) simple and (b) detailed geometry
42 Results

This effect of the cavities was not seen in any of the other cases. All other
cases decreased the temperature at the end-wall region without correcting the
trend when cavities were included in the domain. Similar to all other cases, the
temperature at the end-wall region is decreased in the transient-sector simulations.

4.2.3 Near Shroud Temperature Prediction

None of the methods were fully able to predict the temperature attenuation near
the shroud in the second stage. However, when comparing the results in figures 4.3
and 4.7 , it can be seen that the simple geometry has a slightly better agreement
with the measurements than the detailed geometry. In figure 4.9, the exit cooling
flow from s2 cavity (in front of rotor 1) is shown. Similar differences that were
see between cooling flows at cavity h3 in figure 4.6 is also seen at s2 cavity. The
influence of cooling cavities on the temperature field at rotor 1 exit is shown in
figure 4.10. In figure 4.11, the temperature field in front of the stator 2 vane is
shown for a transient simulation. In this figure, the influence of a cavity on the
next blade row can be seen where the flow properties are not circumferentially
averaged.

Figure 4.9: Dispersion of cooling air into the main flow at cooling cavity s2 on the shroud
of rotor 1 in a single passage-state state simulation for (a) simple geometry and (b) detailed
geometry

(a) (b)

Figure 4.10: Total temperature contour at rotor 1 blade trailing edge of single passage-steady
state simulations for (a) simple and (b) detailed geometry
4.3 Transient Simulations 43

(a)

(b)

Figure 4.11: Transient average of total temperature contour for transient-sector simulation on
(a) simple and (b) detailed geometry

4.3 Transient Simulations

The second aim of this study has been to evaluate the importance of using transient
simulations in turbomachinery. It should be reminded that the TT method is
applied for the single passage cases and the PT method is applied for sector cases.

4.3.1 One Passage

When comparing the simple cases in figure 4.12, it is seen that using transient
simulations will not cause any significant changes in the first stage of the turbine
since the unsteady rotor-stator interactions have not been developed. In the second
stator, changes at the end-wall is seen without any improvements. In the last
stator, the unsteadiness is fully developed which explains the improvement in the
trend and in accuracy.
In figure 4.13, the total temperature contour in front of rotor 1 blade for simple
geometry with steady state and transient methods are shown. As it can be seen,
the differences in the temperature fields are not significant.
It was previously shown that including fillets and cavities in the geometry
will not improve the results in steady state simulations but will improve the radial
attenuation in transient simulations, especially at near end-wall region. In contrast
to the simple geometry where using a transient simulation has no effect on the first
stage, using the transient simulation improves the results near the hub region of
the first rotor in detailed geometries where cavities are included in the model.
The main improvements on detailed geometries are seen in the second stage
where the unsteadiness of the blade row interactions are fully developed. When
comparing the contours from the second stator between transient and steady state
simulation of a simple geometry, figure 4.14, the differences become evident. This
is in agreement with the findings of Tallman [29], where the unsteady predictions
showed a flatter temperature profile compared to the steady state simulations.
44 Results

Figure 4.12: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all one
passage simulations

(a) (b)

Figure 4.13: Total temperature contour at rotor 1 blade leading edge of single passage-simple
domain for (a) steady state and (b) transient (transient average) simulation

It was mentioned earlier when investigating the effect of cavities in steady

state simulations of single passage cases that the simple geometries show closer
agreement with the measured temperature at the end-wall region compared to the
detailed geometry, as Dyson et. al [15] have shown. In this section it was seen
that using transient simulations on simple geometry is not improving the accuracy
similar to the detailed geometry. It can be concluded that the simple geometry
is clearly not correct, and the fact that it is showing relatively accurate radial
temperature attenuation in steady state simulations where the unsteadiness of the
flow is removed, is by coincidence.
To better understand the differences between transient and steady state simu-
lations, the swirling velocity contour is shown with the tangential velocity vectors
to show the secondary vortices at the end of the first stage in figure 4.15 and at
the beginning of the second stage in figure 4.16.
4.3 Transient Simulations 45

