This paper describes a multiblock grid generation method for turbine cooling geometries. The method is based on the observation that cooling films are essentially branches inserted on a large trunk, represented by the passage or by the cooling duct. The small size of the films compared to the overall size of turbine blades allows simplifications to be introduced with respect to general-purpose trunk and branch algorithms. The grid generation starts from an existing layout for the passage or cooling duct grid and operates on a Cartesian patch of the trunk surface. The patch is hollowed and a templated branch layout is inserted. Padding blocks are created to connect the two layouts into a single, boundary conforming layout. The resulting multiblock grid is then smoothed using a modification of Thompson’s Poisson system. The boundary mesh distribution is not prescribed. Instead, boundary orthogonality is enforced and elliptic smoothing is performed on the boundaries as well as inside the volume. The grid size control relies on a novel Newton-like update for the control functions of the Poisson system. The smoothing step is essential in achieving good grid quality throughout and determines, in part, the template for a given configuration. The algorithm is particularly suitable for large arrays of films or other cooling decoration and results show that the proposed method can produce grids of better quality than existing methods.

Turbomachinery blade rows can have non-uniform geometries due to design intent, manufacture errors or wear. When predictions are sought for the effect of such non-uniformities, it is generally the case that whole assembly calculations are needed. A spectral method is used in this paper to approximate the flow fields of the whole assembly but with significantly less computation cost. The method projects the flow perturbations due to the geometry non-uniformity in an assembly in Fourier space, and only one passage is required to compute the flow perturbations corresponding to a certain wave-number of geometry variation. The performance of this method on transonic blade rows is demonstrated on a modern fan assembly. Low engine order and high engine order geometry non-uniformity (e.g. “saw-tooth” pattern) are examined. The non-linear coupling between the flow perturbations and the passage-averaged flow field is also demonstrated. Pressure variations on the blade surface and the potential flow field upstream of the leading edge from the proposed spectral method and the direct whole assembly solutions are compared. Good agreement is observed on both quasi-3D and full 3D cases. A lumped approach to compute deterministic fluxes is also proposed to further reduce the computational cost of the spectral method. The spectral method is formulated in such a way that it can be easily implemented into an existing harmonic flow solver by adding an extra source term, and can be potentially used as an efficient tool for aeromechanical and aeroacoustics design of turbomachinery blade rows.

Turbulence modelling in compressor passages continues to be a challenging problem. In order to better understand the shortcomings of turbulence modelling, a LES and a RANS computation were performed of a repeating compressor stage. The computation was carried out near the aerodynamic design point of the compressor stage, in order to minimise the challenge posed to the turbulence model. The use of a repeating stage configuration removes the need to specify the statistics of the incoming turbulent field; the statistics become an output of the simulation and not an input. This is a critical fact that greatly increases the credibility of the current LES compressor simulation over many previous simulations. As the computations are performed at mid-span, radial gradients can safely be assumed to be small, thus removing issues associated with capturing flow features attributed to 3D geometry. The flow field is assumed to be incompressible, which is required in order to achieve a true repeating stage environment. The RANS computation is based on a state-of-the-art turbulence model. At the same flow coefficient, the RANS simulation yielded a total pressure rise very near that of the LES simulation. However, there are nontrivial differences in the flow details. The mean flow and Reynolds shear stress boundary layer profiles are in good agreement in regions of favourable pressure gradient, but significant differences exist in the presence of adverse pressure-gradients. The turbulent kinetic energy profiles however are in poor agreement throughout the flow. The mean flow production rates predicted by the RANS computation are largely similar to those of the LES simulation forward of mid-chord where the pressure gradient is favourable. A notable exception is the leading-edge region where the LES predicts negative production i.e. a net transfer of energy to the time-mean flow, and the region aft of mid-chord where the pressure gradient is adverse. Outside of the viscous sub-layer, the dissipation rates are also predicted correctly by the RANS simulation forward of midchord where the pressure gradient is favourable. Aft of mid-chord however, there are significant differences in the dissipation rates.

