Aircraft Technologies
ICAS-GT- EU Research into Gas Turbine Internal
Air System Performance
Peter D. SMOUT
The ICAS-GT EU research programme has provided an opportunity for European gas turbine
manufacturers to collaborate with Universities in researching fluid flow and heat transfer
within internal cooling and sealing air systems. This article provides an overview of the
project, and presents examples of the key results.
he European gas turbine indus-
try faces unremitting competi-
the pressure from tile USA and
tile Far East, and its companies
are forced continuousl\ to
improve teclmological capability. in
order to secure and develop their share
of world markets. Inlprovenlents have
to Conle from developments in materials
technohGy, increases in turbonlachin-
cry efficiency, or hlternal loss reduction.
New materials developnlent is increas-
ingl_v expensi\'e, and component effi-
ciency impro\'ements are becoming
moredifficult to achie\'e. There is there-
fore an increasing incentive to work
towards reclticing tile very significant
internal losses associated with the inter-
nal air system, (fi<<ltr¢ 1). Because it uses
air bled fronl the engine compressors
~xhich is not then available for expan-
sion in the turbines, the air system is
parasitic to tile main engine cycle, and
Figure 1. Internal Air System and ICAS-GT Research Task Areas,
significantly penalises specific fuel con-
sumption (SFC) in nlodern air transport
ttlrbofan engines.
Expelqmental and numerical investiga-
tions of internal cooling air system flow
and heat transfer are being carried out
within a collaborati\ e European research
initiati\e which began in lq08 with tile
BRITE/ELRAM ICAS-GT proiect. ICAS-
GT formally ended in IJecember 2000,
and will be followed bv IC,.\S-(;F2,
wlfich ~xill rLIll within I~ramework 5,
starting in earl),' 2001. As well as con-
tributing towards a complete and engine
representatix'e experimental database,
these projects are aiming to establish val-
idated internal air system design tools
and predicti\e methods. These methods
are being, and will continue to be exploit-
ed to achieve reductions in specific fuel
consumption (SFC). Successful exploita-
tion will also reduce tile amount of
engine testing and instrumentation
required to develop new gas turbine
engine products, and unit co>t reduc-
tions will follow from optimised desiglb.
Programme
management
Tile research wittlin ICAS-t;f w<> c~ll
dtlctecl by <1consortitlill of 14 partners,
conlplising foclr Lni\ersities and ten
Etll'Opeall ~as turbille nlanufactLlring
cc>mpanies. As shown in .tf<<ftu¢ 2, the
partners were strudurecl in fix e teams
under the overall co-ordination of Roll>
kc \.co to address the following discrete
but related aspects of internal air system
flm.v and heat transfer:
• turbine disc rim sealing, where the air
s\.'stem is reqtiired to limit the inges-
tiou of ix~t annulus ~a> in to region>
adjacent to Ilighly <4iessed conlpo-
heats, (Task 1);
• rotating cavity flow and heat transfer,
such as ttlat betweeil adjacent discs of
a conlpressor disc stack, (Task 2);
• flow and heat transfer within the sta-
rer wells of multi-stage axial coin-
pressers, (Task 3);
• tile aerodynamic performance ot tur-
bir, e pro-swirl systems used to suppl}
cooling air to high pressure ttirbine
blades, (Task 4);
• Tile flow and heat transfer in core con>
pi'essor drive cone cavities, (Task 5).
One University partner was assigned to
each team, and was re.,>ponsible for con
ducting tile experimental studies
Numerical inx'estigation,s were under
taken by the hldustrv partners, and
incluclecl CFL) and finite' elenlent ~imula-
tions of selected test cases, the obiecti\ e,
for eacll teanl were to devt%p a fuller
tinderstandhlg of the goveinin~ ph},ic~
Aircraft Technologies . . . . . . . . ENG,NES

European Commission ] tion mechanisms. Work will be contin-

ued in ICAS-GT2, where the aim is to
deliver best practice predicti\'e tools
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St
. .e.eri.n.g. . O- . .Committee
............................. and rim seal design mdhods which are
consistent in terms of convergence
speed ;xith engine design cycles.