(a) (b)

Figure 4.14: Total temperature at stator 2 inlet of single passage-simple domain for (a) steady
state and (b) transient (transient average) simulation

In addition to the differences in secondary flows at the interface between the

first and second stage, even the development of the unsteadiness in rotor 1 is
different. In figure 4.17, the total temperature contour with velocity vectors at the
trailing edge of rotor 1 blade is shown for a steady state and transient simulation of
a simple geometry. Even though the unsteadiness has developed and the secondary
vortices are visible, the shape and size of the vortices are different; the steady state
simulation has smaller vortices than the transient simulation.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.15: Swirling velocity contour with velocity vectors at rotor 1 outlet for (a) steady
state and (b) transient (one instance) simulation. The blue region shows a counter clockwise
vortex and the yellow shows a clockwise vortex.
46 Results

(a) (b)

Figure 4.16: Swirling velocity contour with velocity vectors at stator 2 inlet for (a) steady state
and (b) transient (one instance) simulation. The blue region shows a counter clockwise vortex
and the yellow shows a clockwise vortex.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.17: Total temperature contour at rotor 1 blade trailing edge with velocity vectors of
single passage-simple domain for (a) steady state and (b) transient (transient average) simulation

4.3.2 Sector
In this section the influence of using transient simulations on a sector of the tur-
bine is shown. The radial temperature attenuation of transient and steady state
simulations for sector cases are shown in figure 4.18.
Transient simulations on sector cases do not have the same effect on the results
as in single passage cases. For sector cases, the trends are somewhat similar be-
tween steady state and transient simulations, but the accuracy is greatly improved
in both stages in transient simulations.
The differences between the effect of transient simulations on one passage and
sector domains is due to the differences between the MP and FR methods. In the
FR method, the rotating wakes, secondary flows etc. are not removed, as they are
in the MP method, but remain in exactly the same position. Even though retain-
ing the unsteady blade row interactions results in similar trends as the transient
simulations, deviation from measurements is seen due to the interactions remain-
4.3 Transient Simulations 47

Figure 4.18: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all sector
simulations

ing in the same positions and the simulations high dependency on how the rotors
and the stators are positioned.

As seen previously when investigating the effect of using a sector instead of a

single passage of the domain, using the FR method on a sector of the detailed geom-
etry will result in higher temperature at the end-wall region and lower temperature
at the mid-span region. Radial temperature distribution from both simulations
follow similar trends, but lower agreements is seen with the measurements for the
steady state simulation.

Another difference between transient simulations on sector domains of simple

and detailed geometry, is the changes made at end-wall regions. For the simple ge-
ometry, changes of the temperature attenuation at end-wall regions is insignificant,
whereas for the detailed geometry, a clear reduction in temperature is observed
that significantly improves the trend and accuracy in the second stage. This could
be due to the location of h4 and h5 cooling cavities in front of the second stage
rotor and stator. In the simple geometry, since the cavities are implemented as
patches, the cooling air flow at the cavity boundary condition does not change at
different instances in a transient simulation, which is why transient simulations do
not effect the results in that region. In detailed geometry cases however, since the
cavities are included in the domain, the cooling air flow from the cavities is sub-
ject to change at each instance, which explains why the temperature attenuation
is improved at the end-wall region.
48 Results

4.3.3 Transient Effect on Cavities

In figure 4.13, it was seen that performing transient simulations on simple geome-
tries where cavities are implemented as patches does not have a significant effect
on the temperature field and on the radial temperature attenuation at end-wall
regions. In contrast to the simple geometry, in detailed geometry improvements
are made on the radial temperature attenuation in rotor 1, especially near the
end-wall, when simulations are performed in transient. The temperature contour
of the detailed geometry in front of rotor 1 blade in figure 4.19 shows how