Use of steel lazy wave risers has increased as oil and gas developments are happening in deeper waters or in parts of the world with no pipeline infrastructure. These developments utilize FPSO’s with offloading capabilities necessary for these developments. However, due to more severe motions compared to other floating platforms, traditional catenary form of risers are unsuitable for such developments and this is the reason Steel lazy wave risers (SLWR) are required. SLWRs have shown to have better strength and fatigue performance and lower tensions at the hang-off compared to steel catenary risers. A suitable Lazy-Wave form of the catenary riser is achieved by targeted placement of a custom configured buoyancy section. The strength and fatigue performance of steel lazy wave risers are governed by parameters such as length to start of this buoyancy section, length of the buoyancy section, hang-off angle and the buoyancy factor. Achieving these key performance drivers for a SLWR takes several iterations throughout the design process. In this paper, genetic algorithm which is an artificial intelligence optimization tool has been used to automate the generation of an optimized configuration of a steel lazy wave riser. This will enable the riser designer to speed up the riser design process to achieve the best location, coverage and size of the buoyancy section. The results that the genetic algorithm routine produces is compared to a parametric study of steel lazy wave risers varying the key performance drivers. The parametric analysis uses a regular wave time domain analysis and captures trends of change in strength and fatigue performance with change in steel lazy wave parameters.

As an effective approach to improving the fuel economy of heavy duty vehicles, hydraulic hybrid has shown great potentials in off-road applications. Although the fuel economy improvement is achieved through different hybrid architectures (parallel, series and power split), the energy management strategy is still the key to hydraulic hybrid powertrain. Different optimization methods provide powerful tools for energy management strategy of hybrid powertrain. In this paper a power optimization method based on equivalent consumption minimization strategy has been proposed for a series hydraulic hybrid wheel loader. To show the fuel saving potential of the proposed strategy, the fuel consumption of the hydraulic hybrid wheel loader with equivalent consumption minimization strategy was investigated and compared with the system with a rule-based strategy. The parameter study of the equivalent consumption minimization strategy has also been conducted.

Owing to its high power density, hydraulic hybrid is considered as an effective approach to reducing the fuel consumption of heavy duty vehicles. A gas-charged hydraulic accumulator serves as the power buffer, storing and releasing hydraulic power through gas. An accurate hydraulic accumulator model is crucial to predict its actual performance. There are two widely used accumulator models: isothermal and adiabatic models. Neither of these models are practical to reflect its real performance in the hydraulic hybrid system. Therefore, the influence of an accumulator model considering thermal hysteresis on a hydraulic hybrid wheel loader has been studied in this paper. The difference of three accumulator models (isothermal, adiabatic and energy balance) has been identified. A dynamic simulation model of the hydraulic hybrid wheel loader has been developed. The fuel consumptions of the hydraulic hybrid wheel loader with three accumulator models has been compared. The influence of heat transfer coefficient of the accumulator housing has also been studied.

Steel Lazy wave risers are being increasingly used for deep water applications due to better strength and fatigue performance in the touchdown zone compared to steel catenary risers. Several parameters govern the design of steel lazy wave risers including the length of the catenary from hang-off to start of buoyancy section and the length of the buoyancy section. In this paper, a parametric study is performed to investigate the trends in strength and fatigue performance of steel lazy wave risers with change in configuration parameters. A normative cost assessment is also performed to show the impact of these design variables on overall cost of the system. Dynamic analysis is performed to check the change in strength and fatigue performance of steel lazy wave risers as the configuration parameters are changed. The results from the parametric study will assist in designing steel lazy wave risers which satisfy the strength and fatigue design criteria.

Steady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations are the workhorse of turbomachinery design. Recent trends in gas turbine design require full consideration of flow unsteadiness at the design stage to address issues of performance as well as integrity. Unsteady calculations using non-linear time marching methods are too computationally expensive to be used at the design stage. An alternative way is needed to reduce computational cost whilst retaining control on the accuracy of the simulations. To address this need, this paper presents a framework of Fourier-based methods for turbomachinery flows. The method is based on the non-linear harmonic (NLH) method. The method uses the favourable properties of Favre-averaging to obtain a simpler and more flexible formulation of the time-averaged system for NLH. This is ideal for implementing NLH in a CFD code where minimum modifications are desired. The approach allows the fidelity of the simulations to be tuned by switching on or off the coupling between the flow perturbations and the mean flow or the cross-coupling among the harmonics. This leads to a range of modelling fidelity for unsteady flows. For example, if the unsteady flow is linear, a linear harmonic method is sufficient for the design instead of using a harmonic balance simulation which has extra computational cost and slower convergence. The method has been tested on compressors and turbines which covers gas turbine flows in a range of flow regimes. Good agreement with data from non-linear time marching simulations are observed for all cases.

