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Investigations on the effect of guide vane thickness and solidity on shock and unsteady flow characteristic of VNT

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Abstract

In this work, the influence of thickness and solidity of guide vane on the unsteady flow of a radial inflow turbine with variable nozzle has been numerically studied. Three vanes with the thickness changes from 0.3 to 0.1 and the solidity changes from 1.43 to 2.86, were chosen for this study. By investigating the unsteady flow field, it is found that the vane with low thickness and high solidity (vane B) can reduce shock by 75 % compared to the vane with high thickness and low solidity (base model); meanwhile, it can also mitigate the nozzle endwall leakage flow thus improves the flow uniformity of rotor inlet. As the intensity of shock and nozzle leakage flow were mitigated, the aerodynamic loading fluctuation of rotor blade can be weakened effectively, which will lead to improved rotor blades forced response. However, at small opening, vane B shows about 0.5 % lower efficiency than the base model; at large open condition, the efficiency degradation of vane B is up to 1.4 %. Therefore, there is a trade-off between the efficiency and forced response when choosing the nozzle vane solidity and thickness.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant/Award Number: ‘51576015’) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant/Award Number: ‘N182303033’).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Control Engineering, Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China

    Dengfeng Yang & Li’ang Cao

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ce Yang

  3. School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Dazhong Lao

  4. School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Harold Sun

  5. R & D Center Detroit, GAC, Michigan, 48124, USA

    Harold Sun

Authors
  1. Dengfeng Yang
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  2. Li’ang Cao
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  3. Ce Yang
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  4. Dazhong Lao
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  5. Harold Sun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dazhong Lao.

Additional information

Recommended by Editor Yang Na

Dengfeng Yang obtained his Ph.D. degree from Power Machinery and Engineering from Beijing institute of Technology (BIT), and is currently working at Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, China. His research interests include radial/mixed turbine design and the complex flow in turbomachinery.

Dazhong Lao is an Associate Professor in School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). He received the Ph.D. degree from the Dalian University of Technology in 1995. His current research interest is turbomachinery aerodynamics.

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Yang, D., Cao, L., Yang, C. et al. Investigations on the effect of guide vane thickness and solidity on shock and unsteady flow characteristic of VNT. J Mech Sci Technol 34, 2423–2433 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-020-0518-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-020-0518-4

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