Search Results (4)

Systems based on the oscillating water column (OWC) principle are often equipped with Wells turbines as power take-offs (PTOs) to convert sea-wave energy. The self-rectifying nature of the Wells turbine represents a strength for such applications, while its limited operating range, due to stall, is one of the most relevant limitations. A possible improvement lies in varying the blade stagger angle during operation as this can delay stall by reducing the incidence angle. Although the performance of variable-pitch Wells turbines has been studied in the past, their local aerodynamic performance has never been investigated before. This study addresses this important task by experimentally reconstructing the flow field along the blade height of a Wells turbine prototype, coupled to an OWC simulator, for three values of the stagger angle. The aerodynamic behavior of the Wells rotor is characterized at its inlet and outlet, showing how the interaction between adjacent blades changes due to the stagger angle. The rotor performance is evaluated and compared, providing useful information that is of general validity for similar rows of symmetric blade profiles when pitched at different stagger angles. Full article

Wells turbines are one of the most attractive types of rotating machines installed in Oscillating Water Column (OWC) devices, owing to their simplicity of construction and reliability. Their unconventional design, with symmetrical blades staggered orthogonally with respect to the axis of rotation, simultaneously represents one of the main strengths and weaknesses of the turbine, and makes their aerodynamic behavior complex and significantly different from that of other types of machines. The importance of numerical analyses in explaining the physics behind the Wells rotor operation has significantly grown in recent years as proved by the vast available literature. Nevertheless, experimental analyses still hold an important role in modern turbomachinery design, both for the validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models and for verifying the improvements suggested by optimized design in a realistic environment. This review aims to collect and classify published experimental studies on Wells turbines, distinguishing among the types of experimental setups, methodologies adopted, and measurements performed, to identify the current research gaps and guide future experimental research. Full article

As turbine entry temperatures of modern jet engines continue to increase, additional thermal stresses are introduced onto the high-pressure turbine rotors, which are already burdened by substantial levels of centrifugal and gas loads. Usually, for modern turbofan engines, the temperature distribution upstream of the high-pressure stator is characterized by a series of high-temperature regions, determined by the circumferential arrangement of the combustor burners. The position of these high-temperature regions, both radially and circumferentially in relation to the high-pressure stator arrangement, can have a strong impact on their subsequent migration through the high-pressure stage. Therefore, for a given amount of thermal power entering the turbine, a significant reduction in maximum rotor temperatures can be achieved by adjusting the inlet temperature distribution. This paper is aimed at mitigating the maximum surface temperatures on a high-pressure turbine rotor from a modern commercial turbofan engine by conducting a parametric analysis and optimization of the inlet temperature field. The parameters considered for this study are the circumferential position of the high-temperature spots, and the overall bias of the temperature distribution in the radial direction. High-fidelity unsteady (phase-lag) and conjugate heat transfer simulations are performed to evaluate the effects of inlet clocking and radial bias on rotor metal temperatures. The optimized inlet distribution achieved a 100 K reduction in peak high-pressure rotor temperatures and 7.5% lower peak temperatures on the high-pressure stator vanes. Furthermore, the optimized temperature distribution is also characterized by a significantly more uniform heat load allocation on the stator vanes, when compared to the baseline one. Full article

An experimental investigation of the local flow field in a Wells turbine has been conducted, in order to produce a detailed analysis of the aerodynamic characteristics of the rotor and support the search for optimized solutions. The measurements were conducted with a hot-wire anemometer (HWA) probe, reconstructing the local three-dimensional flow field both upstream and downstream of a small-scale Wells turbine. The multi-rotation technique has been applied to measure the three velocity components of the flow field for a fixed operating condition. The results of the investigation show the local flow structures along a blade pitch, highlighting the location and radial extension of the vortices which interact with the clean flow, thus degrading the turbine’s overall performance. Some peculiarities of this turbine have also been shown, and need to be considered in order to propose modified solutions to improve its performance. Full article