Sharif Digital Repository

Extensive low speed wind-tunnel tests were conducted to study the unsteady aerodynamic behaviour of an airfoil sinusoidally oscillating in plunge. The experiments involved measuring the surface pressure distribution over a range of amplitudes, H = ±5 to ±15cm. In addition, steady state data were acquired and were used to furnish a baseline for further analysis and comparison. The model was oscillated with a constant reduced frequency, k = 0.058, at three mean angles of attack of 0°, 10° and 18°. The unsteady aerodynamic loads were calculated from the surface pressure measurements, 64 ports, along the chord for both upper and lower surfaces of the model. The plunging displacements were... 

The casing treatment and flow injection upstream of the rotor tip are two effective approaches in suppressing instabilities or recovering from a fully developed stall. The current work presents a state of the art design for the blade tip injection. This is characterized by a high pressure fluid injecting means for delivery of a jet flow directly into the casing treatment machined into the shroud. The casing treatment is positioned over the blade tip region and exceeds the impeller axially by some 30% of the tip chord both in the upstream and downstream directions. Using an injected mass flow of around 2.4% of the annulus flow, the present design can improve stall margin by up to 7% by... 

A series of experiments were carried out to study the unsteady wake phenomenon behind an oscillating airfoil. The airfoil is a section of a wind turbine blade oscillating in pitch about the quarter chord axis at various reduced frequencies, oscillation amplitude and mean angles of attack. Streamwise velocity profiles were obtained by real time and instantaneous measurements at 35 vertically aligned points behind the airfoil via two similar rakes. One of rakes has only static pressure probes and the other is equipped with total pressure ones. An estimation of the variation of linear momentum defect during the oscillation is obtained and has been compared with the corresponding static one. The... 

A series of unsteady low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade which is under construction were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. Model was tested at three mean angles of attack, 5, 10 and 18 degrees at the fixed oscillation domain of 5 degrees. Results show that contamination decreases the maximum lift coefficient more than 40 percent. However Reynolds number and oscillation frequency increase, have a positive effect on the maximum lift coefficient in the contaminated model and it decreased the difference between maximum lift coefficient in the clean airfoil and the contaminated one  

An extensive experimental investigation to study the effect of the reduced frequency and surface grit roughness on an airfoil oscillating in plunging motion has been conducted. The application of surface grit roughness simulates surface irregularities that occur on the wind turbine blades. Data were taken at a Reynolds number of 0.42*10* and at a range of reduced frequencies, k=0.03-0.1. Tests were conducted at plunging amplitudes of ±10cm and ±15cm and at mean angles of attack of 0°, 10° and 18°. It was found that the width of the hysteresis loop, position of the figure-8 shape, slope of the lift coefficient curve and maximum lift force have been influenced by both oscillation frequency and... 

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade which is under constructer were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. At first model was tested in the clean condition and after that it was tested with tree different types of roughness. The data shows that this particular airfoil is very sensitive to the applied surface roughness. For the contaminated model the roughness, 0.5mm height was distributed over the entire upper surface of the airfoil such that the distribution pattern was denser in the vicinity of the leading edge and thinner in the trailing edge area. Statistical data show that... 

An extensive experimental study is conducted to investigate the effects of reduced frequency on a harmonically pitching wing where its cross section is used in a 660 kW wind turbine under construction in Iran. The corresponding lift coefficient and real time pressure signatures at three sections of the model at various reduced frequencies are examined. The test covers a wide range of angles of attack at prestall, stall, and deep stall regions. Pressure distributions at tip, middle, and root sections of the wing were recorded and from these distributions the lift coefficients are computed. The results show great role of the reduced frequency in altering the maximum lift coefficients, lift... 

This paper presents a state of the art design for the blade tip injection. The design includes the means, to inject high-pressure gas jet directly into a circumferential casing groove formed in the shroud adjacent to the blade tip. The casing groove is positioned over the blade tip and exceeds 30% of the blade axial chord beyond the impeller to both upstream and downstream directions. In order to validate the multi block model used in the tip gap region, main flow characteristics are verified with the experimental data for smooth casing with a design clearance of 0.5% span. Three arbitrary mass flow rates (1.75%, 2.45%, and 4.35% of choked mass flow) have been studied. The results indicate... 

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance. The airfoil was a section of a wind turbine blade under construction. The performance of the section was measured in the following conditions: 1. Clean airfoil 2. Two types of zigzag roughness 3. Strip tape 4. Distributed contamination roughness Our preliminary data shows that the airfoil is very sensitive to the applied surface roughness. For the contamination model the roughness, 0.5mm height, is distributed over the entire upper surface of the airfoil. By putting the contamination roughness on the airfoil the... 

The manufacturing process of a directionally solidified (DS) IN738LC turbine blade, produced with the liquid metal cooling (LMC) process was improved based on process modelling. The improvement involved varying the system dimensions in the baffle area and optimising the mould thickness, design and the withdrawal parameters. The grain structure of the DS blades produced exhibits a well defined <001> texture with a few stray grains near the blade top compared to the previous design. Some blades were given to a two stage heat treatment followed by tension tests at 25 and 650°C as well as creep tests at 152 MPa/982°C and 340 MPa/850°C. The yield and tensile strength of improved DS blades were... 

