Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Large-Eddy Simulation of the Unsteady Full 3D Rim Seal Flow in a One-Stage Axial-Flow Turbine

  • Published:
Flow, Turbulence and Combustion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The flow field in a complete one-stage axial-flow turbine with 30 stator and 62 rotor blades is investigated by large-eddy simulation (LES). To solve the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, a massively parallelized finite-volume flow solver based on an efficient Cartesian cut-cell/level-set approach, which ensures a strict conservation of mass, momentum and energy, is used. This numerical method contains two adaptive Cartesian meshes, one mesh to track the embedded surface boundaries and a second mesh to resolve the fluid domain and to solve the conservation equations. The overall approach allows large scale simulations of turbomachinery applications with multiple relatively moving boundaries in a single frame of reference. The relative motion of the geometries is described by a kinematic motion level-set interface method. The focus of the numerical analysis is on the flow inside the rim seal between the stator and the rotor disks. Full \(360^{\circ }\) computations of the turbine stage are performed for two rim seal configurations. First, the impact of the mesh resolution on the LES results is analyzed for the single lip rim seal configuration. Second, the LES results are compared to experimental data, followed by a detailed analysis of the unsteady flow field. For the single lip rim seal configuration, two modes unrelated to the rotor frequency and its harmonics are identified inside the rotor-stator wheel space, where the first more dominant mode shows a major impact on the ingress of the hot gas into the rotor-stator wheel space. The second mode is a counter-rotating mode which results from the interaction of the first mode with the flow field downstream of the stator blades. Third, at the same operating condition a modified configuration with a double lip rim seal is investigated and compared to the reference configuration to demonstrate the impact of the rim seal geometry on the overall flow field. The additional lip on the rotor disk damps the aforementioned modes and reduces the ingress of the hot gas resulting in an increase of the cooling effectiveness inside the rotor-stator wheel space, which is in a good agreement with the experimental results.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Fig. 21
Fig. 22
Fig. 23
Fig. 24
Fig. 25
Fig. 26
Fig. 27
Fig. 28
Fig. 29
Fig. 30
Fig. 31
Fig. 32
Fig. 33
Fig. 34
Fig. 35

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Owen, J.M.: Prediction of ingestion through turbine rim seals— part ii: externally induced and combined ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 133(3), 031006 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Owen, J.M.: Prediction of ingestion through turbine rim seals— part i: rotationally induced ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 133(3), 031005 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Owen, J.M.: Theoretical modelling of hot gas ingestion through turbine rim seals. Propul. Power Res. 1(1), 1–11 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Bayley, F.J., Owen, J.M.: Flow between a rotating and a stationary disc. Aeronaut. Q. 20(4), 333–354 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bayley, F.J., Owen, J.M.: Fluid dynamics of a shrouded disk system with a radial outflow of coolant. J. Eng. Power 92(3), 335–341 (1970)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bhavnani, S.H., Khilnani, V.I., Tsai, L.-C., Khodadadi, J.M., Goodling, J.S.: Effective sealing of a disk cavity using a double-toothed rim seal. ASME Paper No. 92-GT-379 (1992)

  7. Phadke, U.P., Owen, J.M.: Aerodynamic aspects of the sealing of gas-turbine rotor-stator systems: part i: the behavior of simple shrouded rotating-disk systems in quiescent environment. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 9(2), 98–105 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Phadke, U.P., Owen, J.M.: Aerodynamic aspects of the sealing of gas-turbine rotor-stator systems: part ii: The performance of simple seals in a quasi-axisymmetric external flow. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 9(2), 106–112 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Phadke, U.P., Owen, J.M.: Aerodynamic aspects of the sealing of gas-turbine rotor-stator systems: part iii: the effects of nonaxisymmetric external flow on seal performance. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 9(2), 113–117 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bohn, D., Wolff, M.: Improved formulation to determine minimum sealing flow – cw, min – for different sealing configurations. ASME Paper No. GT2003-38465 (2003)

  11. Teuber, R., Li, Y.S., Maltson, J., Wilson, M., Lock, G., Owen, J.M.: Computational extrapolation of turbine sealing effectiviness from test rig to engine conditions. ASME Paper No. GT2012-68490 (2012)