(a) (b)

Figure 4.19: Total temperature contour at rotor 1 blade leading edge of single passage-detailed
domain for (a) steady state and (b) transient (Transient Average) simulation

This influence becomes more evident when the flow at cavity exits are com-
pared for steady state and transient simulations. In figure 4.20 and figure 4.21
where the velocity vectors at cavity h3 exit is shown for simple and detailed ge-
ometry for steady state and transient simulations it can be seen that in the simple
geometry, the velocity vectors for steady state and transient simulations are iden-
tical, whereas in detailed geometry, clear differences are caused by the transient
simulation.

(a)

(b)
Figure 4.20: Velocity vectors at cavity h3 exit for simple geometry for (a) steady state and (b)
transient (Transient Average) simulation
4.4 Sector vs One Passage 49

(a)

(b)

Figure 4.21: Velocity vectors at cavity h3 exit for detailed geometry for (a) steady state and
(b) transient (Transient Average) simulation

4.4 Sector vs One Passage

This section a comparison between using one passage and a sector of a turbine.
For steady state simulations it is a comparison between the MP and FR methods
and for transient simulations, between the TT and the PT methods.

4.4.1 Simple
When comparing the steady state cases in figure 4.22, the results in the first
rotor shows a clear shift in temperature distribution for the sector case. In the
transient simulations, when investigating the temperature attenuation at different
instances, it was seen that it was higher than the experiments at some instances
and lower at other, which results in an average temperature attenuation similar
to the experiments. This shows how the position of each blade row can affect the
results.
In the second stage, even the trends are different. In the second stator, only
the trend at the end-wall region but in the second rotor, the trend is completely
different. The most notable differences are the higher temperature at the end-wall
and lower temperature at the mid-span region (only in the rotor) for the sector
case.
When investigating the transient cases, the accuracy of the TT and PT meth-
ods are evaluated. Considering the TT method only requires a single passage, it
is preferable considering computational costs. In the first stage, the results are
identical with only insignificant differences at the end-wall of rotor 1. In the sec-
ond stage, even though using a sector of the turbine causes a slight increase in
accuracy, the trend remains the same and the results at the near end-wall region
is not improved.
50 Results

Figure 4.22: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all
simulation with a simple geometry

4.4.2 Detailed
In figure 4.23, the radial temperature attenuation for the detailed simulations are
shown. Similar to the simple geometry, the temperature attenuation in the first
stator is identical but a shift in rotor 1 is seen in the detailed geometry as well. In
the second stator, the temperature at the first 40% span is changed, similar to the
simple geometry. In the second rotor, the radial temperature distribution is shown
to be flatter for the sector simulation. This is also seen later when investigating
the effect of using transient simulations.
In the transient simulations of the detailed geometry, like the simple geometry,
the changes in the first stage is insignificant. In the second stage, in contrast to
the simple geometry, the same trend is not seen for the sector as for the single
passage. In the second stator, the temperature trend at the near end-wall region
is significantly improved and follows the same trend as the experiments. In the
second rotor, both methods have a trend similar to the experimental data, but the
sector domain has a slightly better agreement.
To investigate if the difference in the second stator is due to which transient
method that was used, a transient simulation on a sector domain using the TT
method was run. The temperature contour in front of stator 2 vane from both the
TT and PT methods are shown in figure 4.24. As it can be seen, the temperature
contours are almost identical. In figure 4.25, the temperature contour of the TT
method on a single passage is shown. When comparing the single passage to
the sector domain, it can be seen that the single passage shows one temperature
pattern without any repetition whereas the same pattern is being repeated in the
sector domain three times. This would explain why the TT method in a single
passage method does not improve the temperature attenuation.
4.4 Sector vs One Passage 51

Figure 4.23: Radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge of each blade row for all
simulation with a detailed geometry

(a)

