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GTX 100 Turbine Section Measurement Using a Temperature Sensitive Crystal Technique. A Comparison With 3D Thermal and Aerodynamic Analyses Mats Annerfeldt Sergey Shukin Mats Bjrkman Agne Karlsson Anders Jnsson Elena Svistounova Demag Delaval Industrial Turbomachinery AB Finspong, Sweden

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GTX 100 TURBINE SECTION MEASUREMENT USING A TEMPERATURE SENSITIVE CRYSTAL TECHNIQUE. A COMPARISON WITH 3D THERMAL AND AERODYNAMIC ANALYSES Mats Annerfeldt, Sergey Shukin, Mats Bjrkman, Agne Karlsson, Anders Jnsson Elena Svistounova Demag Delaval Industrial Turbomachinery AB, Finspong, Sweden 1. Abstract In modern gas turbine engines, higher and higher turbine inlet temperature is used in order to increase the efficiency. To achieve a high benefit from increased temperature level it is necessary to minimise the amount of cooling air, which reduces the thermal cycle efficiency. The difficulty in turbine design is to find the optimal path to increase the efficiency without sacrificing the component lifetimes. Modern gas turbine materials usually suffer a steep decrease in material properties when a certain temperature is exceeded. It is extremely important to know the component temperatures in real engine conditions with good accuracy, in order to be able to predict the component lifetimes. For the heavily cooled components, the main damage mechanism is often thermo-mechanical fatigue, TMF, caused by the thermal gradients within the component. With more traditional instrumentation using thermocouples it is not possible to install enough measuring points on the component to really catch the gradients. Thermal paints show the gradients, but the commercially available paints are too sparse between the temperature transitions and are often hard to evaluate with the necessary accuracy of temperature level. The Thermo-crystal method enables measurement of the temperature with good accuracy in many points on the same component. This paper presents the way in which such a measurement was performed under real engine conditions and shows some of the results. Both gas and metal temperatures for stationary components as well as rotating blades were measured with Thermocrystals during the same test run. Furthermore, the results from the measurement are compared to the calculated temperature field of the same component using a 3D heat transfer conjugate model, from which the temperature field used for lifetime predictions is taken. The gas temperatures are used for comparing and tuning of the 3D multistage CFD model used to calculate the temperature boundary conditions for the thermal model of the component. A comparison between measured and calculated temperature attenuation is presented in the paper.

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2. Nomenclature T T* Tw* 2* temperature [C] Stagnation temperature absolute frame of reference [C] Stagnation temperature in relative frame of reference[C] time [min] Diffraction angle

Mea = measurements S3D = MBStage3D

3. Introduction Gas turbine plant owners are, for obvious reasons, very interested in keeping the intervals between overhauls as long as possible. On the other hand, a forced outage due to component failure or premature exchange outside the planned inspections should be avoided. It is therefore of greatest importance to the gas turbine manufacturers to be able to predict component lifetimes with good accuracy. A detailed knowledge of the temperatures being exposed to different components during operation is then necessary. It is very difficult to predict the temperatures with necessary accuracy in all positions of all components only by using calculation methods. Temperature measurements are needed to complement the calculations in order to reach a high level of confidence in life expectancy. The measurements also provide the possibility to detect any life issues at an early stage, or to identify potentials to reduce the cooling air consumption, improving the overall engine performance. The GTX100, a 45 MW industrial gas turbine with 37% efficiency, has successfully accumulated more than 110 000 operation hours. A number of component upgrades have been introduced since the original launch and a new fingerprint of the complete turbine section was taken during a comprehensive measurement in 2003. The instrumentation used in this test included more than 2 300 measuring points, complemented also with thermal paint. A total number of 1 975 thermo-crystals, 237 thermocouples and 110 pressure taps were used for the test of the 3-stage turbine. This paper will focus on the thermo-crystal technique, which gives an excellent mapping of the temperature distribution in turbine vanes and blades. The evaluation process for the measurement is shown in Fig 1. In the following, the results for the temperature attenuation throughout the turbine stages and the thermal results for blade 2 will be presented.

