• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.54-63
• /
• 2008

A study on the flow characteristics in a 4-stage axial compressor and the behavior of rotating stall was experimentally performed at the third-stage rotor and stator rows in order to investigate its performance and instability of the compression system. The pressure losses generated due to the leakage flow at a tip clearance and a shroud seal clearance and the wake flow near the trailing edge of a blade were taken into consideration to estimate the causes of performance drop of the low speed research compressor(LSRC) in Seoul national university. In addition, the measurement of rotating stall was conducted with hot-wire probes and the existence and propagation of stall cell could be confirmed through fast Fourier transform and cross-correlation analysis.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
• /
• v.16 no.8
• /
• pp.1154-1164
• /
• 2002

Losses on the turbine consist of the mechanical loss, tip clearance loss, secondary flow loss and blade profile loss etc.,. More than 60 % of total losses on the turbine is generated by the two latter loss mechanisms. These losses are directly related with the reduction of turbine efficiency. In order to provide a new design methodology for reducing losses and increasing turbine efficiency, a two-dimensional axial-type turbine blade shape is modified by the optimization process with two-dimensional compressible flow analysis codes, which are validated by the experimental results on the VKI turbine blade. A turbine blade profile is selected at the mean radius of turbine rotor using on a heavy duty gas turbine, and optimized at the operating condition. Shape parameters, which are employed to change the blade shape, are applied as design variables in the optimization process. Aerodynamic, mechanical and geometric constraints are imposed to ensure that the optimized profile meets all engineering restrict conditions. The objective function is the pitchwise area averaged total pressure at the 30% axial chord downstream from the trailing edge. 13 design variables are chosen for blade shape modification. A 10.8 % reduction of total pressure loss on the turbine rotor is achieved by this process, which is same as a more than 1% total-to-total efficiency increase. The computed results are compared with those using 11 design variables, and show that optimized results depend heavily on the accuracy of blade design.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.33-41
• /
• 2014

In a supersonic turbine, A rotor overlap technique reduced the chance of chocking in the rotor passage, and made the design pressure ratio satisfied. However, the technique also made additional losses, like a pumping loss, expansion loss, etc. Therefore, an approximate optimization technique was appled to find the optimal shape of overlap which maximizes the improvement of the turbine performance. The design variables were shape factors of a rotor overlap. An optimal design for rotor overlap reduces leakage mass flow rate at tip clearance by about 50% and increases about 4% of total-static efficiency compared with the base model. It was found that the most effective design variable is the tip overlap and that the hub overlap size is the lowest.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.95-104
• /
• 2022

Micro hydropower is a readily available renewable energy source that can be harvested utilizing hydrokinetic turbines from shallow water canals, irrigation and industrial channel flows, and run-off river stream flows. These sources generally have low head (<1 m) and low velocity which makes it difficult to harvest energy using conventional turbines. A horizontal-axis screw turbine was designed and numerically tested to extract power from such low-head water sources. The 3-bladed screw-type turbine is placed horizontally perpendicular to the incoming flow, partially submerged in a narrow water channel at no-head condition. The turbine hydraulic performances were studied using Computational Fluid Dynamics models. Turbine design parameters such as the shroud diameter, the hub-to-shroud ratios, and the submerged depths were obtained through a steady-state parametric study. The resulting turbine configuration was then tested by solving the unsteady multiphase free-surface equations mimicking an actual open channel flow scenario. The turbine performance in the shallow channel were studied for various Tip Speed Ratios (TSR). The highest power coefficient was obtained at a TSR of 0.3. The turbine was then scaled-up to test its performance on a real site condition at a head of 0.3 m. The highest power coefficient obtained was 0.18. Several losses were observed in the 3-bladed turbine design and to minimize losses, the number of blades were increased to five. The power coefficient improved by 236% for a 5-bladed screw turbine. The fluid losses were minimized by increasing the blade surface area submerged in water. The turbine performance was increased by 74.4% after dipping the turbine to a bottom wall clearance of 30 cm from 60 cm. The final output of the novel horizontal-axis screw turbine showed a 2.83 kW power output at a power coefficient of 0.63. The turbine is expected to produce 18,744 kWh/year of electricity. The design feasibility test of the turbine showed promising results to harvest energy from small hydropower sources.