(b)
Figure 4.24: Transient average of total temperature contour at stator 1 blade leading edge of
sector-detailed domain applying the (a) TT method and (b) PT method
52 Results

Figure 4.25: Transient average of total temperature contour at stator 1 blade leading edge of
single passage-detailed domain applying the TT method

4.5 Blade Surfaces

In this section, the temperature distribution on the blade surfaces will be shown
for different methods to find how each method will influence the temperature on
the blade surfaces. Due to the large number of figures of blade temperature con-
tours, only a selected few will be shown and discussed. However, the temperature
contours for all blades in each blade row are presented in Appendix A.
In the first stage, the temperature profile of all blades and vanes in each blade
row is identical and therefore can easily be explained. In the second row however,
each vane and blade has a different temperature profile which makes it difficult to
discuss all differences.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.26: Temperature contour on stator 1 blade surface on the suction side for (a) simple
and (b) detailed geometry

In the first stator, only cavities effect the results. In figure 4.26, the tempera-
ture contour for the first stator vane is shown. The only difference is near the hub
which is a direct influence of h1 cavity.
In the first rotor of the simple geomtry turbine, clear differences between tem-
perature contours on the blade surfaces are noticed, figure 4.27. In transient sim-
ulations, with the presence of secondary vortices on the suction side, the intensity
4.5 Blade Surfaces 53

of the cooling at the leading edge region decreases. The secondary vortices cause
more mixing between the cooling air and the main flow which results in smaller
regions with high and low temperature.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.27: Temperature contour on rotor 1 blade surface on the suction side for simple
geometry. (a) Steady State and (b) Transient

On the pressure side, the differences between transient and steady state sim-
ulations is the high temperature region as seen in figure 4.28. In the transient
simulation, the high temperature region is larger than the steady state simulation
which is caused by the larger vortices in transient simulations. This was also seen
in figure 4.17 where the larger vortices of the transient simulations caused a more
radial spreading of the high temperature region on the pressure surface of the
blade.

(a) (b)

Figure 4.28: Temperature contour on rotor 1 blade surface on the suction side for simple
geometry. (a) Steady State and (b) Transient
54 Results
Chapter 5

Discussions

In the previous chapter, the results from all simulations were presented and com-
pared with each other and the experimental measurements. Each factor had a
certain effect on the radial temperature attenuation which will be thoroughly dis-
cussed in this chapter.
The cavities and fillets were one of the main factors that was studied during
this project. It was seen that in detailed geometry, the temperature at end-wall
regions is lower than simple geometry, and higher at mid-span regions. This was
especially seen in steady state simulations. At stator 1 outlet, figure 4.5, the
differences between temperature contours become noticeable, but since in single
passage steady state simulation the MP method is used, the changes caused by
cavities are circumferentially averaged and therefore, the true effect of cavities is
not transferred to the next blade row. However, in the first stage, the changes
might seem insignificant, but with the addition of other cavities in the next blade
rows and the circumferential averaging between each two rows, the differences
become larger.
The difference seen at cooling air flow between simple and detailed geometry
in figure 4.6 and 4.9 is that in the simple geometry with patches as cavities, the
cooling air has a more concentrated diffusion into the main flow, whereas when
cavities are included, the cooling air flow is more radially spread. In steady state
simulations, with the circumferential averaging at each interface, the temperature
will become higher at mid-span and lower at end-walls due to the radial spreading
of cooling air in detailed geometry. That is why cavities in the geometry will
not result in a more accurate prediction of the radial temperature attenuation in
steady state simulations.
In section 4.2.2 where the radial temperature attenuation was shown for simple
and detailed geometries in transient simulations, when comparing the sector do-
mains, it was seen that including cavities in the model shows a better agreement
with the measurement at near-hub regions. In figure 4.8 it can be seen that, the
cooling air in the simple geometry is not as tangentially spread in the near-hub
region as the detailed geometry. This, as seen previously, is due to the concen-
trated diffusion of cooling air into the main flow due to implementing the cavities

55
56 Discussions

as patches on the surfaces instead of including cavities.