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Measured Gas temperatures and pressures in the flow path

Measured metal temperatures

3D aero model of all 3 turbine stages

Refined 3D aero local model for each component

3D conjugate heat transfer model

Mechanic Integrity model

Figure 1 Evaluation process schematic picture

4. The experimental method When the material of the JMTK (Russian abbreviation for the maximum temperature crystal measurement) is exposed to neutron radiation, its atomic lattice will be shifted so that the distance between the atomic planes will be larger. The distance between atomic planes can be measured using an X-ray diffraction microscope. When a JMTK, which has been illuminated, is heated up, the distortion induced by the neutron rays will relaxate. The relaxation is dependent on time and temperature. A higher temperature will make the relaxation go faster. If the diffraction angle 2* is measured after the crystal has been heated up, and the time during which it has been heated is known, it is possible to look up the temperature it has been at from a calibration diagram. See Figure 2. For exposure times over 10 minutes the dependence upon time is not so strong, as can be seen from Fig 2. If the crystal goes through a transient cycle, which contains several different temperature levels, the whole cycle has to be integrated. The maximal temperature during the cycle will be dominating, but lower temperatures will also contribute to the relaxation. The integration is made by calculating an equivalent hold time at maximal temperature of the transient. To be able to accurately calculate the equivalent hold time usually a few thermocouples are installed on typical positions to record the temperature transient. The temperature transients for three thermocouples on vane 2 are seen in Fig. 3 The hold time at maximal power output is approximately 20 minutes.

Boundary condition at inlet and Boundary condition at inlet and outlet of the component outlet of the component

distribution

Free stream temperature, pressure and velocity

Predicted life of the component Hours, Predicted life of the component Hours, Cycles Cycles

Metal temperature distribution distribution

. .

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Evaluation diagram for Thermocrystals of SiC Calibration diagram for JMTK (Here shown for every 100 C only)
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Figure 2 Typical Calibration diagram for JMTK crystals This diagram is batch specific, and the figure above is only schematic

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Vane 2 M etal temperatures during the test

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Figure 3. Transient Temperature response for a TC on Vane 2, aerofoil.

The accuracy of the method is claimed by the crystal supplier to be +/- 10C . This has been verified by blind tests for some crystals which had been put in an oven at a well known temperature for a known time. This experiment confirmed the claimed accuracy. The measuring interval is from 200C to 1400C. For high temperatures the exposure time is limited. In this particular test crystals with a diameter of 0.2 mm were used The metal temperatures were measured by installing the crystals in circular grooves with diameter, d=0.5mm and depth 0.5mm, using a thermo-cement technique to glue the crystals into the grooves. Another advantage of the crystals is that the surface is completely smooth after the installation, as distinct from many thermocouple installations, and gives better accuracy than a thermal paint test. It is also possible to install many crystals on a single component. It is an advantage be able to measure the thermal gradients from a single component instead of doing a jigsaw puzzle from temperatures measured at several components, as is usually necessary when measuring with thermocouples. To actually measure the correct gradients is essential when the main damage mechanism is TMF, as is usual, particularly for first stage components of intensively cooled components. The yield rate of the metal temperature crystals during this test is quite good. 95% of the 1975 installed crystals remained in the grooves throughout the test and gave an evaluated temperature.

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The crystal technique can also be used to measure the gas temperature profile entering the vane or blade. In this case, crystals are installed at the tip of small ceramic pins attached to the leading edge. The high heat transfer coefficients in the gas channel environment provide enough gradient along the pin so that the pin will be insensitive to the conduction of heat from the pin to the blade, which is colder than the gas. The difference between measured temperature and real temperature is only about 4C as a maximum in the presented results (Blade 1). Figure 4 below shows the installation on blade 2.

Figure 4 Blade 2 instrumented with crystals measuring Gas temperature Tw*

In the tests performed on GTX100 reported here the inlet gas temperature of all 6 rows of the 3 stage turbine were instrumented with gas temperature measurement. The yield for the rotor blades gas temperature measurement was unfortunately less than for the metal crystals and the vane gas temperatures, only about 80% out of 120 installed crystals.

