• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.545-548
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• 2002

Turbines have been known to be particularly susceptible to flow-induced self-excited vibration. In such vibrations, direct damping and cross stiffness effects of aerodynamic forces determine rotordynamic stability. In axial turbines with eccentric shrouded rotors, the non-uniform sealing gap causes azimuthal non-uniformities in the seal gland pressure and the turbine torque which destabilize the rotor system. Previously, research efforts focused solely on either the seal flow or the unshrouded turbine passge flow. Recently, a model for flow in a turbine with a statically offset shrouded rotor has been developed and some stiffness predictions have been obtained. The model couples the seal flow to the passage flow and uses a small perturbation approach to determine nonaxiymmetric flow conditions. The model uses basic conservation laws. Input parameters include aerodynamic parameters (e.g. flow coefficient, reaction, and work coefficient); geometric parameters (e.g. sealing gap, depth of seal gland, seal pitch, annulus height); and a prescribed rotor offset. Thus, aerodynamic stiffness predictions have been obtained. However, aerodynamic damping (i.e. unsteady aerodynamic) effects caused by a whirling turbine has not yet been examined. Therefore, this paper presents a new unsteady model to predict the unsteady flow field due to a whirling shrouded rotor in turbines. From unsteady perturbations in velocity and pressure at various whirling frequencies, not only stiffness but also damping effects of aerodynamic forces can be obtained. Furthermore, relative contributions of seal gland pressure asymmetry and turbine torque asymmetry are presented.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.147-155
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• 2022

This research proposes a wind-lens turbine design that can startup and operate at a low wind speed (< 5m/s). The performance of the wind-lens turbine was investigated using CFD and wind tunnel testing. The wind-lens turbine consists of a 3-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine with a diameter of 0.6m and a diffuser-shaped shroud that uses the suction side of the thin airfoil SD2030 as a cross-section profile. The performance of the 3-bladed wind-lens turbine was then compared to the two-bladed rotor configuration while keeping the blade geometry the same. The 3-bladed wind-lens turbine successfully startup at 1m/s and produced a torque of 66% higher than the bare turbine, while the two-bladed wind-lens turbine startup at less than 4m/s and produced a torque of 186 % higher than the two-bladed bare turbine at the design point. Findings testify that adding the wind-lens could improve the bare turbine's performance at low wind speed.