Cryogenic hydrogen is one prominent pathway to mitigate the carbon emission of the aviation industry. Cryogenic hydrogen, as a fuel, introduces many new challenges, but also enables concepts and solutions that are not feasible with conventional gas turbine engines operating on Jet-A fuel. In the ongoing project, ENABLEH2, the static surfaces in the low-pressure compressor (LPC) and intermediate compressor duct (ICD) have been identified as a potential component where engine core heat can be rejected into the cold fuel. Innovative concepts proposed by ENABLEH2 are to be experimentally investigated in the new low-pressure compressor facility that is being constructed at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.This work presents the design process and pre-test evaluation of the compressor unit used in the new large-scale low-pressure compressor facility. The design of the experimental low-pressure compressor is derived from a, high-speed transonic compressor developed for a large size geared turbofan engine producing 84000 lbs of thrust at take-off. The original design of the LPC and ICD was later altered to create an experimental baseline design that is more aggressive than what is typical in today’s aviation solution, to emphasize loading in critical areas. Through an iterative process between the aerodynamic designer and the experimentalist, it was possible to reproduce representative flow conditions and high measurement quality, within the practical limitations of the laboratory. The final product is a 2.5-stage low-pressure compressor with a tip diameter of 1.2m and nominal rotational speed of 1920 RPM, with a nominal power requirement of 147kW. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to evaluate the design at nominal load, part load and 5% overload. A commercial software package with well-established turbulence models was used to perform the simulations.The numerically simulated flow field was later utilized to perform a more detailed pre-test evaluation of the experimental instrumentation in the gas-path of the LPC. Data were extracted on four sectors from the numerical flow field as input for the pre-test evaluation, at the inlet of the IGV, at the stator-rotor interface, at the outlet guide vane outlet and the ICD outlet. Uncertainty analysis was performed on individual bases in these sectors utilizing standard methods such as Monte Carlo simulations, and Taylor Series expansion and pre-existing calibration protocols. The effect from discrete data sampling was later evaluate by vary the sample size, sample location and the average method on each of the sectors. Finally, a test approach as a subset of simulated cases is presented.

Design and Pre-Test Evaluation of a Low-Pressure Compressor Test Facility for Cryogenic Hydrogen Fuel Integration

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2021/volume/84898

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