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5. Measured gas temperature attenuation vs. gas temperatures from 3D NS multistage calculations When designing the cooling system for cooled components in modern gas turbines it is necessary to spend a minimum of cooling air, in order to minimise the negative effect on the efficiency from the cooling air injection. This means the cooling has to be tailor-made for the gas temperature distributions of the particular turbine. Most CFD codes have difficulty in correctly predicting the mixing of the flow as it passes through the turbine, and thus the temperature attenuation through it. Usually the average temperature can be predicted with good accuracy, but it is more difficult to predict the shape of the temperature profile. In this paper the measurement results are compared to the results from a 3D NS calculation using the code Stage3D. This kind of test also provides valuable information for verification of CFD codes. 5.1. 3D Description of the CFD calculations This chapter give a brief description of the CFD calculations performed in order to have boundary conditions for the 3D conjugate heat transfer code. A schematic picture of the evaluation process was shown in the introduction, see Fig.1. An in-house 3D Navier-Stokes solver, MBStage3D, was used to calculate the gas temperature and other necessary boundary conditions for the conjugate heat transfer calculations. The CDF calculations were divided into two steps. First a regular simulation of the whole turbine was performed, then each component was simulated in a separate model, in order to increase the accuracy by tuning each model against the measured radial temperature distribution. All simulations were steady, the Spalart Allmaras one-equation turbulence model with wall functions was applied and each component was modelled using straight H-mesh grids containing 350 600 thousand nodes (2.5 million in the full turbine model), resulting in 10 < y+ < 300. In the full turbine model, the inlet boundary conditions (stagnation temperature and pressure, flow angles and turbulent properties) were taken from a combustor CFD calculation, the cooling air boundary conditions from a Secondary Air Flow (SAF) calculation and for the outlet static pressure measured values were used. Inlet and outlet boundary conditions for the separate models were taken from the full turbine simulation, but the inlet stagnation temperature was adjusted according to the measurements. Additionally the cooling air boundary conditions were enhanced in the separate models; these were tuned against previous field experience and the measured metal temperatures, which indicate how the cooling air behaves. Fig. 5a shows the computational domain of the full turbine model, one passage in each component was modelled with assumed periodicity and averaging mixing planes. Additionally the predicted relative free stream stagnation temperature close to the metal surface of blade 2, is shown in Fig. 5b. These patterns agree well with traces on blades that have been under operation in a real machine.

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Figure 5a Computational domain of the full turbine model

View of suction side Trace of trailing edge cooling air ejection

View of pressure side Boundary conditions for 3D conjugate heat transfer calculations Cold purge air coming out from the cavity between Vane 2 and Blade 2 up on the platform surface

Cold streaks following the secondary flow up/down on the aerofoil

Figure 5b. Relative free stream stagnation temperature calculated using separate model of blade 2. T*w = 10K

Turbine simulation followed by separate models with enhanced boundary conditions

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5.2. Measured gas temperature attenuation vs gas temperatures from 3D NS multistage calculations In order to see how well the full turbine simulation predicts the mixing of cooling air to the main stream, the calculated and measured stagnation temperatures were compared. Fig.6 shows the results for all the components except the first stage. The measured values are shown by symbols, e.g. 'Mea T*5' is the measured temperature in the second vane at tangential position no. 5 and 'Mea T*av' is the average of 'Mea T*5', 'Mea T*22' and 'Mea T*40'. The black solid lines show the result of the MBStage3D calculations. The agreement between measurements and calculations is generally fair, the difference is less than +/- 20K. Generally the measured temperatures from the blades are less scattered between different blades in the same stage than for the vanes. This is logical as the blades scan over the whole turn, and therefore feel the average temperature. The vanes are stationary and will thus show the temperature in the particular section where they are positioned, which can differ due to tangential temperature variations from the combustor. Regarding the shape of the calculated stagnation temperatures, the general trends are captured but the calculation shows a more oscillating behaviour (the number of measurement points should have been enough to capture this). This indicates that the mixing of the cooling air with the hot main stream was too slow in the calculations. In summary, it looks promising for future evaluations of other cases where measurements do not exist. This comparison shows a quite good agreement between calculated and measured temperatures.

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Vane 2 Radial Gas Tem perature distribution 1 0,9 0,8 fraction of span [-] 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 950 1000 T* [C] dT=10 C betw een 1050 gridlines 1100
M ea: T*22 M ea: T*40 S3D Calc. M ea: T*av M ea: T*5

Blade 2 Radial Gas Tem perature distribution 1 0,9 0,8 fraction of span [-] 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 820 830 840 850 860 870 880 890 900 910 Tw * [C] dT= 10 C betw een gridlines 920
M ea: T*av M ea: Tw*1 M ea: Tw*4 M ea: Tw*7 S3D calc.

