Calibrated Low-Order Transient Thermal and Flow Models for Robust Test Facility Design

Messenger, Andrew; Povey, Thomas

doi:10.33737/jgpps/122270

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Transient pressure and thermal models were developed early in the design phase to enable prediction of the system performance, and hence assist with design decisions. Messenger & Povey (2020) describe these models in detail. Commissioning data was used to validate both models.…”

Section: Transient Mass Flow and Thermal Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A large-scale high pressure and temperature compressed air feed system for two gas turbine test facilities to enable heat transfer studies

Goodenough,

Messenger,

Beard

2023

European Conference on Turbomachinery Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics

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This paper details the design of a 1 MW compressed air system and infrastructure upgrade to supply heated air at 327°C (600 K) and 50 barg to two world-leading gas turbine test rigs: the Oxford Turbine Research Facility (OTRF) and the Engine Component Aero Thermal (ECAT) facility. These are two established, high technology readiness level (TRL) facilities for high pressure turbine research and have been constantly developed over 40 years. This high temperature air supply system represents the latest such development program. The motivation for this is to reduce the development time for novel gas turbine cooling technology, by providing complimentary test facilities with a high degree of engine similarity that can evaluate component thermal performance before committing to expensive full-scale engine testing. The new air supply system enables both facilities to match engine mainstream-to-coolant temperature ratio with run times over 60 seconds, in addition to previously matched Reynolds number, Mach number, combustor temperature, swirl and turbulence profile.The new air supply system consists of four air storage tanks with a total volume of 136m 3 , three of which are electrically trace heated across 23 individually PID controlled zones. The system heat-up time is 29 hours from ambient and the final temperature stability is better than 5 °C/hour. Up to three liquid-cooled multistage reciprocating compressors deliver 2400 sm 3 /hr at 50 barg. Desiccant dryers remove water vapour to -30 °C and oil content is reduced to less than 0,01 mg/m³ at 20°C. A single 300 kW inline electric heater raises the air temperature from 35 °C to 327 °C before entering the storage tanks. The connecting pipework is designed to accommodate nozzle loadings imposed during 8 different operating configurations, depending on whether individual tanks are heated or operated at ambient temperature. The discharge from the tanks feeds one facility at a time, through 8" NB flanged pipework that is also trace heated and maintained at the setpoint. Traceable critical flow venturi nozzles provide flow rate measurements up to 30 kg/s dry air (at 327°C) with an accuracy better than 0.5 % actual reading. Details are provided on the overall system design, the commissioning tests and performance measurements of the flow metering system.

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Section: Transient Mass Flow and Thermal Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A large-scale high pressure and temperature compressed air feed system for two gas turbine test facilities to enable heat transfer studies

Goodenough,

Messenger,

Beard

2023

European Conference on Turbomachinery Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics

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“…The inlet flow can be conditioned to be uniform in total temperature and pressure, or to operate with an upstream combustor simulator (Kirollos et al, 2017). For heat transfer testing the facility can operate at mainstream-to-coolant temperature ratios of 1.2 using air heaters, or ratios up to 2.0 using a secondary heated-tank supply system (Messenger and Povey, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultra-Compact Traverse System for Transonic Annular Cascade

Amend¹,

Povey*²

2022

Proceedings of Global Power &Amp; Propulsion Society

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This paper describes the design and commissioning of an ultra-compact traverse system for the Engine Component Aerothermal (ECAT) facility at the University of Oxford, an engine-parts facility operating at engine-representative Mach and Reynolds numbers. The traverse system was required to be unusually compact to integrate within an existing upstream cassette system. The system has been used to perform detailed surveys of inlet total pressure, temperature, flow angles, velocity, and turbulence. The design and commissioning are described in detail. Example data is also provided. It is hoped that the novel design will be useful for other engineers involved in facility design.

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Annular Dump Diffuser and Deswirl System for Back-Pressure Control in Engine-Scale Transonic Annular Cascade

Michaud

Ornano

Povey

2022

Journal of Turbomachinery

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This paper describes the design and commissioning of a combined annular dump diffuser and deswirl system for back-pressure control in environments with high-whirl transonic flow, in particular an annular cascade of nozzle guide vanes from a current civil engine. The system provides independent control of Mach number and Reynolds number, by controlling the back-pressure in the intermediate annular plenum which forms the dump diffuser. The dump diffuser is necessary for optical and probe access and to reduce the risk of exit static pressure disturbances. The system has been installed and validated in the Engine Component AeroThermal (ECAT) facility at the University of Oxford. In this implementation of the system, the high-whirl transonic flow from the nozzle guide vanes passes through a short, parallel annular duct, and is dumped into an annular plenum, before being re-accelerated into a deswirl vane ring. The deswirl ring turns the flow to the axial direction. The flow is then discharged through a variable choke plate into a silencer. Conditioning the flow to have zero whirl at the choke plate reduces the sensitivity of the choke plate effective blockage to the whirl angle. The design, deswirl vane aerodynamic performance, and overall system performance are assessed with detailed experiments and 3D unsteady computational fluid dynamics predictions. The control of high-whirl transonic flow is notoriously challenging, and the deswirl system has application to exhaust conditioning in a number of applications including annular cascade experiments and rocket turbo-pump exhaust systems.

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Calibrated Low-Order Transient Thermal and Flow Models for Robust Test Facility Design

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

A large-scale high pressure and temperature compressed air feed system for two gas turbine test facilities to enable heat transfer studies

A large-scale high pressure and temperature compressed air feed system for two gas turbine test facilities to enable heat transfer studies

Ultra-Compact Traverse System for Transonic Annular Cascade

Annular Dump Diffuser and Deswirl System for Back-Pressure Control in Engine-Scale Transonic Annular Cascade

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