• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.7-17
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• 2008

Fan performances are obtained with various tip clearance gaps and stagger angles of the rotor. A tested fan is an axial-type fan of which the casing diameter is 806 mm. Two different rotors are applied to this test. One is designed on the basis of the free vortex method along the radial direction and the other is designed using the forced vortex method. The operating conditions are varied to the ultimate off-design point as well as the deign point. Overall efficiency, total pressure and input power are compared with the tip clearance gaps and different stagger angle. The experimental results show that changing of the stagger angle has minor influence to the performance when the same rotor is applied. When the tip clearance gap is less than 5% of the rotor span, the overall efficiency, total pressure loss and input power reduction are varied linearly with the variation of the tip clearance gaps. On the design point, the overall efficiency is decreased to the rate of 2.8-2.9 to the increasing of the tip clearance, but the changing rate of the overall efficiency is alleviated when the fan operates at off-design points. In particular, this rate is more quickly declined on a fan with the rotor designed using the forced vortex method. The result of the total pressure shows that the pressure reduction rate is a 0.08-0.1 according to the tip clearance, and additionally the input power reduction rate is a 0.045-0.065 at design point.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.3357-3368
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• 1994

Total pressure losses required to calculate the total-to-total efficiency are estimated by integrating empirical loss coefficients of four loss mechanisms along the mean-line of blades as follows; blade profile loss, secondary flow loss, end wall loss and tip clearance loss. The off-design points are obtained on the basis of Howell's off-design performance of a compressor cascade. Also, inlet-outlet air angles and camber angle are obtained from semi-empirical relations of transonic airfoils' minimum loss incidence and deviation angles. And nominal point is replaced by the design point. It is concluded that relatively simple loss models and Howell's off-design data permit us to calculate the off-design performance with satisfactory accuracy. And this method can be easily extended for off-design performance prediction of multi-stage compressors.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.3917-3925
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• 1996

A numerical analysis on three dimensional turbulent incompressible flows through linear cascades of turbine rotor blades with high turning angles has been performed by using a generalized k-.epsilon. model which is a high Reynolds number form and derived by RNG(renormalized group) method to account for the variation of the rate of strain. A second order upwind scheme is used to suppress numerical diffusion in approximating the convective terms. Body-fitted coordinates are adopted to represent the complex blade geometry accurately. For the case without tip clearance, velocity vectors and static pressure contours are shown to be in good agreement with previous experimental results. For the case with tip clearance, the effects of the passage vortex and tip clearance flow on the total pressure loss as well as their interactions are discussed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.336-345
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• 1998

The substantial loss behind axial flow rotor was generated by wake, various vortices in the hub region and the leakage vortex in the tip region. Particularly, the leakage vortex formed near blade tip was one of the main causes of the reduction of performance, the generation of noise and the aerodynamic vibration in rotor downstream. In this study, the three-dimensional flowfields in an axial flow rotor for various tip clearances were calculated, and the numerical results were compared with the experimental ones. The numerical technique was based on SIMPLE algorithm using standard k-.epsilon. model (WFM). Through calculations, the effects of the tip clearance on the overall performance of rotor and the loss distributions, and the increase in the displacement, momentum, and blade-force-deficit thickness of the casing wall boundary layer were investigated. The mass-averaged flow variables behind rotor agreed well with the experimental results. The presence of the tip leakage vortex behind rotor was described well. Although the loci of leakage vortex by calculation showed some differences compared with the experimental results, its behavior for various tip clearances was clarified by examining the loci of vortex center.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.226-235
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• 2000

The performance prediction of an airfoil fan using a commerical code, STAR/CD, is verified by comparing the calculated results with measured performance data and velocity fields of an airfoil fan. The effects of inlet tip clearance on performance are investigated. The calculations overestimate the pressure rise performance by about 10-25 percent. However, the performance reduction due to tip clearance is well predicted by numerical simulations. Main source of performance decrease is not only the slip factor but also impeller efficiency. The reduction in performance is 12-16 percent for 1 percent gap of the diameter. The calculated reductions in impeller efficiency and slip factor are also linearly proportional to the gap size. The span-wise distributions of phase averaged velocity and pressure at the impeller exit are strongly influenced by the radial gap size. The radial component of velocity and the flow angle increase over the passsage as the gap increases. The slip factor decreases and the loss increases with the gap size. The high velocity of leakage jet affects the impeller inlet and passage flows. With a larger clearance, the main stream moves to the impeller hub side and high loss region extends from the shroud to the hub.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.39-45
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• 2009

