Numerical investigation of effects of damaged and repaired surfaces on flow behavior of nozzle vane trailing edge

Abstract

The nozzle guide vane, which is a stationary part of a gas turbine, is a critical component of gas turbine engines because it must operate under harsh conditions with high pressure and temperature. Unfortunately, when a gas turbine runs for a long time, the turbine vane is subjected to repeated thermal load. This increases the possibility of fatigue damage and crack failure, thereby reducing the vane material's lifespan. In practice, the risk of failure at the trailing edge (TE) of a turbine vane is very high due to the reasons of shape configuration and cooling performance. The TE damage disturbs the flow physics of compressible air passing the vane TE, resulting in flow phenomena and heat convection. The study aims to numerically investigate the effects of damaged surfaces at the TE of a turbine vane on its flow behavior using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with the SST k-w turbulence model. To simplify the simulation, the effects of the TE failure are presented by using two basic patterns, i.e., long (continuous) cutback damage, and two-short (discrete) cutback damage. To complete the investigation, a further study on the effects of repaired surfaces is included as well. The numerical results show the effects of damaged and repaired surfaces on flow behavior, particularly the vortex formation and the level of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in the TE region. Specifically, the damaged vane surface significantly increases the TKE level in the TE region, particularly the two-short damaged surface, which TKE shoots up to 7000-8000 m2/s2. Meanwhile, TKE in the normal and long damaged case is around 1500 and 4000 m2/s2. With the restoration of the vane surfaces, it can reduce the TKE level in the TE region. For instance, TKE is uniformly around 1750 m2/s2 for the long repaired surface.

Keywords

• flow behavior
• gas-turbine vane
• damage
• trailing edge
• computational fluid dynamics (cfd)