Numerical Simulation of a Particle in Air Flow Around a Turbine Blade

Abstract

The Steam turbine is widely used for generating electricity, in the thermal, nuclear and geothermal power generation systems. A wet loss is known as one of the degrading factors of the performance. To reduce the amount of liquid phase generated by condensation and atomization from nozzles, the prediction of the distribution of liquid mass flow rate inside the turbine is important. However, the quantitative understanding and the prediction method of the liquid flow inside the turbine remain unclear because physics inside a turbine is consisting of complex multiscale and multiphase events. In the present study, we proposed a theoretical model predicting the motion of droplet particles in gas flow based on Stokes number whose model does not require numerical simulation. We also conducted the numerical validation test using three-dimensional Eulerian-Lagrangian simulation for the problem with turbine blade T106. The numerical simulation shows that the particle motion is characterized by the Stokes number, that is consistent with the assumption of the theoretical model and previous studies. When Stokes number is smaller than one, the particle trajectory just follows the gas flow streamline and avoids the impacts on the surface of T106. With increasing Stokes number, the particles begin to deviate from the gas flow. As a result, many particles collide with the surface of T106 when the Stokes number is approximately one. When the Stokes number is extremely larger than one, particles move straight regardless of the background gas flow. The good agreements between the theoretical predictions and numerical experiment results justify the use of our proposed theoretical model for the prediction of the particle flow around the turbine blade.