Overview
Around 15 % of total losses in turbine efficiency can be linked to leakage flows through seals that are installed in the flow paths of the turbine. New manufacturing processes based on additive manufacturing offer a great opportunity to improve both the sealing capability and the control of the swirl factor during re-ingestion of the combusted products. The EU-funded ACUHRA project plans to produce lightweight components for swirl control using additive manufacturing. The ultimate aim is to promote the design of more efficient low-pressure turbines. The project will combine high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics tools and experimental tests to evaluate the design of the new components.
The work will focus on the use of additive manufacturing to produce lightweight innovative components to for swirl control to facilitate the design of more efficient low pressure turbines. The Consortium’s predominant aim is of delivering key technical advancements to the EU aerospace sector that will advance the knowledge and control of flow in LPT seal cavity geometries.
This will be achieved through the use of high fidelity CFD, combined with novel optimisation, additive design and manufacture. A comprehensive experimental verification program will also evaluate experimentally the concept designs and provide a substantiated appraisal of concepts.
Funding
Partners
Technologies
The manufacture of three dimensional parts using many two dimensional layers stacked up to offer reduced manufacturing costs and increased flexibility.