Although the radial spreading is improving the results near-hub region, the
same cannot be said about the near-shroud region. Figure 4.10 shows that in
the simple geometry, the cooling flow is concentrated without much spreading in
comparison to the cooling flow in the detailed geometry where the cooling is more
radially spread. Due to the cooling air being concentrated at 65% span in the
simple geometry, it follows the trend of the experiments more closely. The radial
spreading in the detailed geometry will cause a gradual decrease in temperature
instead of a sudden decrease at 65% span and then a sudden increase at almost
75% span. For the transient simulations, the contours in figure 4.11 show that
even when the properties are not circumferentially averaged, a low temperature
region at 65% span appears in simple geometry, but not in detailed geometry.
There could be several reasons to why the detailed geometry is not able to
predict the temperature attenuation like the simple geometry near the shroud, but
the one possible reason is inaccuracy in the geometry of the cavities. In order to
match the cavity curves with the shroud curve and also to overcome the problems
during the meshing process, slight modifications had to be made to the cavity
geometry. Another possible reason could be incorrect cooling boundary condition
that were imported from the in-house code, 2ndFlow.
In the previous chapter, it was seen that all methods produce similar tem-
perature attenuation in the first stator. In reality, the outlet temperature profile
of the combustion chamber that is the inlet temperature of the turbine is a 2-
dimensional profile. The ratio between the number of combustion chambers to
stator 1 vanes is 1 to 2, which means that the temperature profile is repeated for
every two vanes. However, instead of using an actual 2-dimensional temperature
profile at the turbine inlet, a one dimensional profile that was obtained from the
experiment is set as the turbine inlet boundary condition. Therefore, the sector
domain and the single passage domain have identical temperature profiles at the
inlet and the radial temperature attenuation at the leading edge in both domains
are the same.
The only factor that caused a change on the temperature attenuation in the
first stator was including cavities in the domain. Using cavities instead of patches
directly effects how the cooling air enters the main flow in the turbine, figure 4.4. In
the simple geometry where the cooling inlet is implemented as patches, capturing
the full effect of the stagnation region in front of the leading edge is difficult. In
the detailed geometry, the stagnation region influences the flow inside the cavity
and therefore prevents the concentration of cooling air in front of the vane leading
edge which results in higher temperatures near the hub.
As mentioned previously, the transient method has little to none effect on
the results from the first stage. In figure 4.13, the total temperature contour
in front of rotor 1 blade for simple geometry with steady state and transient
methods were shown. Even though in transient simulations, flow properties are not
circumferentially averaged, the contour does not differ largely from the steady state
contour which is due to the unsteadiness of rotor-stator interactions that is not
fully developed in the first stage. In the second stator, figure 4.14, the differences
become evident. The temperature contour will no longer have a layered pattern
 57

as it had in front of rotor 1 blade, and therefore, circumferentially averaging the

