Effect of Carbon Particles on Aerodynamic Performance of a Radial Inflow Turbine in Closed Brayton Cycle

Abstract

For the closed Brayton cycle using carbon heaters, working fluid contains some solid particles generally. These impurities will enter turbine along with gas, influence aerodynamic performance, and even make turbine work under off-design condition. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of particles on turbine. In this paper, a turbine using argon with carbon particles as working fluid is investigated. Particles are assumed to have no volume and are evenly divided into ten different sizes. Based on the discrete phase model (DPM), CFD method is adopted to simulate turbine flow field, and influences of carbon particle mass fraction, particle diameter and incident velocity on aerodynamic performance are analyzed. The results indicate that as particle mass fraction increases, total pressure, static pressure and Mach number decrease significantly, isentropic efficiency decreases slightly, while temperature increases. Collision and rebound of particles in flow field are more intense with a larger particle diameter, but flow field is less influenced under the same mass fraction due to decrease of particle number. Incident velocity has little effect on aerodynamic performance; however, with increase of incident velocity, diameter of particles on blade surface is larger and collision of particles is more intense especially in nozzle. These results will help understand the influence of solid particles on turbines.