• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.331-336
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• 2006

This paper studies the effects of the nozzle-rotor axial clearance of a supersonic turbine on turbine performance. The nozzle-rotor axial clearance of the supersonic turbine developed to drive a turbopump for 30 ton class liquid rocket engines was varied and a numerical analysis of the turbines having the different nozzle-rotor axial clearances was conducted. It has been found that turbine performance degrades with an increasing axial clearance due to the increased stagnation pressure loss in the axial clearance region.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.353-361
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• 2002

The tip leakage flow passing through the clearance between rotor blade tip and casing shroud has been known to occupy an important portion of the rotor overall loss. In this study, flow characteristics in axial flow rotors with different tip clearances is investigated by experimental and numerical methods. The experimental study was carried out to measure static pressure and velocity profiles at the real rotating test rig. The axial flow rotors used for the experiments have ten blades and three different rotor diameter. The tip clearance heights are 1mm, 3mm, and 4.5mm. Measurements were done using spherical type five-hole probe by non-nulling method. The numerical study was carried out to calculate pressure distributions and velocity vectors at the same condition as the experiments in the flow fields of axial flow rotors using Phoenics code.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.743-750
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• 2008

Asymmetric tip clearance in an axial compressor induces pressure and velocity redistributions along the circumferential direction in an axial compressor. This paper presents the mechanism of the flow redistribution due to the asymmetric tip clearance with a simple numerical modeling. The flow field of a rotor of an axial compressor is predicted when an asymmetric tip clearance occurs along the circumferential direction. The modeling results are supported by CFD results not only to validate the present modeling but also to investigate more detailed flow fields. Asymmetric tip clearance makes local flow area and resultant axial velocity vary along the circumferential direction. This flow redistribution 'seed' results in a different flow patterns according to the flow coefficient. Flow field redistribution patterns are largely dependent on the local tip clearance performance at low flow coefficients. However, the contribution of the main flow region becomes dominant while the tip clearance effect becomes weak as the flow coefficient increases. The flow field redistribution pattern becomes noticeably strong if a blockage effect is involved when the flow coefficient increases. The relative flow angle at the small clearance region decreases which result in a negative incidence angle at the high flow coefficient. It causes a recirculation region at the blade pressure surface which results in the flow blockage. It promotes the strength of the flow field redistribution at the rotor outlet. These flow pattern changes have an effect on the blade loading perturbations. The integration of blade loading perturbation from control volume analysis of the circumferential momentum leads to well-known Alford's force. Alford's force is always negative when the flow blockage effects are excluded. However when the flow blockage effect is incorporated into the modeling, main flow effects on the flow redistribution is also reflected on the Alford's force at the high flow coefficient. Alford's force steeply increases as the flow coefficient increases, because of the tip leakage suppression and strong flow redistribution. The predicted results are well agreed to CFD results by Kang and Kang(2006).

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2009

The effect of inlet and outlet blade angles on a micro regenerative pump head was examined in experiments. The pump head was little increased by changing the blade angles compared with the original pump with the inlet and outlet blade angles of 0 degree. The effect of the axial clearance between the impeller and the casing on the pump head was also examined. The head was increased largely by decreasing the axial clearance. The computation of the internal flow was performed to clarify the cause of the increase of the pump head due to the decrease of the clearance. The local flow rate in the casing decreased as the leakage flow rate through the axial clearance decreased due to the decrease of the clearance. It was found that the larger head in the smaller clearance was just caused by the smaller local flow rate in the casing. In the case of the smaller clearance, the smaller local flow rate caused the smaller circumferential velocity near the front and rear sides of the impeller. This caused the increase of the angular momentum in the casing and the head.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.46-53
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• 2008