properties is incorrect.
At the end of the first stage, the unsteady rotor-stator interactions are fully
developed as seen in figure 4.15, where the secondary vortices that are created due
to the rotor-stator interactions in both steady state and transient simulations are
shown. However, as it is seen at the inlet of the second stator in figure 4.16, the
steady state simulations do not further advance the interactions to the next blade
row since all flow properties are circumferentially averaged whereas in transient
simulations, all vortices and unsteadiness progress to the next blade row. It was
also seen in figure 4.17 that at rotor 1 outlet, the shape and size of the vortices
are different; the steady state simulation has smaller vortices than the transient
simulation. The effect of larger vortices can be seen at the end-walls where the
temperature contours are not laterally layered and on the pressure side of the blade
(opposite side of the voritces) where the high temperature region is more spread
radially on the surface.
The main effect of removing the vortices and unsteadiness between stage 1
and stage 2 can be seen in rotor 2. In the steady state simulations where the
MP method is used, the temperature profile in front of rotor 2 blade has a high
temperature at mid-span and a low temperature at end-wall compared to the
transient simulations. In the transient simulations, the secondary vortices are
causing a mixing between the high temperature region in the mid-span and the
low temperature region at end-wall. This will result in a flatter temperature profile
compared to the steady state simulations with MP method which is in agreement
with the findings of Tallman [29].
In figures 4.13 and 4.19 where the temperature contour in front of rotor 1
blade for both steady state and transient simulations were compared for simple
and detailed geometry, it was seen that the in detailed geometry, cooling air diffuses
more in transient simulation compared to simple geometry. In simple geometry,
since the cooling flow condition does not change in different instances in time when
cavities are implemented as patches, using transient simulations will not have a
significant effect on the cooling flow, whereas in detailed geometry, the exit flow
from the cavity is changed at each instance in transient simulations which will
result in clear changes even in the first stage.
Similar effects were seen on sector domains where the temperature attenuation
near the hub in a simple geometry is only slightly changed by transient simulations,
whereas in detailed geometry, a significant change is seen near the hub. This effect
is clearly seen in figure 4.20 and figure 4.21 where the velocity vectors at cavity
h3 exit is shown for simple and detailed geometry for steady state and transient
simulations. In the simple geometry, the velocity vectors for steady state and
transient simulations are identical, whereas in detailed geometry, clear differences
are caused by the transient simulation.
It was seen in detailed geometry that by using a sector, with the Profile Trans-
formaiton method, instead of a single passage, with the TT method, the temper-
ature attenuation will have a better agreement with the measurements, especially
in the second stator. To further investigate this issue, a transient simulation using
the TT method was performed on a sector domain of a detailed geometry. The
58 Discussions

temperature contour in front of stator 2 blade from both the TT and PT methods
are shown in figure 4.24. As it can be seen, the temperature contours are almost
identical. This indicates that the differences is not caused by the TT method.
When comparing the temperature contour in front of stator 2 vane of the
single passage, figure 4.25 and the sector domains, figure 4.24, it can be seen that
the single passage shows one temperature pattern without any repetition whereas
the same pattern is being repeated in the sector domain three times. This is
directly related to the number of passages in stator 1 with only one passage in
the single passage domain and three passages in the sector domain. Since stators
are stationary in the turbine and rotors are rotational, in average, all passages in
the second stage stator experience the same flow from the rotor, which is why the
tangential diversities are independent from the rotor and are solely dependent on
the stator from the previous stage.
In the actual turbine, the number of vanes in the first and second stage stator
are 36 and 52 respectively which results in a ratio of 0.69. In the sector domain,
the number of vanes modeled in each stator is 3 and 4, whereas in single passage
cases, it is 1 and 2 which will give a ratio of 0.75 and 0.5 respectively. It is clear
that the sector domain is closer to the actual turbine with regards to the ratio
between stator 1 and stator 2 vane count, as seen in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1: A summary of the ratio between stator 1 and stator 2 vane count for each domain.

Difference from
Domain stator 1 stator 2 Ratio
Real Turbine (%)
Real Turbine 36 52 0.692 -
Single Passage 1 2 0.5 27.7
Sector 3 4 0.75 8.3
Recommendation 2 3 0.67 3.7

