Numerical and Experimental Study of the Performance Effects of Varying Vaneless Space and Vane Solidity in Radial Inflow Turbine Stators.

An extensive experimental program has been carried out on a 135?mm tip diameter radial turbine using a variety of stator designs, in order to facilitate direct performance comparisons of varying stator vane solidity and the effect of varying the vaneless space. A baseline vaned stator was designed using commercial blade design software, having 15 vanes and a vane trailing edge to rotor leading edge radius ratio (Rte/rle) of 1.13. Two additional series of stator vanes were designed and manufactured; one series having varying vane numbers of 12, 18, 24, and 30, and a further series with Rte/rle ratios of 1.05, 1.175, 1.20, and 1.25. As part of the design process a series of CFD simulations were carried out in order to guide design iterations towards achieving a matched flow capacity for each stator. In this way the variations in the measured stage efficiency could be attributed to the stator passages only, thus allowing direct comparisons to be made. Interstage measurements were taken to capture the static pressure distribution at the rotor inlet and these measurements were then used to validate subsequent numerical models. The overall losses for different stators have been quantified and the variations in the measured and computed efficiency were used to recommend optimum values of vane solidity and Rte/rle.

A Comparison of the Flow Structures and Losses Within Vaned and Vaneless Stators for Radial Turbines

This paper details the numerical analysis of different vaned and vaneless radial inflow turbine stators. Selected results are presented from a test program carried out to determine performance differences between the radial turbines with vaned stators and vaneless volutes under the same operating conditions. A commercial computational fluid dynamics code was used to develop numerical models of each of the turbine configurations, which were validated using the experimental results. From the numerical models, areas of loss generation in the different stators were identified and compared, and the stator losses were quantified. Predictions showed the vaneless turbine stators to incur lower losses than the corresponding vaned stator at matching operating conditions, in line with the trends in measured performance.. Flow conditions at rotor inlet were studied and validated with internal static pressure measurements so as to judge the levels of circumferential nonuniformity for each stator design. In each case, the vaneless volutes were found to deliver a higher level of uniformity in the rotor inlet pressure field. [DOI: 10.1115/1.2988493]