Design and Analysis of a High Pressure Turbine Using Computational Methods for Small Gas Turbine Application

Abstract

This paper describes the aerodynamic design and analysis of a high-pressure, single-stage axial flow turbine suitable for small gas turbine engine application using computational methods. The specifications of turbine were based on the need of a typical high-pressure compressor and geometric restrictions of small gas turbine engine. Baseline design parameters such as flow coefficient, stage loading coefficient are close to 0.23 and 1.22 respectively with maximum flow expansion in the NGV rows. In the preliminary design mode, the meanline approach is used to generate the turbine flow path and the design point performance is achieved by considering three blade sections at hub, mean and tip using the AMDC+KO+MK+BSM loss models to meet the design constraints. An average exit swirl angle of less than 5 degrees is achieved leading to minimum losses in the stage. Also, NGV and rotor blade numbers were chosen based on the optimum blade solidity. Blade profile is redesigned using the results from blade-to-blade analysis and through-flow analysis based on an enhanced Dawes BTOB3D flow solver. Using PbCFD (Pushbutton CFD) and commercially available CFD software ANSYS-CFX, aero-thermodynamic parameters like pressure ratios, aerodynamic power, and efficiencies are computed and these results are compared with one another. The boundary conditions, convergence criterion, and turbulence model used in CFD computations are set uniform for comparison with 8 per cent turbulence intensity. Grid independence study is performed at design point to optimize the grid density for off-design performance predictions. ANSYS-CFX and PbCFD have predicted higher efficiency of 3.4% and 1.2% respectively with respect to targeted efficiency of 89 per cent.