  12. Owen, J.M., Pountney, O., Lock, G.: Prediction of ingress through turbine rim seals—part ii: combined ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 134(3), 031013 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Owen, J.M., Zhou, K., Pountney, O., Wilson, M., Lock, G.: Prediction of ingress through turbine rim seals—part i: externally induced ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 134(3), 031012 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Sangan, C., Pountney, O., Zhou, K., Wilson, M., Owen, J.M., Lock, G.: Experimental measurements of ingestion through turbine rim seals—part iii: single and double seals. ASME J. Turbomach. 135(5), 051011 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Sangan, C., Pountney, O., Zhou, K., Wilson, M., Owen, J.M., Lock, G.: Experimental measurements of ingestion through turbine rim seals, part 1: externally-induced ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 135(2), 021012 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Sangan, C., Pountney, O., Zhou, K., Wilson, M., Owen, J.M., Lock, G.: Experimental measurements of ingestion through turbine rim seals, part 2: rotationally-induced ingress. ASME J. Turbomach. 135(2), 021013 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Dunn, D.M., Zhou, D.W., Squires, K.D., Roy, R.P., Saha, K., Moon, H.K.: Flow field in a single-stage model air turbine rotor-stator cavity with pre-swirled purge flow. ASME Paper No. GT2010-22869 (2010)

  18. Hills, N.J., Chew, J.W., Turner, A.B.: Computational and mathematical modeling of turbine rim seal ingestion. ASME J. Turbomach. 124(2), 306–315 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Jakoby, R., Zierer, T., Lindblad, K., Larsson, J., Devito, L., Bohn, D.E., Funcke, J., Decker, A.: Numerical simulation of the unsteady flow field in an axial gas turbine rim seal configuration. ASME Paper No. GT2004-53829 (2004)

  20. Johnson, B.V., Jacoby, R., Bohn, D., Cunat, D.: A method for estimating the influence of time-dependent vane and blade pressure fields on turbine rim seal ingestion. ASME J. Turbomach. 131(2), 021005 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Julien, S., Lefrancois, J., Dumas, G., Boutet-Blais G., Lapointe, S., Caron, J.-F.: Simulations of flow ingestion and related structures in a turbine disk cavity. ASME Paper No. GT2010-22729 (2010)

  22. Laskowski, G.M., Bunker, R.S., Bailey, J.C., Kapetanovic, S., Itzel, G.M., Sullivan, M.A., Farrell, T.R.: An investigation of turbine wheelspace cooling flow interactions with a transonic hot gas path—part ii: Cfd simulations. ASME J. Turbomach. 133(4), 041020 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Mirzamoghadam, A.V., Heitland, G., Hosseinu, K.M.: The effect of annulus performance parameters on rotor-stator cavity sealing flow. ASME Paper No. GT2009-59380 (2009)

  24. Mirzamoghadam, A.V., Heitland, G., Morris, M.C., Smoke, J., Malak, M., Howe, J.: 3d cfd ingestion evaluation of a high pressure turbine rim seal disk cavity. ASME Paper No. GT2008-50531 (2008)

  25. Rabs, M., Benra, F.-K., Dohmen, H.J., Schneider, O.: Investigation of flow instabilities near the rim cavity of a 1.5 stage gas turbine. ASME Paper No. GT2009-59965 (2009)

  26. Wang, C.-Z., Johnson, B.V., Jong, F.D., Vashist, T.K., Dutta, R.: Comparison of flow characteristics in axial-gap seals for close- and wide-spaced turbine stages. ASME Paper No. GT2007-27909 (2007)

  27. Zhou, D.W., Roy, R.P., Wang, C.-Z., Glahn, J.A.: Main gas ingestion in a turbine stage for three rim cavity configurations. ASME J. Turbomach. 133(3), 031023 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. O’Mahoney, T.S.D., HiIIs, N.J., Chew, J.W., Scanlon, T.: Large-eddy simulation of rim seal ingestion. ASME Paper No. GT2010-22962 (2010)

  29. Beard, P.F., Gao, F., Chana, K.S., Chew, J.: Unsteady flow phenomena in turbine rim seals. J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power 139(3), 032501 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Cao, C., Chew, J.W., Millington, P.R., Hogg, S.I.: Interaction of rim seal and annulus flows in an axial flow turbine. J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power 126(4), 786–793 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Savov, S.S., Atkins, N.R., Uchida, S.: A comparison of single and double lip rim seal geometries. J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power 139(11), 112601 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Gao, F., Chew, J., Beard, P.F., Amirante, D., Hills, N.J.: Numerical studies of turbine rim sealing flows on a chute seal configuration. ETC2017-284 (2017)

  33. Tyacke, J., Tucker, P., Loveday, R., Vadlamani, N., Watson, R., Naqavi, I., Yang, X.: Large eddy simulation for turbines: methodologies, cost and future outlooks. J. Turbomach. 136(6), 061009 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Sutherland, W.: The viscosity of gases and molecular force. Philos. Mag. 36(223), 507–531 (1893)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  35. Pogorelov, A., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: An adaptive cartesian mesh based method to simulate turbulent flows of multiple rotating surfaces. Flow Turbul. Combust. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-017-9827-9 (2017)

