Turbine Wheel Shape Optimization: Design Criteria, Multidiscipline Design Tools and Simulation Processes

Abstract

Gas turbine rotors must be reliable, stable and durable because they operate in a demanding centrifugal and thermal environment without being maintained and replaced for many years. The design of a rotor is one of the most challenging tasks that gas turbine design team should face because its basic architecture has to be decided in the early design stage together with the gas turbine flow path and combustion architecture. A wrong initial decision may require a substantial modification of the gas turbine cross section and consequently have a dramatic impact on the project schedule. This paper introduces readers to the main aspects of the gas turbine rotor design, including the multidiscipline design tools that allow a quick rotor components shaping nowadays. Thanks to the use of some of the most popular gas turbines in the O&G application, this paper will explain how the rotor design has developed over the last decades. An example of how today a new rotor is designed will be provided, by describing some of the main topics analyzed during the conceptual design phase of a General Electric (GE) engine that will be on the market since the 2016. The paper also describes some of the biggest challenges that rotor design teams will have to face in the next future.