Fully-turbulent adjoint method for the unsteady shape optimization of multi-row turbomachinery

The possibility of taking into account unsteady flow effects if performing turbomachinery shape optimization is attractive to accurately address inherently time dependent design problems. The harmonic balance method is an efficient solution for computational fluid dynamics problems of turbomachinery characterized by quasi-periodic flows. If...

A Discrete Adjoint Method for Two-Phase Condensing Flows Applied to the Shape Optimization of Turbine Cascades

This paper presents a fully turbulent two-phase discrete adjoint method for metastable condensing flows targeted to turbomachinery applications. The method is based on a duality preserving algorithm and implemented in the open-source CFD tool SU2. The optimization framework is applied to the shape optimization of two canonical steam turbine...

Multistage turbomachinery design using the discrete adjoint method within the open-source software su2

This paper documents a fully turbulent discrete ad joint method for three-dimensional multistage turbomachinery design. The method is based on a duality preserving algorithm and is implemented in the open-source computational fluid dynamics tool SU2. The SU2 Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solver is first extended to treat three dimensional...

Advancements in automated design methods for NICFD turbomachinery

The transition towards a more affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy provision paradigm is one of the main 21st century challenges that humanity must overcome to protect the planet from the harmful effect caused by climate change. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been dramatically increasing since the pre-industrial era. If...

A look-up table method based on unstructured grids and its application to non-ideal compressible fluid dynamic simulations

Fast and accurate computation of thermo-physical properties is essential in computationally expensive simulations involving fluid flows that significantly depart from the ideal gas or ideal liquid behavior. A look-up table algorithm based on unstructured grids is proposed and applied to non-ideal compressible fluid dynamics simulations. The...

Design methodology for supersonic radial vanes operating in non-ideal flow conditions

The stator vane of high-temperature Organic Rankine Cycle radial-inflow turbines operates under severe expansion ratios and the associated fluid-dynamic losses account for nearly two-third of the total losses generated inside the machine. The efficiency of the machine can strongly benefit from specialized high-fidelity design methods able to...

SU2: The Open-Source Software for Non-ideal Compressible Flows

The capabilities of the open-source SU2 software suite for the numerical simulation of viscous flows over unstructured grid are extended to non-ideal compressible-fluid dynamics (NICFD). A built-in thermodynamic library is incorporated to account for the non-ideal thermodynamic characteristics of fluid flows evolving in the close proximity of...

Fluid-dynamic design and characterization of a mini-ORC turbine for laboratory experiments

High temperature Organic Rankine Cycles power systems of low power capacity, i.e. 3-50 kW_e, are receiving recognition for distributed and mobile energy generation applications. For this type of power plants, it is customary to adopt a radial-turbine as prime mover, essentially for their ability to cope with very large volumetric...

Fluid dynamic design and analysis of a highly loaded Centrifugal rotor for mini orc power systems

Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power systems are a well-established technology for the conversion of thermal energy sources in the small-to-medium power range. In the last few years, efforts have been devoted to the development of mini ORC (mORC) power systems (5- 30 kWe) for waste heat recovery from truck engines, or distributed conversion of...