Figure 2. ICAS-GT Partners and M a n a g e m e n t Structure,
in their particular application, and to
:robed finis understanding in validated
methods applicable to new engine
Jesigns. The work was ddiberatelv allo-
:ated in this way to promote rapid
:xploitation of the-results within indus-
:rv. This contribution uses some selected
esults to illustrate the scope of the 1CAS-
~]T project, and the progress made.
Turbine rim sealing
hi state of the art aircraft gas turbine
.!ngines, higher-pressure turbine discs
1re purged with coolant air through the
Mleel space. This air reduces the ther-
hal load of the discs and prexents the
ngress of hot mainstream gas into the
,vheel space between the rotating disc
md the adjacent stationary casings. The
,fficiencv of the disc cooling and the
ifetimeof the rotor thereby strongly
Jepend on the sealing efficiency. On the
~ther hand, reducing the rim sealing
.vould increase the turbine efficiency by
•educing aerodvnamic spoiling of the
llain annulus fiow, with an associated
tecrease in SFC. In this task, engine rep-
"esentative experimental data has been
.{enerated by Aachen University from a
4ngle stage turbine test facility with
ndependent control of the front and
'ear wheel space sealing flows. Steady
md unsteady pressure measurements,
emperature and concentration mea-
surements have been made to deter-
mine the sealing effectiveness of xarious
seal geometries, and to investigate mix-
ing phenomena inboard of the seal. This
data has been used to validate a series of
CFI) simulations undertaken by the
industrial partners usirw commercially
available CFD codes./he arrangement
of the test facility is illustrated in.f(inr~'
3, which shows the surface static pres-
sure distribution at an instant in time,
extracted from a 3-D unsteady solution
c,f the entire flow domain, including the
main annulus and the internal cavities.
This approach has given valuable
insight in to the main annuhls gas inges-
Figure 3. 3-D Grid for Unsteady CFD Calculations of Rim Seal Test Facility
Flows, (shaded by static pressure where red is high, blue is low).
Pre-swirl systems
To extend lift, whilst minimising the
impact on engine performance, high
pressure turbine blades are typically
supplied with cooling air at the lowest
possible temperature using a feed sys-
tem known as 'pre-swirl'. Cooling air is
expanded through nozzles located on
stationary components and collected by
rotating receiver holes in a cover-pla(e
fixed to the turbine disc, or discharged
directly to the blade roots. In ICAS-GT,
the flow characteristics of the stationar\'
and rotating holes ha\'e been estab-
lished, and the effectiveness of tile sys-
tem quantified for a range of geometries
and pre-swM seal flows. CFD solutions
ranging from 2-D axi-svmmetric to fully
3-D unsteady have been run. These have
been validated against experimental
data generated by Karlsruhe University
to establish the optimum modelling
approadl. ICAS-GT2 will build on finis
by investigating the 3D unstead\' flows
~hich are critical to system optimisa-
tion. Experimental and numerical parti-
cle tracking investigations to under-
stand the harmful blockage of turbine