  36. Lintermann, A., Schlimpert, S., Grimmen, J.H., Günther, C., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: Massively parallel grid generation on hpc systems. Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 277, 131–153 (2014)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  37. Boris, J.P., Grinstein, F.F., Oran, E.S., Kolbe, R.L.: New insights into large eddy simulation. Fluid Dyn. Res. 10(4–6), 199–228 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Smagorinsky, J.: General circulation experiments with the primitive equations. Mon. Weather Rev. 91(3), 99–164 (1963)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Alkishriwi, N., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: A large-eddy simulation method for low Mach number flows using preconditioning and multigrid. Comput. Fluids 35 (10), 1126–1136 (2006)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  40. Meinke, M., Schröder, W., Krause, E., Rister, T.: A comparison of second- and sixth-order methods for large-eddy simulation. Comput. Fluids 31(4–7), 695–718 (2002)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  41. Pogorelov, A., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: Cut-cell method based large-eddy simulation of tip-leakage flow. Phys. Fluids 27(7), 075106 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Pogorelov, A., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: Effects of tip-gap width on the flow field in an axial fan. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 61(Part B), 466–481 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2016.06.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Renze, P., Schröder, W., Meinke, M.: Large-eddy simulation of film cooling flows at density gradients. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 29(1), 18–34 (2008)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  44. Rütten, F., Schröder, W., Meinke, M.: Large-eddy simulation of low frequency oscillations of the Dean vortices in turbulent pipe. Phys. Fluids 17(3), 035107 (2005)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  45. Schneiders, L., Günther, C., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: An efficient conservative cut-cell method for rigid bodies interacting with viscous compressible flows. J. Comput. Phys. 311, 62–86 (2016)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  46. Mavriplis, D.J.: Revisiting the least-squares procedure for gradient reconstruction on unstructured meshes. AIAA 2003-3986 (2003)

  47. Berger, M.J., Aftosmis, M.J.: Progress towards a Cartesian cut-cell method for viscous compressible flow. AIAA 2012-1301 (2012)

  48. Schneiders, L., Hartmann, D., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: An accurate moving boundary formulation in cut-cell methods. J. Comput. Phys. 235, 786–809 (2013)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  49. Hartmann, D., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: A strictly conservative Cartesian cut-cell method for compressible viscous flows on adaptive grids. Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 200(9–12), 1038–1052 (2011)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  50. Jameson, A., Mavriplis, D.: Finite volume solution of the two-dimensional Euler equations on a regular triangular mesh. AIAA J. 24(4), 616–618 (1986)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  51. Günther, C., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: A flexible level-set approach for tracking multiple interacting interfaces in embedded boundary methods. Comput. Fluids 102, 182–202 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Hartmann, D., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: Differential equation based constrained reinitialization for level set methods. J. Comput. Phys. 227(14), 6821–6845 (2008)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  53. Hartmann, D., Meinke, M., Schröder, W.: The constrained reinitialization equation for level set methods. J. Comput. Phys. 229(5), 1514–1535 (2010)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  54. Bohn, D., Rudzinski, B., Sürken, N., Gärtner, W.: Experimental and numerical investigation on the influence of rotorblades on hot gas ingestion into the upstream cavity of an axial turbine stage. ASME Paper No. 2000-GT-284 (2000)

  55. Freund, J.B.: Proposed inflow/outflow boundary condition for direct computation of aerodynamic sound. AIAA J. 35(4), 740–743 (1997)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  56. Kunnen, R.P.J., Siewert, C., Meinke, M., Schröder, W., Beheng, K.D.: Numerically determined geometric collision kernels in spatially evolving isotropic turbulence relevant for droplets in clouds. Atmos. Res. 127, 8–21 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Bohn, D., Wolff, M.: Entwicklung von Berechnungsansätzen zur Optimierung von Sperrgassystemen für Rotor/Stator-Kavitäten in Gasturbinen. FVV-Vorhaben Nr.: 067270, Frankfurt (2001)

  58. Jeong, J., Hussain, F.: On the identification of a vortex. J. Fluid Mech. 285, 69–94 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was funded under Grant No. 19198 N by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology via the Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen Otto von Guericke e.V. (AiF). The authors also wish to thank the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) and the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) for providing the computing resources.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Aerodynamics, RWTH Aachen University, Wüllnerstr. 5a, 52062, Aachen, Germany

    Alexej Pogorelov, Matthias Meinke & Wolfgang Schröder

  2. Forschungszentrum Jülich JARA-High-Performance Computing, Jülich, 52425, Germany

    Matthias Meinke & Wolfgang Schröder

Authors
  1. Alexej Pogorelov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Matthias Meinke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wolfgang Schröder
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexej Pogorelov.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pogorelov, A., Meinke, M. & Schröder, W. Large-Eddy Simulation of the Unsteady Full 3D Rim Seal Flow in a One-Stage Axial-Flow Turbine. Flow Turbulence Combust 102, 189–220 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-018-9956-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-018-9956-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation