Numerical Investigations for Leakage and Windage Heating in Straight-Through Labyrinth Seals

Nayak, Kali Charan and Dutta, Pradip (2016) Numerical Investigations for Leakage and Windage Heating in Straight-Through Labyrinth Seals. In: JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER-TRANSACTIONS OF THE ASME, 138 (1).

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Abstract

The ability to quantify leakage flow and windage heating for labyrinth seals with honeycomb lands is critical in understanding gas turbine engine system performance and predicting its component life. Variety of labyrinth seal configurations (number of teeth, stepped or straight, honeycomb cell size) are in use in gas turbines, and for each configuration, there are many geometric factors that can impact a seal's leakage and windage characteristics. This paper describes the development of a numerical methodology aimed at studying the effect of honeycomb lands on leakage and windage heating. Specifically, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is developed utilizing commercial finite volume-based software incorporating the renormalization group (RNG) k-epsilon turbulence model with modified Schmidt number. The modified turbulence model is benchmarked and fine-tuned based on several experiments. Using this model, a broad parametric study is conducted by varying honeycomb cell size, pressure ratio (PR), and radial clearance for a four-tooth straight-through labyrinth seal. The results show good agreement with available experimental data. They further indicate that larger honeycomb cells predict higher seal leakage and windage heating at tighter clearances compared to smaller honeycomb cells and smooth lands. However, at open seal clearances larger honeycomb cells have lower leakage compared to smaller honeycomb cells.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER-TRANSACTIONS OF THE ASME
Publisher:	ASME
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the ASME, TWO PARK AVE, NEW YORK, NY 10016-5990 USA
Keywords:	labyrinth seal; honeycomb cells; leakage; windage
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2016 06:07
Last Modified:	02 Apr 2016 06:07
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/53563

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