Volume 40, Issue 1

In this paper, a diffuser is used to integrate a transonic high-pressure turbine with a rotating detonation combustor (RDC). The paper focuses on the required design modifications to the turbine endwalls (EW) to enable high efficiency, while preserving the airfoil blade-to-blade geometry. The main challenge is the stator passage unstarting, due to the high inlet Mach number. First of all, steady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes simulations were performed to compare the efficiency of turbines with constant-radius EWs to turbines with axisymmetric EWs. A modified EW design prevented the unstarting of the stator passage, enabling a significant gain in performance. Afterward, the influence on the turbine efficiency and damping due to the unsteadiness from the diffuser-like fluctuations of the RDC was evaluated with unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes simulations with a mixing plane approach (MPA). Full unsteady simulations were carried out on selected inlet conditions and compared to the mixing plane results. This parametric study provides turbine designers with recommended diffusion rates along the vane EWs. Additionally, we provide guidance on the upstream diffuser design, specifically the required damping and outlet Mach number.

Compressor characteristics of a single spool turboprop engine have been studied in this paper. It has been brought outhow constant power lines in the compressor characteristics of these compressors make them different from others. Constant speed lines and constant power lines have also been highlighted. A novel method of modeling of compressorof a single spool turboprop engine has also been studied in this paper. Application of neural networks in prediction of compressor characteristics has been investigated. Multilayer Perceptron feed forward neural network has been considered with different transfer functions to assess the potential capability of network in extrapolation and interpolation. Effectiveness of prediction with and without engine bleed valve open and anti-ice valve open situations have been assessed. Network Predictionshas been compared with engine test data to assess the accuracy of prediction and to quantify the build variation in the manufacture of engines. Capability of network with limited test data to predict the complete performance has also been assessed and presented in this paper.

In order to realize the fast response control for turboshaft engine with variable rotor speed, a dynamic inversion (DI) control method based on state variable model of turboshaft engine is proposed. Meanwhile, in order to expand the application of dynamic inversion controller, the linear parameter varying (LPV) model of turboshaft engine is applied, which constitutes the LPV/DI controller together. The simulation results shows that compared with the conventional PID controller, the LPV/DI controller can effectively reduce the overshoot/droop of the power turbine speed to less than 1% under different flight conditions. The control effect is remarkable and the robust performance is superior.

In this paper, the effects of non-swirling and swirling flow on the performance of parallel hub axial annular diffuser has been investigated. The study was conducted on a fully developed swirling flow and non-swirling flow to predict the separation of the flow from the wall. Three different annular diffusers were used with casing wall angles of 3°, 6°, and 9°. Furthermore, various swirl angles (0–25°) at the inlet of diffusers have been investigated to analyze the performance across the length. It was found that parallel hub axial annular diffuser performance increases up to a certain length as the inlet swirl angle increases. However, the performance also improves as the diffuser area ratio (AR) increases. The performance is evaluated based on the static pressure recovery coefficient (C p ) and the total pressure loss coefficient (C TL ). The highest possible pressure recovery is achieved by the 12° swirl angle with a casing angle of 6°.

The forward variable area bypass injector (FVABI) is a key component of double bypass variable cycle engine (VCE) to achieve mode transition and bypass ratio adjustment. In this paper, an experimental system for FVABI was constructed based on the analysis of relevant experimental theories, and then the experiments on FVABI were carried out for a specific working state in double bypass mode of VCE and for the comparison working states with different area ratios and different back pressure ratios. The results showed that the FVABI designed in this paper meets the requirements of VCE at this working state. The analysis of the influence of area ratio and back pressure ratio on the injection coefficient showed that the first bypass valve and back pressure were effective means to control the mass flow of FVABI.

The film effectiveness was investigated on a grooved surface with the injection orientation angles of 30°, 90°, and 150° at the blowing ratios of 0.5, 0.8, 1.1, and 1.4. The injection orientation angle and the groove on the surface caused the effect of the various and irregular shaped hole injection due to the different orientation injection. The results showed that the new phenomenon of film effectiveness distributions was found on the grooved surface compared with the flat plate case. Film effectiveness distributions for the β  = 30° were found to be the discontinuous strips. The surface averaged film effectiveness with the orientation angle of 30° was found to decrease with the increase of the blowing ratio. Additionally, the reverse trend was observed with the orientation angle of 150°. The film effectiveness with the orientation angle of 90° only slightly changed with the increase of the blowing ratio.

