1,721,020 research outputs found
A Mechanistic Model for the Predictive Maintenance of Heavy-Duty Centrifugal Fans Operating With Dust-Laden Flows
No full textHeavy-duty centrifugal fans are employed for the transport of dust-laden flows in industrial plants, for cement or steel production, or in energy production of plants and mine ventilation systems. These applications require the disposal of huge amounts of suspended particles, which can lead to a gradual erosion of the machine parts where impacts take place. The wear of the fan components can lead to premature failure of the machine, threatening human safety and reliability of the whole plant. The assessment of the wear severity of the machine, according to the process parameters, can aid the plant owner in scheduling overhaul operations along with the operative life of the machine. Moreover, through a reliable estimation of the wear severity, fan manufacturers can optimize the whole machine design process, from the material selection to the warranty time assessment. This work aims to develop a semi-empirical method capable of estimating the erosion severity of centrifugal fans employed for heavy-duty operations. A mechanistic model which accounts for the erosion on the blade leading edge is proposed. The model is derived by means of an analytical approach and accounts for a number of operating parameters (i.e.,, fan geometry, fan operating point, particle concentration in the flow, fluid properties, and material erosion resistance). A comparison of the theoretical model to the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation results obtained through the use of multiphase particle tracking is also provided to assess the reliability of the present method
Effect of jets in crossflow in deposition mitigation on full 3D NGV with endwall features
No full textParticle ingestion is a major concern for the operation of gas turbines. In the case of an aircraft, particle dispersed in the air ingested by the engine can threaten flight safety. Swallowed particles can erode or stick to aerodynamic surfaces. Both the occurrences translate in a reduction of performance due to variation in shape and in roughness of the aerodynamic surfaces. This work is devoted to the analysis of fouling, i.e. the deposition of particles over time. By observing that the deposition pattern is strongly influenced by the flow field in the nearby of the walls, the central idea of this work is to employ Active Flow Control (AFC) to mitigate fouling when emergency conditions are met by the aircraft. The proposed system will inject air bled from compressor discharge in front of the critical locations where fouling is supposed to occur. The present work aspires to lay the foundations for the development of such an AFC device, by focusing on the modified aerodynamics consequent to the introduction of the transverse jet. The potential of this device is evaluated quantitatively using CFD simulations. An energy-based sticking model, coupled with a mesh-morphing solver, is used to track the airfoil deposition thickness evolution in time. The work is two-fold: first, the dynamics of the interaction between flow structures and particle transport is addressed. Second, the attention is posed on correlating fouling pattern variation to the modified aerodynamics of the vane consequent to the introduction of the device. Three design concepts are investigated on the 3D test case geometry of an HPT NGV cascade. The counter-rotating vortex pair (CVP) is detected as the main responsible for jet-particle interaction. Finally, the jet impact on aerodynamic performance is also assessed
Simulation of Particle Trajectories in Gas Turbine Components and Assessment of Unsteady Effects Using an Efficient Eulerian-Lagrangian Technique
No full textIn recent years, CFD has proven to be a very useful asset to help with predicting complex flows in a wide range of situations, including multiphase and gas-particle flows. On this track, numerical modelling of particle-laden flows in multistage turbomachinery has become an important step in helping to analyse the behaviour of a discrete phase in gas turbines. Furthermore, unsteady effects due, for example, to rotor–stator interaction may have an effect on trajectories and capture efficiencies of the discrete phase. Unfortunately, computational times for transient simulations can be exceedingly high, especially if a discrete-phase needs also to be simulated. For this reason, this work reports a new method for the efficient and accurate simulation of particle-laden flows in gas turbine engines components. The Harmonic Balance Method is exploited to gain orders of magnitude speedup exploiting the idea that once the flow field has been embedded in the spectral basis, it can be reconstructed at any desired time. In this way, not only can the computational time needed to reach convergence of the flow field be dramatically reduced, but there is also no need to keep simulating the flow field during particle tracking. On the contrary, the continuous phase field can be retrieved at any desired time through flow reconstruction. This technique is conceptually simple, but, to the authors’ knowledge, has never been applied so far in particle-laden flow simulations and represents a novelty in the field. First, the implementation of the method is described, and details are given on how phase-lagged boundary conditions can be applied to flow and particles to further speed up the calculation. Then, some relevant case studies are presented to highlight the performance of the method
A LOW-NOISE AIRFOIL FOR LOW REYNOLDS APPLICATIONS: A MULTI-FIDELITY OPTIMIZATION
No full textAutomotive fans, small wind turbines, and manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (MAVs/UAVs) are just a few of the examples in which noise generated by the flow interaction with the aerodynamic surfaces is a major concern. The current work shows the potential of a new airfoil shape to minimize noise generation, maintaining high lift-to-drag ratio in the low-Re regime (Re ≤2e5). The investigation is carried out by means of a multi-fidelity approach: a low-fidelity semi-empirical model is exploited for evaluating the sound pressure level (SPL). The fast evaluation of the low-cost function enables the computation of a large range of possible profiles, and accuracy is added to the low-fidelity response surface with high-fidelity CFD data. The constraint of maintaining a pre-defined range of the lift coefficient and lift-to-drag ratio ensures the possibility of using this profile in usual design procedures
Particle deposition on HTP nozzle: full 3D investication and secondary flows effect
No full textGas turbines can operate in an environment dispersed with particles that, if ingested by the machine, may have a detrimental effect on the aerodynamic performances. Therefore, the aim of this work is to gather information about how particles adhesion is influenced by geometrical features of gradually growing complexity. At this scope, the particle deposition problem is investigated from the numerical standpoint. Specifically, the LS-89 transonic high pressure turbine (HPT) vane is simulated and an encounter with a volcanic ash cloud is modelled. Three simulations are carried out: a 2D simulation has been compared with the set of 3D simulations. Different levels of complexity of the geometry have been considered for the 3D case: the endwall effect has been assessed considering the presence of a variable radius fillet and comparing it with the prediction obtained by a cylindrical extrusion. The proposed analysis provides indications on the 2D and 3D prediction with regards to particle deposition problems. The sticking pattern of the particle has been investigated in relation to the different nature of secondary flows
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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