In the framework of the European research project LEMCOTEC, a section was devoted to the further optimization of the recuperation system of the Intercooled Recuperated Aero engine (IRA engine) concept, of MTU Aero Engines AG. This concept is based on an advanced thermodynamic cycle combining both intercooling and recuperation. The present work is focused only on the recuperation process. This is carried out through a system of heat exchangers mounted inside the hot-gas exhaust nozzle, providing fuel economy and reduced pollutant emissions. The optimization of the recuperation system was performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computations, experimental measurements and thermodynamic cycle analysis for a wide range of engine operating conditions. A customized numerical tool was developed based on an advanced porosity model approach. The heat exchangers were modeled as porous media of predefined heat transfer and pressure loss behaviour and could also incorporate major and critical heat exchanger design decisions in the CFD computations. The optimization resulted in two completely new innovative heat exchanger concepts, named as CORN (COnical Recuperative Nozzle) and STARTREC (STraight AnnulaR Thermal RECuperator), which provided significant benefits in terms of fuel consumption, pollutants emission and weight reduction compared to more conventional heat exchanger designs, thus proving that further optimization potential for this technology exists.

In modern aero-engines, the lubrication system holds a key role due to the demand for high reliability standards. An aero-engine bearing chamber contains components like bearings and gears. Oil is used for lubrication and for heat removal. In order to retain the oil in a bearing chamber, pressurized seals are used. These are pressurized using air from the compressor. In order to avoid overpressurization of the bearing chamber, air/oil passages are provided in the bearing chamber. At the top, a vent pipe discharges most of the sealing air and at the bottom, a scavenge pipe is used for discharging the oil by means of a pump (scavenge pump). The scavenge pipe is setup in most cases by tubes of circular or noncircular cross sections. When the scavenge pipe has to be routed in a way that sharp bends or elbows are unavoidable, flexible (corrugated) pipes can be used. Because of the corrugation, considerable flow resistance with high-pressure drop can result. This may cause overpressurization of the bearing compartment with oil loss into the turbomachinery with possibility of ignition, coking (carbon formation), or contamination of the aircraft’s air conditioning system. It is therefore important for the designer to be capable to predict the system’s pressure balance behavior. A real engine bearing chamber sealed by brush seals was used for generating different air/oil mixtures thus corresponding to different engine operating conditions. The mixtures were discharged through a scavenge pipe which was partly setup by corrugated tubes. Instead of a mechanical pump, an ejector was used for evacuating the bearing chamber. An extensive survey covering the existing technical literature on corrugated tube pressure drop was performed and is presented in this paper. The survey has covered both single-phase and multiphase flows. Existing methods were checked against the test results. The method which was most accurately predicting lean air test results from the rig was benchmarked and was used as the basis for extending into a two-phase flow pressure drop correlation by applying two-phase flow multiplier techniques similar to Lockhart and Martinelli. Comparisons of the new two-phase flow pressure drop correlation with an existing correlation by Shannak are presented for mixtures like air/oil, air/water, air/diesel, and air/kerosene. Finally, numerical analysis results using ansys cfx version 15 are presented.

Seals are considered one of the most important flow elements in turbomachinery applications. The most traditional and widely known seal is the labyrinth seal but in recent years other types like the brush or carbon seals were introduced since they considerably reduce the sealing air consumption. When seals are used for sealing of aero engine bearing chambers they are subjected to high “bombardment” through oil particles which are present in the bearing chamber. These particles mainly result from the bearings as a consequence of the high rotational speeds. Particularly when carbon or brush seals are used, problems with carbon formation (coking) may arise when oil gets trapped in the very tight gap of these seals. In order to prevent oil migration into the turbomachinery, particularly when the pressure difference over a seal is small or even negligible, significant improvement can be achieved through the introduction of so called windback seals. This seal has a row of static helical teeth (thread) and below this thread a scalloped or smooth shaft section is rotating. Depending on the application, a windback seal can be used alone or as a combination with another seal (carbon, brush or labyrinth seal). A CFD analysis carried out with ANSYS CFX version 11 is presented in this paper with the aim to investigate this seal type. The simulations were performed by assuming a two-phase flow of air and oil in the bearing compartment. Design parameters like seal clearance, thread size, scallop width, were investigated at different operating conditions.

Oil system architecture in aero engines has remained almost the same for the last 35 years. At least one mechanically-driven oil feed pump is responsible for distributing pressurized oil into the bearing chambers and several scavenge pumps, also mechanically driven, are responsible for evacuating the bearing chambers from the oil and air mixture. Air is used as the sealing medium in bearing chambers and is the dominant medium in terms of volume occupation and expansion phenomena. In order to simplify the oil system architecture, improve the system's reliability with less mechanical parts, and also decrease weight, an ejector system has been designed for scavenging bearing chambers. In Flouros et al. (2013, “Ejector Scavenging of Bearing Chambers. A Numerical and Experimental Investigation,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 135(8), p. 081602), an ejector system was presented which used aviation oil (MIL-PRF-23699 Std.) as the primary medium. In the course of further development, the original design was modified leading to a much smaller ejector. This ejector was tested in the rig using alternatively pressurized air or pressurized oil as primary medium. Additionally, three in-house developed primary nozzle (jet) designs were introduced and tested. The design of an ejector for application with compressible or incompressible media was supported through the development of an analysis tool. A momentum-based efficiency function is proposed herein and enables comparisons among different operating cases. Finally, ANSYS cfx (ANSYS, 2014, “ANSYS® CFX, Release 14.0,” ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA) was used to carry out the numerical analysis. Similar to the ejector described in Flouros et al. (2013, “Ejector Scavenging of Bearing Chambers. A Numerical and Experimental Investigation,” ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 135(8), p. 081602), the new design was also manufactured out of pure quartz glass to enable optical access. Through suitable instrumentation for pressures, temperatures, and air/oil flows, the performance characteristics of the new ejector were assessed and were compared to the analytic and numerical results. This work was partly funded by the German government within the research program Lufo4 (Luftfahrtforschungsprogramm 4/Aeronautical Research Program 4).

This work presents an exergy analysis and performance assessment of three recuperative thermodynamic cycles for gas turbine applications. The first configuration is the conventional recuperative (CR) cycle in which a heat exchanger is placed after the power turbine (PT). In the second configuration, referred as alternative recuperative (AR) cycle, a heat exchanger is placed between the high pressure and the PT, while in the third configuration, referred as staged heat recovery (SHR) cycle, two heat exchangers are employed, the primary one between the high and PTs and the secondary at the exhaust, downstream the PT. The first part of this work is focused on a detailed exergetic analysis on conceptual gas turbine cycles for a wide range of heat exchanger performance parameters. The second part focuses on the implementation of recuperative cycles in aero engines, focused on the MTU-developed intercooled recuperative aero (IRA) engine concept, which is based on a conventional recuperation approach. Exergy analysis is applied on specifically developed IRA engine derivatives using both alternative and SHR recuperation concepts to quantify energy exploitation and exergy destruction per cycle and component, showing the amount of exergy that is left unexploited, which should be targeted in future optimization actions.