The flow field in the rotor-stator rim cavity is controlled by both the instantaneous distortion caused by rotor and stator airfoils. Naturally one would then assume that the design of optimal rim seal geometries would require full unsteady turbine stage simulations, that would then require an experimental assessment. This manuscript presents a reduced-order approach, neglecting the obvious unsteady interaction effects, to optimize the cavity geometry with a two-dimensional axisymmetric approach, making it possible to explore a wide range of geometries followed by an experimental assessment in a linear cascade. Two parameterization strategies are presented, coupled with a genetic optimizer to maximize thermal protection to the rotor rear platform while minimizing the cooling massflow required. This reduced-order optimization scheme was then assessed at different levels of sophistication to assess the effect of rotation, the vanes, and the rotor geometry with a series of increasing levels of fidelity to the real turbine conditions. Finally, this paper demonstrated the sensitivity of the optimal geometries to variations in the axial gap and purge coolant total pressure.

Investigations of the working process in a gas turbine combustion chamber with ecological and energy steam injection operating on liquid fuel are conducted. The mathematical model of the aerodynamic processes and liquid fuel combustion in similar burning devices based on the numerical solution of the system of conservation and transport equations for a multi-component chemically reactive turbulent system is developed. The influence of the relative steam mass flow rate (the ratio of the sum of the mass flow rates of ecological and energy steam to the fuel consumption) on the combustion chamber’s emission characteristics is determined. The obtained results can be used for parameter selection and optimization of promising high-temperature gas turbine combustion chambers with steam injection operating on liquid fuels.

In order to mitigate or even eliminate the adverse effects caused by typical components faults of aircraft engines, an active fault-tolerant strategy based on multi-model predictive control is proposed, which consists of a pre-established multi-model library, a judgement module, and corresponding predictive controllers with smooth transition switching logic. Multiple dynamic nonlinear or linear models are firstly established by means of system identification methods, based on the component-level nonlinear engine model or historical data in faults cases. The judgement module is utilized to online compare the engine measured outputs with that of all models in the pattern library and select the best matched dynamic model on the basis of outputs error quadratic performance index, thus determining the most appropriate predictive controller for the next control sample period. When a certain fault occurs, the fault model in the library could be identified and fault-model based predictive controller is activated. Finally, two kinds of pre-considered high-pressure compressor and high-pressure turbine component-level faults are taken as an example to design the active fault-tolerant controller. Simulation results show that the judgement module owns the ability to sense the fault and gives smooth switching signal to the suitable predictive controller, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

This paper presents a computational method to investigate cooling performance of NASA-C3X cascade vane coated with thermal barrier coating (TBC), for which experimental data are available. The vane was cooled internally by air flows through radially oriented 10 channels. A three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer simulation has been performed which allows the conduction-convection on metal vane by eliminating need of multiple boundary solutions. The predicted aerodynamic and thermal loads with the effect of turbulent intensity is found to be good agreement with experimental data and inclusion of TBC leads to quantitative reduction in vane metal temperature.

In order to improve the real-time performance of aero-engine component-level models, an automatic fast positioning interpolation method is proposed. Based on the maximum parameter slope, this method can automatically determine the interpolation cut in point, change the disadvantage of low efficiency of traditional sequential interpolation from the starting point, effectively reduce the interpolation interval, thus greatly improving the efficiency of interpolation. The method is applied to the calculation of gas thermodynamic parameters and the interpolation of the characteristic of rotating parts ,so as to ameliorate the real-time performance of the single-stage flow path calculation of the component-level model. Simulation results show that, compared with the traditional method, the method proposed in this paper improves the fan characteristic calculation efficiency by 47.5%, reduces the time of single complete flow calculation by 74.3% when the dynamic and steady-state accuracy changes are less than 0.4%, which greatly improves the real-time performance of the component-level model.

In the present study, the effect of expansion corner on suddenly expanded flow process has been studied. Experimental investigations have been carried out on a convergent-divergent (C-D) nozzle and isolator duct, where the expansion of the channel is formed through the presence of a 1, 2 and 3 expansion corners (EC) respectively. Flow from nozzle exit of the nozzle of Mach, M = 2.0 was suddenly expanded into the axi-symmetric duct having a cross sectional area of 4.84 times the nozzle exit area. The wall static pressure along the length of the duct and the Pitot pressure at the exit plane of the duct were measured for all the configurations. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique was employed for visualizing the shock-train in the expanded duct. The isolator with one expansion corner was found to be more efficient in achieving a high static pressure rise. The experimental and numerical wall static pressure distribution values were compared for isolators with EC = 2 and found to be in good agreement with each other with a maximum absolute percentage deviation of 11%.