As discussed, when using the TT method, the ratio between stator 1 and stator
2 vane count becomes of high importance. To reach a ratio close to the real turbine,
a new model is recommended which has 2, 3, 3, 3 passages in each row respectively.
The blade temperature contours of the first stator, figure 4.26, showed that in
simple geometry, since the stagnation region will not fully affect the cooling flow,
the blade surface near the hub will have a lower temperature than the detailed
geometry. In the first rotor, in transient simulations, with the presence of sec-
ondary vortices on the suction side, the intensity of the cooling flow at the leading
edge region decreases. The secondary vortices cause more mixing between the
cooling air and the main flow which results in smaller regions with high and low
temperature.
On the pressure side, the differences between transient and steady state sim-
ulations is the high temperature region as seen in figure 4.28. In the transient
simulation, the high temperature region is larger than the steady state simulation
which is caused by the larger vortices in transient simulations. This was also seen
in figure 4.17 where the larger vortices of the transient simulations caused a more
radial spread of the high temperature region on the pressure surface of the blade.
 59

In every study, there are several factors that could cause an error. In this study,
the first and probably the most influential factor is the errors in the experimental
results. Since rotors are rotating at a high speed, each blade will experience the
same average temperature in time, and therefore the location of the measured
blade is not a crucial factor. Stator vanes however, are stationary and each vane
experiences a different average temperature in time. It was mentioned in Chapter 3
that in each blade row, several blades were measured. In some cases, one or two
of the ETD thermo-crystals were lost during the testing and instead of averaging
the results from several blades, only the measurement from one blade was used.
This was the case for the thermo-crystals at 65% span in stator 2, which would
increase the uncertainty of the results in this point.
Another probable cause for error was the slight changes in cavity geometries
to match them with the hub and shroud curves and the boundary conditions
that were imported from the Siemens in-house code "2ndFlow". Also at the inlet,
instead of an actual 2-dimensional temperature profile, a 1-dimensional profile was
used.
60 Discussions
Chapter 6

Conclusion

In this project, several factors and their importance in the aero-thermal analysis
of the Siemens SGT-600 gas turbine was investigated. These factors included the
use of transient simulations, cavities and fillets in the model and modeling a sector
instead of a single passage of the turbine. Although there were pros and cons for
each methods, each had a significant influence on the results.
None of the methods were fully able to predict the temperature prediction in
the top 30% span of the turbine. The cause for this is unclear and should be
further investigated.
Initially it was assumed that including cavities in the domain would improve
the results. However, in steady state simulations, since the unsteadiness caused
by the blade row interactions were removed, the real effect of the cavities were
not seen and the accuracy of the results decreased. In transient simulations, large
improvements were seen when cavities were included in the geometry.
In the first stage, all methods showed similar results. Cases with similar geome-
tries (simple or detailed) showed very similar results in the first stage for steady
state (Mixing Plane method) and both transient methods. This is due to the Un-
steady Rotor-Stator Interactions which are not fully developed until the end of the
first stage and therefore, using transient methods would not have a large effect on
the result and would not be beneficial for a study on a single stage.
For studies on more than just a single stage, the steady state simulations
were unable to accurately predict the temperature distribution in front of the
blades whereas transient simulations showed a large improvement in the results by
preserving the unsteadiness caused by the blade row interactions. It was expected
that the Time Transformation method would produce more accurate results since
it applies the Phase-Shifted method, however, it was shown that even though the
Time Transformation method simulates the boundary condition more accurately,
it does not resolve the blade count ratio inaccuracy between the first and second
stage stator in a single passage. Therefore, it was recommended that a new domain
be used for the Time Transformation method which has a closer blade count ratio
between the stators to the real turbine.
There are many other factors that can be investigated in future studies. An-