61 AIR & SPACE EUROPE • V O L . 3 - N o 3/4 3001

ICAS-G T
blade cooling air passages by air borne
particles will also be undertaken.
Rotating cavities
Cooling air for the air system is often
extracted upstream of the high pressure
compressor (HPC) and lead through the
annular passage between the shaft and
the HPC disc bores to the turbine. Apart
from the turbine cooling requirements,
this air is needed to cool the HPC discs.
A knowledge of the flow and heat trans-
fer in the HPC rotating cavities is
required for accurate disc stressing and
lifeing predictions, but tile physical
mechanisms are not fully understood.
Work in ICAS-GT has shown that the
flow can be dominated either bv tile axial
through flow under the disc bores, or by
buoyancy forces arising from tile disc
metal temperature gradients, [1]. 2D and
3D steady and Lmsteady CFD modelling
tasks have been undertaken by tile three
task 2 industrial partners to establish the
boundaries of these flow regimes. These
computations are being validated
against experimental data from Sussex
and Bath Universities. Figure 4 presents
temperature contours from two 3-D
unsteadv simulations of the flow in tile
single cavity Bath rig for low and high
rotational speeds. The stable, two re-cir-
culating cell structure of the lower speed
case is replaced by a more chaotic flow at
the higher speed. In ICAS-GT2, measure-
merits of the radial flow velocity in an
embedded rotating cavity of a multi-
cavity rig at Sussex University will be
made, and used to validate further calcu-
lations. P,ecognising the potential of
large eddy simulation (LES) for resoMng
the more important turbulent structures,
the experimental and conventional CFD
studies will be augmented bv LES work
at a specialist University.
Compressor stator well
Shrouded stator blades are commonly
used to eliminate vibration and clear-
ance effects in axial compressors. A
trench known as a starer well has then
to be provided in the rotor with the
reverse leakage of gas under the shroud
being minimised bv a labyrinth seal
~ 339
336
333
330
327
324
321
318
315
312
309
306
303
300
Figure 4. Rotating Cavity Flow Simulations for Low (Buoyancy
Dominate@ and High (fnertialty Dominated) Rotation Rates.
against the shroud periphery. A disad- reduced, or turbine entry gas tempera-
\'antage of this technology is that the air tures could be increased, to realise SFC
in tile well can reach high temperatures, inwovements. A facility for investigat-
due to viscous dissipation of energy, ing these conical cavity flows has been
which results in the overheating of adja- built at Sussex Unixersitv around a
cent, highly stressed, rotating metal modem gas turbine engine HI' spool,
structures. The industry partners in (fit~urc fi). Conventional pressure and
ICAS-GT Task 3 have evolved a method temperature nleasLilenlents have been
complimented by rotor temperature
of simultaneously soMng CFD and FE
and heat flux measurements and ID:\
calculations for the flow and metal tem-
perature gradients respectively. This velocity measurements in the cavity to
approach has been validated against isolate the flow structures and qualitif}
experimental data generated by Sussex heat transfer rates. Encouraging agree-
University fronl a purpose built, two ment has been achieved with 2-[) and 3-
stage axkil compressor facility 12I, with D steady CFD calculations of the tax it\
encouraging results. flows, and with a conjugate predictioil
Of tile fluid and metal temperatures, lhe
3-D steady CFD has been used to under-
HPC cone cavity stand the influence of compressor blade
In addition to the air which flows over-tip leakage on boundary condi-
through the HPC bore, it is common tions at the cone cavity inlet, and the
practice to channel
high pressure air
from the compres-
sor delivery to the
turbine via the cavi-
ty bounded bv the
HPC drive cone
and the combustor
flame tube casing.
This air is subject to
a significant degree
of windage heating
which degrades its
cooling effective-
hess. If such tem-
perature rises could
be substantialh'
avoided, cooling air Figure 5. Engine Parts Cone Cavity Rig at Sussex
flows could be Universit~
El
,Aircraft Technologies
uffect of a downstream row of compres-
sor outlet guide vanes is being asses-
sed by running a fullv 3-D unsteady
c~ltltion.
Conclusions
he specific objectives ot ICAS-GT have
been met in that a truly representative,
i~ternal air systems experimental
~ atabase has been established, and used
t~ validate CFD and FE methods for
t,redicting flows and heat transfer.
'hese methods, which generally cap-
t.lre all the go\erning physics, are
Iready being exploited by the industri-
,I partners in their new product
designs. Some progress has been made
in simplifying these methods to reduce
application times without compromis-
ing accuracy. The ICAS-GT2 project will
continue this work in three of the ICAS-
G] ~ task areas, whilst also addressing
other areas of the internal air system not
covered in ICAS-GT. An important ele-
ment of ICAS-GT2 will be a series of
demonstrations, towards the end of the
project, of the effectiveness of these
methods. • About the author:
References
[1] AlexJou A., Hills N.J., Long C A . ,
Millward J.A., Turner A.B., Heat Transfer
~n a Gas Turbine HP C o m p r e s s o r
I I I [.'I,1 A I R & SPACE E k ; R O P E
ENGINES
Internal Air System, ISROMAC-8, M a r c h
2000-11 20,
(2) Scott R.M., Childs PR,N,, Hills, N.J.,
Millward, J,A., Radial Inflow for D o w n -
stream C o m p r e s s o r Stator Well C a -
vities, ASME, June 2000
Prepared on behalf of the ICAS-GT
consortium by Peter D. Smout,
Fluid Systems Research Project Manager,
Rolls-Royce plc in Derby
peter, smout@rolls-royce,com
° VOI. 3 • b4o 3,4 2001