An engineering approach for the fast simulation of radial inflow turbines with vaneless spiral casing by single-channel CFD models
The basic RANS-CFD analysis of the simplest radial-inflow turbine configuration is the subject of this paper. An original technique is here proposed to model the effect of the vaneless spiral casing using single-channel CFD calculations and providing an effective alternative to the more complex simu...
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Published in | E3S web of conferences Vol. 312; p. 11003 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article Conference Proceeding |
Language | English |
Published |
Les Ulis
EDP Sciences
01.01.2021
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
ISSN | 2267-1242 2555-0403 2267-1242 |
DOI | 10.1051/e3sconf/202131211003 |
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Summary: | The basic RANS-CFD analysis of the simplest radial-inflow turbine configuration is the subject of this paper. An original technique is here proposed to model the effect of the vaneless spiral casing using single-channel CFD calculations and providing an effective alternative to the more complex simulation of the 360-degree domain otherwise required to simulate this turbine configuration. The aim of the paper is to verify the effectiveness of the proposed modelling technique as a reliable engineering approach conceived to support the preliminary design phase of radial-inflow turbines with time-effective CFD calculations. To this end, the open-source CFD code MULTALL has been used to predict the aerodynamic performance of optimal designs of radial-inflow turbines with different specific speed and diameter and working with air as ideal gas. The MULTALL predictions are compared with the corresponding steady-state results obtained by calculations suited to the preliminary assessment of radial turbines designs performed on fully 360-degree turbine domains using the commercial code Star CCM+®. The investigation is conducted on two turbines that are designed in accordance with a widely validated method. The results show that the proposed CFD approach predicts well the trends and values of the aerodynamic performance of both the turbine designs: a 5% overestimation of the performance predicted by the fully 360-degree CFD models was never exceeded. The suggested turbine modelling approach implemented in MULTALL requires a three times lower computation time than the corresponding traditional 360-degree model. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Conference Proceeding-1 SourceType-Conference Papers & Proceedings-1 content type line 21 |
ISSN: | 2267-1242 2555-0403 2267-1242 |
DOI: | 10.1051/e3sconf/202131211003 |