Surface pressure measurements were conducted for a pitch oscillation wing in a subsonic closed circuit wind tunnel. Experimental results have been used to train a multilayer perceptron network to foresee the effect of modification of oscillation amplitude and reduced frequency. Consistent results are obtained both for the training data as well as generalization to other amplitudes and reduced frequencies. This work indicates that artificial neural networks can reliably predict aerodynamic coefficients and forecast the effects of oscillation amplitude as well as reduced frequency on the wind turbine blade performance. Moreover, this study introduces a new tool for the designers to have enough... 

Extensive wind tunnel tests have been conducted to investigate effects of turbulence intensity variations on the behavior of a section of a wind turbine blade in an oscillatory motion. Special emphasize was applied on the aerodynamic characteristics when oscillating the model in the vicinity of its static stall angle of attack and in the post stall condition. The model had 0.25m chord and was pitched about its quarter-chord. Data were acquired at various Reynolds number, and reduced frequency. Results show that turbulent intensity has strong effect on the unsteady load coefficients, hence aerodynamic performance of this model. Furthermore, free stream turbulence has different effect on the... 

Rene-80, as an alloy for production of the jet turbine blades, shows high mechanical properties as well as microstructure stability during the high temperature engine operation. In this study we tried to have a deep insight on the microstructure of the cast Rene-80 and the evolution of microstructure during the different stages of the relatively complex GE class-A heat treatment. Although the solution heat treatment homogenized the chemical alloy segregation resulted from the casting to some extent, it did not cause all the casting γ′ particles to dissolve completely in the matrix. Primary aging caused growth in the residue particles as well as growth of the new precipitated particles, which... 

Improvements in sealing mechanism between the rotating and the stationary parts of a rurbomachine can extensively reduce the endwall leakage flow. In this regard, abradable seals are incorporated into compressor and turbine blade-tip region. In a gas turbine, equipped with abradable seals, tip of the rotor blade is designed to cut into the material coating of the casing and to form a close fitted circumferential groove for the movement of the blade tip. As a result, the resistance to the leakage flow in the tip gap region increases due to smaller tip clearances (available without any rub-induced damages). Minimizing the tip clearance size can lead to an increase in performance and stability.... 

A gradient based optimization using the continuous adjoint method for inverse design of a turbine blade cascade is presented. The advantage of the adjoint method is that the objective function gradients can be evaluated by solving the adjoint equations with coefficients depending on the flow variables. This method is particularly suitable for aerodynamic design optimization for which the number of design variables is large. Bezier polynomials are used to parameterize suction side of the turbine blade. The numerical convective fluxes of both flow and adjoint equations are computed by using a Roe-type approximate Riemann solver. An approximate linearization is applied to simplify the... 

Modern turbine blades are cooled by air flowing through internal cooling passages. Three-Dimensional numerical simulation of these blade cooling passages is too time-consuming because of their complex geometries. These geometrical complexities exist as a result of using various kinds of cooling technologies such as rib turbulators (inline, staggered, or inclined ribs), pin fin, 90 and 180 degree turns (both sharp and gradual turns, with and without turbulators), finned passage, by-pass flow and tip cap impingement. One possible solution to simulate such sophisticated passages is to use the one-dimensional network method, which is presented in the current work. Turbine blade cooling channels... 

Extensive experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of leading-edge roughness on the state of the boundary layer of a wind turbine blade section. The application of surface grit roughness simulates surface irregularities that occur on the wind turbine blades. The measurements were done using multiple hot-film sensors and surface pressure transducers in both static and plunging oscillation of the airfoil. Frequency domain analysis was used to determine the state of the unsteady boundary layer  

A series of tests were carried out to study the unsteady wake behaviour behind an aerofoil which is a section of a wind-turbine blade. The model is oscillated in pitch about its quarter chord axis at various reduced frequencies, amplitudes, and mean angles-of-attack. Instantaneous and mean velocity profiles were obtained using total and static pressure at 35 vertically aligned points behind the aerofoil via two similar rakes. The rakes were located at a distance of 1.5 chord length behind the model. An estimation of the real time and average variations of the linear momentum deficit during the oscillation cycle is obtained and has been compared with the corresponding static data. The results... 

Nickel-base superalloys such as René 80 are widely used in manufacturing aircraft turbine blades. They are usually coated in order to increase their wear, oxidation, erosion, and hot corrosion properties against environmental degradation. In this article, the mechanical behavior (tensile and low-cycle fatigue (LCF)) of uncoated and aluminide-coated (CODEP-B) René 80 has been studied at 871 °C and 982 °C. Experimental results show that the tensile properties of coated specimens are relatively lower than those of uncoated ones in the same conditions, but application of coating increases the LCF life of René 80 at T = 871 °C, 982 °C, R = (εmin/εmax) = 0, strain rate of 2 × 10-3 s-1, and Δεt =... 

Since the air density reduces as altitude increases, operation of small wind turbines (SWTs), which usually have no pitch adjustment, remains challenging at high altitudes due largely to the reduction of starting aerodynamic torque. By reducing the moment of inertia through the use of hollow blades, this study aims to speed up the starting while maintaining the structural integrity of the blades and high output power. A horizontal axis turbine with hollow blades was designed for two sites in Iran with altitude of 500 m and 3000 m. The design variables are the distributions of the chord, twist, and shell thickness and the improvement of output power and starting are the design goals....