Leakage flow through turbine blade tip gap causes strong leakage vortex near the blade suction side and induces large aerodynamic losses. In this study, the conventional plane tip and various squealer tip blades were tested in a linear cascade in order to measure the effect of the tip shape on the total pressure loss. Three tip gap clearances of 0.6%, 1.3%, and 2.0% of blade span were tested. Flow measurement was conducted at one chord downstream from the trailing edge with a five-hole probe. Results showed that the leakage vortex was stronger than passage vortex and the mass averaged overall total pressure loss through the cascade was the lowest for suction side blade tip case. For all tested cases, the area averaged overall total pressure loss was increased as the tip clearance increased.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.70-79
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• 2017

The output power of turbine is greatly affected by the losses generated within the passage. In order to develop a better turbine or loss models, an experimental study was conducted using a linear cascade experimental apparatus. The total pressure loss and flow structures were measured at two cross-sectional planes located downstream of blade row. Measurement was conducted in a steady state for the several different locations of the blade row along the rotational direction. The blade row moved by 20 % of the pitch, and tip clearance was varied from 2% to 8%. Axial-type blades were used and its blade chord was 200mm. A square nozzle was applied and its size was $200mm{\times}200mm$. The experiment was conducted at a Reynolds number of $3{\times}10^5$ based on the chord. Nozzle flow angle sets to $65^{\circ}$ based on the axial direction and the solidity of blade row was 1.38. From the experimental results, the total pressure loss was greatly varied in the receding region than in the entering region. The flow properties within the blade passage were strongly changed according to the location of blade row.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.24-32
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• 2004

The effects of guide vanes and tip clearances on the characteristics nf axial flow fans are investigated both computationally and experimentally. Performance test of fans carried out in full scale shows considerable effects of tip clearance between rotor tip and duct on the characteristics of fans. The tested results are compared with the computation based on the finite volume method to solve the Navier-Stoke equations with $textsc{k}$-$\varepsilon$ turbulence model. The comparison shows good agreements between experimental and computational results. In addition, the effects of shape of guide vanes are numerically studied. The results show that increased volume of separated region around the guide vane reduces the recovery of tangential component of kinetic energy in the wake, resulting in loss of efficiency

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.13-13
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• 1998

A simple model of the tip leakage flow models of the rotor downstream flow is developed, based on Lakshminarayana's theoretical concept on the tip clearance flow and the experimental data published in open literature. And new spanwise distribution models of deviation angle and pressure loss coefficient due to the tip leakage flow are formulated for use in association with the streamline curvature method as a through flow analysis. Combining these new models and previous deviation and loss models due to secondary flow, a robust streamline curvature method is established for flow analysis of single-stage, subsonic axial turbines with wide ranges of turning angle, aspect ratio and blading type. At the exit from rotor rows, the flow variables are mixed radially according to a spanwise transport equation. The proposed streamline curvature method is tested against a forced vortex type turbine as well as a free vortex type one. The results show that the spanwise variations of flow angle, axial velocity and loss coefficients at rotor exit are predicted with good accuracy, being comparable to a steady three-dimensional Navier-Stokes analysis. This simple and fast flow analysis is found to be very useful for the turbine design at the initial design phase.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.404-411
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• 2003

Three-dimensional vortical flow and separated flow topology near the casing wall in an axial flow fan having two different tip clearances have been investigated by a Reynolds-averaged Wavier-Stokes (RANS) flow simulation. The simulation shows that the tip leakage vortex formed close to the leading edge of the blade tip on suction side grows in the streamwise direction. On the casing wall, a separation line is formed upstream of the leakage vortex center due to the interference between the leakage vortex and main flow. The reverse flow is observed between the separation line and the attachment line generated downstream of the trailing edge, and increased with enlarging tip clearance. The patterns of a leakage velocity vector including a leakage flow rate are also analyzed according to two tip clearances. It is noted that the understanding of the distribution of a limiting streamline on the casing wall is very important to grasp the characteristics of the vortical flow in the axial flow fan.