GAS TURBINES

Optimize the preliminary design process by obtaining fast and accurate design results. Flownex® Simulation Environment is the perfect tool to model turbine secondary flow systems, combustion, flow and heat transfer.

OVERVIEW

Flownex® SE simultaneously solves pressure drop, heat transfer and windage power transfer for the connected components of a complete system in both steady-state and transient simulations. These capabilities enable engineers to analyse and design combustion chambers, secondary air systems, blade cooling flows, lubrication systems with oil-air mixtures, as well as overall engine integration and operation.

See below more detailed applications where Flownex is used.

application

SECONDARY & COOLANT FLOW

Flownex® includes a comprehensive rotating component flow library for analyzing the coolant rotational flow field inside the gas turbine engine, also referred to as the secondary air system. Flownex® includes a comprehensive rotating component flow library for analyzing the coolant rotational flow field inside the gas turbine engine, also referred to as the secondary air system.
The Flownex® flow network approach leads to much faster and more cost- effective baseline designs for these systems since the number of expensive, detailed simulations are minimized.
Internal cooling system pressure, flow rate, power and heat transfer distribution for ensuring effective film cooling on hot surfaces.
application

COMBUSTION CHAMBER

Integrated combustion chamber design & optimization including coolant flow.
 
  • Combustion product gas composition calculation.
  • Combustion process adiabatic flame temperature calculation.
  • Flow distribution between cooling slots and main flow path.
  • Thermal capacitance in solids for transient modeling.
  • Axial (2D) conduction.
  • Jet impingement cooling.
  • Film convection heat transfer.
  • Solid-Solid radiation heat transfer.
  • Gas-Solid radiation heat transfer.
  • Convection heat transfer.
 
Preliminary combustor design requires that an extensive number of geometrical and operational conditions be evaluated and compared. Especially during this phase Flownex<sup>®</sup> is an essential tool for combustor design engineers as it accurately captures important parameters such as the mass flow rate distribution through air admission holes, associated pressure losses as well as liner wall temperatures.
 
Networks can be easily configured and solve within a few seconds. This result in substantial development
cost savings because of the reduction in the number of detailed 3D simulations and rig tests required. A further advantage is the ability to use the Flownex<sup>®</sup> results as boundary conditions to subsequent localized 3D models.
application

BLADE COOLING

 
Coupled 1D flow and 3D heat transfer using ANSYS Mechanical coupling.
Industry standard pressure drop and heat transfer correlations for turbulator strips and pedestals.
Typical blade geometry with internal cooling and external cooling film flow can be simulated in transient and steady state.
Blade Cooling in Flownex
application

GAS TURBINE & LUBRICATION SYSTEM

The Flownex® model of the lubrication system is used to determine optimum drain line sizes given the limited space inside the engine.
This requires two-phase pressure drop calculation in lines with oil-air mixtures. In parallel with this the engineer would be able to determine whether or not scavenge pumps are required for fluid transportation in the drain lines and, if so, what will be the pumping requirement.
The Flownex® system model is furthermore used for calculating supply pumping capacity and sump sizing with accompanying oil levels.
  • Calculate two-phase pressure drop
  • Supply pump and scavenge pump integration
  • Determine oil sump size and oil level
  • Flow through labyrinth seals
  • Bearing housing
  • Air vent
application

GAS TURBINE INTEGRATED SYSTEM ANALYSIS

  • Applicable to both industrial and aero-derivative turbine systems.
  • Perform power matching.
  • Simulate transient events such as start-up or load change.
  • Calculate surge margins for compressors.
  • Determine heat-exchanger performance.
  • Expansion thrust calculation.
  • Multiple shafts speeds using a gearbox connection.
  • Integrate with auxiliary systems.

APPLICATIONS

RESOURCES

Download our latest Gas Turbine brochure or get in touch to discuss how Flownex can be applied in your Industry.

Download Gas Turbine brochure

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TESTIMONIALS

Flownex® is able to accurately predict flow and heat transfer in secondary air systems, whilst reducing model setup and execution time substantially compared to 3D CFD.
STEFAN KUNTZAGK Lufthansa Technik AG | Performance & Design Engineer
Flownex® is an ideal tool to develop reduced order models of complex thermo-fluid networks. I have used it extensively to model steam turbines, and because it simply does not take any shortcuts w.r.t. the fundamentals of thermodynamics, I can trust the overall system result.
W.F. FULSAssociate Professor | University of Cape Town
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