61
62 Conclusion

other transient method that applies the same Phase-Shifted method but in a dif-
ferent way than the Time Transformation, is the Fourier Transformation. This
method does not have the same restrictions as the Time Transformation and can
be extended to a multistage model and does not need to have a PT or MP inter-
face in between stages. This method could resolve the blade count ratio inaccuracy
between the stators.
It was mentioned in the method that the temperature profile used for the
inlet boundary condition is a 1-dimensional profile whereas the actual profile is
2-dimensional. In a study by Dyson et al. [15], they showed that using a 2-
dimensional profile for the inlet temperature will improve the results. For future
studies, the 2-dimensional temperature profile can be used at the inlet to investi-
gate its importance.
In this study, the y+ value was close to 30. Decreasing the y+ value to 1
would increase the accuracy, especially in the near-wall regions. Using a Laminar-
Turbulent model could also highly improve the results in the near-wall regions. The
turbulence model that was used in this simulation has been the RANS model SST
k-ω which models all turbulence of the flow. Testing other turbulence models such
as SAS or LES where the turbulence is partially resolved would be an interesting
subject for a future study.
In a study by Liu et al. [30], it was shown that the turbulence Prandtl number
has a large effect on the effectiveness of film cooling. Investigating the effect of the
Prandtl number would be interesting, especially for gas turbines with film cooling.
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Appendix A

Blade Surface Temperature

In the discussion sector, a few of the blade surface temperature contours were
shown. All blade surface temperature contours will be presented here.

A.1 Stator 1
• Steady State - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.1: Temperature contour on Stator 1 blade surface steady state-simple geometry

67
68 Blade Surface Temperature

• Steady State - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.2: Temperature contour on Stator 1 blade surface steady state-detailed geometry

• Transient - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.3: Temperature contour on Stator 1 blade surface transient-simple geometry

A.2 Rotor 1 69

• Transient - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.4: Temperature contour on Stator 1 blade surface transient-detailed geometry

A.2 Rotor 1
• Steady State - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.5: Temperature contour on Rotor 1 blade surface steady state-simple geometry
70 Blade Surface Temperature

• Steady State - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.6: Temperature contour on Rotor 1 blade surface steady state-detailed geometry

• Transient - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.7: Temperature contour on Rotor 1 blade surface transient-simple geometry

A.3 Stator 2 71

• Transient - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.8: Temperature contour on Rotor 1 blade surface transient-detailed geometry

A.3 Stator 2
• Single Passage - Steady State - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.9: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface steady state-simple geometry
72 Blade Surface Temperature

• Single Passage - Steady State - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.10: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface steady state-detailed geometry
A.3 Stator 2 73

• Single Passage - Transient - Simple Geometry

Vane 1

Vane 2

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.11: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface single passage-transient-simple

geometry
74 Blade Surface Temperature

• Single Passage - Transient - Detailed Geometry

Vane 1

Vane 2

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.12: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface singple passage-transient-detailed

geometry
A.3 Stator 2 75

• Sector - Transient - Simple Geometry

Vane 1 Vane 2

Vane 3 Vane 4

Pressure Side Suction Side Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.13: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface sector-transient-simple geometry

76 Blade Surface Temperature

• Sector - Transient - Detailed Geometry

Vane 1 Vane 2

Vane 3 Vane 4

Pressure Side Suction Side Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.14: Temperature contour on Stator 2 blade surface sector-transient-detailed geometry

A.4 Rotor 2 77

A.4 Rotor 2
• Steady State - Simple Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.15: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface steady state-simple geometry

• Steady State - Detailed Geometry

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.16: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface steady state-detailed geometry
78 Blade Surface Temperature

• Single Passage - Transient - Simple Geometry

Vane 1

Vane 2

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.17: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface single passage-transient-simple

geometry
A.4 Rotor 2 79

• Single Passage - Transient - Detailed Geometry

Vane 1

Vane 2

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.18: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface single passage-transient-detailed

geometry
80 Blade Surface Temperature

• Sector - Transient - Simple Geometry

Blade 1 Blade 2

Blade 3 Blade 4

Pressure Side Suction Side

Blade 5

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.19: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface sector-transient-simple geometry

A.4 Rotor 2 81

• Sector - Transient - Detailed Geometry

Blade 1 Blade 2

Blade 3 Blade 4

Pressure Side Suction Side

Blade 5

Pressure Side Suction Side

Figure A.20: Temperature contour on Rotor 2 blade surface sector-transient-simple geometry

82 Blade Surface Temperature