As an effective approach to improving the fuel economy of modern heavy-duty vehicles, hydraulic hybrids have shown great advantages in off-road vehicles. Wheel loader is one of the representative vehicles in off-road applications as they are usually designed for single and repetitive task such as loading material. In a typical short loading cycle, there are many accelerations and decelerations, showing great hybridization potentials. Therefore in this paper a series hydraulic hybrid powertrain has been proposed for compact wheel loader since its hydrostatic powertrain can be easily transformed to a series hydraulic hybrid with an additional hydraulic accumulator. The modeling and system design of the series hydraulic hybrid wheel loader have been presented. Three controllers have been designed for vehicle speed control, engine torque control and engine speed control respectively. A dynamic simulation model has been developed in MATLAB/Simulink. A rule-based energy management strategy (EMS) has been proposed for the series hydraulic hybrid wheel loader. Two different EMS schemes were investigated and compared through simulation studies.

The characteristics of a novel power split hydraulic transmission are studied in this paper. The new hydraulic transmission is built from a balanced vane pump with a floating ring. By coupling the floating ring to the output shaft, it becomes a hydraulic transmission, converting the mechanical power on the input shaft into the hydraulic power at the outlet and the mechanical power on the output shaft. By controlling the pressure at the outlet (control pressure), the power ratio transferred through mechanical and hydraulic path can be adjusted. One important feature of the new transmission is that the internal friction torque of the transmission, e.g., friction torque between vane tips and floating ring, helps to drive the output shaft whereas is wasted and turned into heat in a conventional vane pump. This increases the transfer efficiency from input shaft to output shaft. In this study, the characteristics of the input shaft torque, output shaft torque and the outlet flow rate are investigated through experimental studies. Results show that the shaft torques and the outlet flow rate are functions of control pressure and differential shaft speed. The mathematical models have been developed from the analytical and experimental results. The study provides a comprehensive understanding of the new transmission.

Based on cohesive element method (CEM), the continuous icebreaking process with different heel angles in level ice are simulated in this paper. The simulations are established in FEM software LS-DYNA and an icebreaking tanker - MT Uikku is assumed advancing with the certain heel angle in level ice. Firstly, the comparisons are made between the simulations and the model tests for the cases with zero heel angle. A good agreement is obtained between the simulated and measured data. Then the effects of different heel angles on ice resistance and ice breaking patterns are investigated and analyzed. The results show that ice resistance, average ice breaking length and average broken channel width present increasing trends with the increase of ship heel angle. The applied methods show a wide prospect to predict ice loads on marine structures in the level ice and simulate the ice-structure interaction process.

Modern trend in installation design is moving towards very high-bypass ratio turbofans. Very high-bypass turbofans represent an effective way of improving the propulsive efficiency of civil aero-engines. Such engines require larger and heavier nacelles, which partially offset the gains in specific fuel consumption. The penalty associated with a larger installation can be mitigated by adopting thinner walls for the nacelle and by shortening the intake section. Such inlet sections are characterized by more restrictive operation condition because they are more prone to separation at high incidence flight conditions. Moreover, in short nacelle installations the by-pass guide vanes and pylon are closer to the fan blades and consequently the distortion due to potential effects induced by the presence of the pylon and non-axisymmetric OGV stage play a significant role in terms of unsteady interaction in the entire system. It is mandatory to consider the inlet, fan, bypass and pylon as a unique coupled system also at the design stage, for assessment of fan force. This kind of assessment is usually carried on by expensive URANS calculation. The factors leading to high computational demands are the spatial resolution required in the fan domain and the time resolution required to sample the fan blade passing frequency. Large savings are therefore possible if simplifications are introduced which relax the resolution requirements in the fan passages and change the nature of the computation into a steady-state computation for the ducts. The present contribution documents a simplified fan model for fan-intake computations based on the solution of the double linearization problem for unsteady, transonic flow past a cascade of thin aerofoils with finite mean load. The coupling with the intake flow and the bypass is performed by using the flow patterns at fan face and fan exit as boundary conditions for the fan model and computing circumferentially non-uniform boundary conditions for the intake and the bypass from the fan model. The computation of the flow in the intake, bypass and pylon is therefore reduced to a steady problem, whereas the computation of the flow in the fan is reduced to one steady problem and a set of linearised models in the frequency domain. The model is applied to a well-documented test case and compares favourably with experimental data and much more expensive three-dimensional, time domain computations.