In many technical processes, a mixture of gas and steam is used as the working fluid in radial turbines. When condensation occurs during expansion, a portion of the liquid droplets can hit the rotor blades and form a water film, which can move in a radial direction and even against the flow direction. Then, the liquid film separates in the rotor tip clearance or at the leading edge of the rotor and forms coarse water droplets. The presence of coarse water droplets in the gap between stator and rotor can cause damage to the turbine rotor. To design a radial turbine which works under condensation conditions, it is essential to know where and when condensation and film formation occur. With this information, it is possible to take action to remove the liquid or to adjust the required maintenance intervals. To examine the details of condensation and film motion, an existing flow solver is extended to capture condensation effects. Models describing nucleation and droplet growth are added to a particle-tracking algorithm. Droplets impinging on the rotor blades form a liquid film. The motion of this liquid film is calculated with a newly developed thin film solver. The calculation tool is validated against third party test rig experiments as well as numerical experiments. For many parameters, the agreement between the calculation tool and the experiments is quite satisfactory. Some results, however, show larger deviations. One of these parameters is the droplet diameter. The numerical results are generally reliable, but an experimental validation is necessary for detailed understanding of the mechanism. Before expensive experiments are conducted, it is recommended to perform a sensitivity study to emphasize important parameters. This sensitivity study is performed concerning a radial turbine for an operating point at which the liquid film travels into the tip clearance. In this paper it will be shown how the thickness and movement of the liquid film change with variation in influencing parameters. Finally, model constants that have the strongest influence on the calculated film motion are highlighted.

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Comprehensive experimental investigations were conducted to get deeper insight into the physics of stator clocking in turbomachines. Different measurement techniques were used to investigate the influence of varying clocking positions on the highly unsteady flow field in a 1.5-stage axial low-pressure (LP) turbine. A Reynolds number typical for LP turbines as well as a two-dimensional blade design were chosen. Stator 2 was developed as a high-lift profile with a separation bubble on the suction side. This paper presents the results that were obtained by means of static pressure tappings and five-hole probes as well as the time-averaged results of unsteady x-wire measurements. The probes were traversed in different measuring planes for ten clocking positions. Depending on the clocking position, a variation in total pressure loss for Stator 2, a change of the rotor exit flow angle, and a dependency of the Stator 2 exit flow angle were found. The influence of these parameters on turbine efficiency was studied. Three main factors affecting the total pressure loss could be separated: the size of the separation bubble, the production of turbulent kinetic energy, and the strength of the periodic fluctuations downstream of Stator 2.

The potential of acoustic resonances within vane arrays of turbomachinery has been known since the fundamental investigations of Parker back in the sixties and seventies. In his basic studies on flat plate arrays (and later on for an axial compressor) he could show that vortex shedding from the respective trailing edges may excite acoustic resonances that are localized to the vaned flow region. In principle, such phenomena are conceivable for any kind of turbomachinery; however, no such investigations are publicly available for the centrifugal type. The current investigation is one part of an extended research program to gain a better understanding of excitation and noise generating mechanism in centrifugal compressors, and focuses on Parker-type acoustic resonances within the return guide vane cascade of a high-pressure centrifugal compressor. A simplified model to calculate the respective acoustic eigenfrequencies is presented, and the results are compared with finite element analyses. Furthermore, the calculated mode shapes and frequencies are compared with experimental results. It is shown that for high-pressure centrifugal compressors, according to the nomenclature of Parker, acoustic modes of the α, β, γ, and δ type exist over a wide operating range within the return guide vane cascade. For engine representative Reynolds numbers, the experimental results indicate that the vortex shedding frequencies from the vane trailing edges cannot be characterized by a definite Strouhal number; the excitation of the Parker-type acoustic modes is mostly broadband due to the flow turbulence. No lock-in phenomenon between vortex shedding and acoustic modes takes place, and the amplitudes of the acoustic resonances are too small to cause machines failures or excessive noise levels. The simplified model presented in the current paper has been successfully validated for the return guide vane cascade of a centrifugal compressor but can also be applied for arbitrary blade and vane arrays, given that the chord-to-pitch ratio is sufficiently high. With this model, frequency components in measured pressure signals, that were left unexplained in the past, can be easily inspected for possible Parker-type resonances.

Previous experimental investigations revealed the existence of acoustic modes in the side cavities of a high-pressure centrifugal compressor. These modes were excited by pressure patterns which resulted from rotor/stator-interactions (often referred to as Tyler/Sofrin-modes). The acoustic modes were significantly influenced by the prevailing flow in the side cavities. The flow field in such rotor/stator-cavities is characterized by a high circumferential velocity component. The circumferential velocity of the flow and the phase velocity of the acoustic eigenmode superimpose each other, so that the frequencies of the acoustic eigenmodes with respect to the stator frame of reference follow from the sum of both velocities. In the previous study the circumferential velocity was estimated based on existing literature and the phase velocities of the acoustic modes were calculated via an acoustic modal analysis. Based on these results the rotational speeds of the compressor, where acoustic modes were excited in resonance, were determined. The present paper is based on these results and focuses on the influence of the swirling flow and the coupling of the excited acoustic modes between the two side cavities. Such a coupling has been predicted in previous numerical studies but no experimental evidence was available at that time. In this study the circumferential velocities of the flow are determined by measuring the actual radial pressure distribution in the side cavities and assuming radial equilibrium. The determined values are directly used for the prediction of the rotational speeds at resonance. The values for the rotational speeds at resonance predicted that way are compared to the resonance speeds found in the experiments. Further on, simultaneously measured pressure fluctuations in the shroud and hub side cavities with respect to the rotor frame of reference give evidence about the coupling of the acoustic modes between the two side cavities in case of resonance. If the experimentally determined swirling flow velocity is accounted for in the prediction of acoustic resonances, the calculated rotational speeds of resonance are in good agreement with the experimental findings in most cases. Neglecting the flow in the cavities, however, leads to large deviations between calculated and experimentally determined rotational speeds. Varying the operating point of the compressor results in changes of the circumferential velocities in the side cavities and, therefore, in changes of the rotational speeds of resonance. Contrary to the acoustic modes calculated via a finite element analysis by the authors of this paper in previous studies the excited acoustic modes in the experiments are mostly not coupled between the two side cavities, but are localized to one of both cavities. This finding is assumed to be caused by the flow field in the compressor.