Vane 3 Radial Gas Tem perature distribution 1 0,9 0,8 fraction of span [-] 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 750 T* [C] dT=10 C 800 een gridlines betw 850
M ea: T*av M ea:T*13 M ea:T*23 S3D Calc.

Blade 3 Radial Gas Tem perature distribution 1 0,9 0,8 fraction of span [-] 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 600 650 700 Tw * [C] dT=10 C betw een gridlines
M ea: Tw*av M ea: Tw*1 M ea: Tw*2 M ea: Tw*3 S3D Calc.

Figure 6 Measured, and calculated temperature attenuation for Blades 2 and 3 and vanes 2 & 3.

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6. Measured metal temperature distribution of a cooled component, compared to conjugate heat transfer calculations. The metal temperatures of the components in the gas path are calculated using a 3D metal model to which boundary conditions in terms of heat transfer coefficients and fluid temperatures are coupled. Temperatures on the gas side are taken from the 3D NS calculations described above, and the heat transfer coefficients are calculated using boundary layer programmes. The cooling system inside the blade is described using a 1D flow network. Each branch has correlations for heat transfer and pressure losses coupled to it. The calculated temperatures are then transferred to the mechanical integrity model used for prediction of the lifetime of the component. One of the main factors which determines the accuracy of the lifetime prediction is how accurately the temperature distribution was predicted. The main objective of the test was to measure the metal temperature distributions of the components, in order to verify the temperature distributions from the design. If the temperatures differ more than 20C between measurement and calculation, the calculation has to be redone so that it simulates the measured temperatures, and in the worst case the cooling has to be improved. In this paper the thermal calculations for one of the cooled components, e.g. blade 2, is presented in more detail. A photo of an instrumented blade 2 is shown in Fig 7. Each of the 3 identically instrumented blade 2 had 90 crystals. The measured temperatures, the average of 3 blades, are shown in Figures 8, 9 and 10 together with results from the thermal calculations. The scatter between different measured blades is satisfactorily low. The largest difference found, (max- min) for a single point on the blade was 35 C and the average difference maxmin for similar points at different blades was 10 C.

Figure7. Blade 2 Instrumented with Thermo crystal

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Figure 10 Calculated and measured temperatures of blade 2 platform

The results in Figs 8, 9 and 10 were obtained using gas side boundary conditions from the local 3D aero model. In the local model the measured inlet gas temperature profile, Fig 6. has been used. In Fig 8 which shows the suction side of the blade it is seen that there is an area at mid-cord, that is calculated approximately 25 C too hot in the cooling model. On the pressure side opposite to the area measured too cold the temperatures agree well between calculated and measured. The blade is equipped with a multipass cooling system with ribbed channel at leading edge and mid cord, and a race track type cooling system at the trailing edge. Close to the tip at trailing edge the measured temperatures are higher than the calculated on both pressure and suction side, by approximately 30-35 C. This indicates that the correlation for the heat transfer coefficient is too optimistic on the inside of the blade. The temperature level is, however, so low that this is not a problem. The hottest point measured on the blade is, not very surprisingly, at the pressure side close to the tip 822C. The prediction of leading edge temperatures is satisfactory; only two points differ more than 12C. The prediction of the platform temperatures is very good; only one point differs more than 14C.That point is situated at the upstream part of the platform, close to the suction side. The difference here comes from the difficulty in simulating how the purge flow from the cavity

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before the blade is distributed. The distribution is dependent on unsteady effects and local geometry features that are not resolved in the degree of detail of the used3D aero model. The measurement confirms the metal temperature level of blade 2 from the design project of the engine. 7. Conclusion After the successful performance of the test it must be stated that using thermo-crystals is a reliable test method. It provides the possibility to measure temperatures in detail and pick up the temperature gradients with good accuracy, particularly for rotating blades. There is generally good correlation between measurements and calculations, which gives confidence in the used calculation methods, and correlations. However, to ascertain a better prediction of the gas temperature distributions in future the proposal is to use unsteady CFD analysis as standard. During the test several areas with potential for saving cooling air have been identified. 8. References 1. V.A Nikolaenko, V. I. Karnushin. Year 1986. Measurement of temperatures using irradiated materials. 2. V.A Nikolaenko,V.A Morosov,N.I. Kasianov. Rev. int. Temp et Refract 1976 t.13 pp 17-20

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