Flow structures in an axial compressor with a non-uniform tip clearance were predicted by solving a simple prediction method. For more reliable prediction at the off-design condition, off-design flow characteristics such as loss and flow blockage were incorporated in the model. The predicted results showed that flow field near the design condition is largely dependent on the local tip clearance effect. However overall flow field characteristics are totally reversed at off-design condition, especially at the high flow coefficient. The tip clearance effect decreases, while the local loss and flow blockage make a complicated effect on the compressor flow field. The resultant fluid induced Alford's force has a negative value near the design condition and it reverses its sign as the flow coefficient increases and shows a very steep increase as the flow coefficient increases.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.297-305
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• 2006

In this paper, numerical analyses of the flow within turbine for geometric conditions such as nozzle shape, length of axial clearance, and chamfer angle of leading edge of blade have been performed to investigate the partial admission supersonic turbine losses. Firstly, flow's bending occurred at axial clearance is depended on nozzle shape. Next, the chamfer angle of leading edge affects the strength of shock generated at the leading edge. Finally the expansion and mixsing of the flow within axial clearance are largely depended upon the length of axial clearance. Therefore it is found that aerodynamic losses of turbine is affected by nozzle shape and chamfer angel and that partial admission losses is depended on nozzle shape and the length of axial clearance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.129-135
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• 2000

Air-dynamic bearings are increasingly used in supporting small high-speed rotating bodies. This study investigates the effects of design parameters on the axial stiffness of spiral-grooved air bearings of various curvatures. Design parameters are fundamental clearance, groove depth, and bearing number. The pressure distribution at the clearance between the stator and rotor of the bearing is obtained by solving the Reynolds equation, and the supporting load and the axial linear stiffness are calculated from the pressure distribution. It is found that a larger curvature increases the axial linear stiffness more and that there exist an optimal groove depth for the linear stiffness of the air bearing. It is also found that the linear stiffness has a linear relationship with the bearing number.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1998.12a
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• pp.240-247
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• 1998

Leakage vortices formed near blade tip causes an increase of total pressure loss near casing endwall region and as a result, the efficiency of rotor decreases. The reduction of rotor efficiency is related to the size of tip clearance. In this study, the three-dimensional flowfields in an axial flow rotor were calculated with varying tip clearance under various flow rates, and the numerical results were compared with experimental ones. The effects of tip clearance and attack angle on the leakage vortex and overall performance, and the less distributions were investigated through numerical calculations. In this study, tip leakage flow rate and total pressure loss by tip clearance were evaluated using numerical results and aprroximate equations were presented to evaluate the reduction of rotor efficiency by tip leakage flow.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.686-695
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• 2009

Flow characteristics in linear axial cascade have been studied using large eddy simulation(LES) based on finite element method(FEM) to investigate details of the leakage flow in the tip clearance of axial flow rotor. STAR-CD(FVM) and PAT-Flow(FEM) have been adopted to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for the simulation of the unsteady turbulent flow. Numerical results from the present study have been compared with the existing experimental results to investigate a tip clearance effect on velocity profile and static pressure distribution on blade surface at various spanwise positions. Both simulation results agree well with the experimental data. However, it has been shown that the results of finite-element large-eddy simulation agree better with experimental data than $k-{\varepsilon}$ turbulent model based on finite volume method regarding the tip vortex geometry and static pressure distribution at the center of the tip vortex core. As a result of this study, it is shown that finite-element large-eddy simulation method can predict more exactly on the tip leakage vortex flow and behind flow field.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.147-155
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• 2009

Dynamic characteristics of the clearance flow between an axially oscillating rotational disk and a stationary disk were examined by experiments and computations based on a bulk flow model. In the case without pressure fluctuations at the inlet and outlet of the clearance, parallel and contracting flow paths had an effect to stabilize the axial oscillation of the rotating disk. The enlarged flow path had an effect to destabilize the axial oscillation due to the negative damping and stiffness for outward and inward flows, respectively. It was shown that the fluid force can be decomposed into the component caused by the inlet or outlet pressure fluctuation without the axial oscillation and that due to the axial oscillation without the inlet or outlet pressure fluctuation. A method to predict the stiffness and damping coefficients is proposed for general cases when the device is combined with an arbitrary flow system.