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A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE

QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE


QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR
WHEELS
Dirk Büche, Norbert Hofmann1
Peter Sälzle2
SUMMARY
Simulating the quenching of aluminum parts in liquids is challenging due to a
variety of reasons, such as requiring material data for large temperature range
as well as modeling the quenching media, which is highly unsteady and often
multiphase. Due to this flow complexity, a simulation of quenching media is
often not possible and the interaction with the part has to be modeled.
This paper shows one approach how the heat flux from the part into the media
can be modeled with different boundary conditions. The parameters of the
models are determined by automated optimization, minimizing the error
between measured and simulated temperature history for several
thermocouples.

1: Introduction

Aluminum devices such as compressor wheels are typically heat treated in


order to achieve the required material properties for safe operation. A typical
heat treatment comprises (1) solution annealing, (2) quenching and (3) artificial
ageing. The quenching is the most difficult part in the heat treatment as the
material properties depend heavily on the cooling rate. Often a lower limit for
the cooling rate is prescribed. In complex geometries such as compressor
wheels, predicting the cooling rate requires numerical simulation as the
complex heat fluxes and cooling cannot be estimated by hand calculation.

Achieving prescribed cooling rates is difficult especially for large devices as


the required heat flux on the surface of a device is proportional to its size.
Thus, for a given quenching medium, where there is an upper limit on the heat
flux, the maximal cross-section of a device is limited. An additional problem is
the residual stresses which result from high temperature gradients. This may
influence successive machining steps due to relaxing or affect the stress
distribution during operation of the wheel.

1
University of Applied Sciences Aargau, Steinackerstr. 5, 5210 Windisch, Switzerland,
Email: {d.bueche, n.hofmann}@fh-aargau.ch
2
ABB Turbo Systems AG, Haselstr. 16, 5400 Baden, Switzerland,
Email: peter.saelzle@ch.abb.com
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

In this paper, we analyze the quenching of radial compressor wheels that are
used in large exhaust-gas turbochargers as shown in Figure 1. A wheel is made
out of one massive billet and is quenched in hot water. A 3D-FE model is used
to simulate the quenching process. Cooling rates as well as the residual stresses
are predicted using ABAQUSi. This commercial simulation package allows
performing first the thermal simulation (heat fluxes) and then the mechanical
simulation (stress-strain) using the transient temperature distribution as a
boundary condition. This sequential approach is valid as the influences of both
stress displacement and thermal expansion on the thermal simulation are small.

Figure 1: Exhaust-gas turbocharger (left) and compressor wheel (right) for large Diesel
engines built into e.g. container ships

While quenching, the compressor wheel is surrounded by a profoundly


unsteady multiphase flow comprising turbulent liquid water and steam bubbles,
as shown in Figure 2. At the beginning of the quenching, the entire wheel is
surrounded by large steam bubbles (Figure 2 left). At a later point in time, the
blades have already cooled down whereas the areas near the main mass of the
wheel are still hot and surrounded by bubbles (Figure 2 right).

Figure 2: Snapshots of compressor wheels shortly after dropping into water (left) and at a
later point in time (right), taken from Boer et al. ii

Currently it requires too much computational power to simulate the fluid


surrounding the compressor wheel. Therefore the FE mesh comprises only the
compressor wheel and the fluid is modeled by specifying thermal boundary
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

conditions on the compressor wheel surface. Measurements of a quenched


wheel provide the necessary data for specifying the boundary conditions.
Mechanical interactions between the wheel and liquid are neglected.

2: FE Modeling using ABAQUS

Computing the cooling rates and residual stresses in the compressor wheel after
quenching requires a thermal and a mechanical simulation. For both
simulations, the same FE mesh is used as shown in Figure 3. Cyclic symmetry
is used in the simulation to reduce the compressor wheel to the smallest
possible cyclic symmetric part. The transient temperature distribution at all
nodes of the thermal simulation is set as a boundary condition for the
mechanical simulation at all nodes of the mesh. In the mechanical simulation,
stresses occur due to temperature gradients in the wheel, which result in
different thermal shrinkage. Loads due to buoyancy forces or turbulence of the
quenching media are not considered.

Figure 3: 3D-FE-Mesh (11 000 Nodes, 8 900 Elements) of the compressor wheel in side-
view (left), cut (middle) and top-view (right). Cyclic symmetry allows simulating only a
segment of the wheel.

2 a: Thermal Simulation

In the thermal simulation, modeling the compressor wheel requires a


temperature dependent thermal capacity cp(T), density ρ(T) und thermal
conductivity λ(T). The simulation solves the following transient
thermodynamic equationiii in the discretized compressor wheel:

∂T
ρ cp = ∇(λ ∇T ) , (1)
∂t

where T is the temperature, and ∇ is the differential operator.


A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

2 b: Surface Boundary Conditions for the Thermal Simulation

Boundary conditions that define the heat flux between compressor wheel and
quenching liquid have to be specified for all surfaces of the compressor wheel
as none of the surfaces are adiabatic (which is the default boundary condition
in ABAQUS). The surfaces of the FE mesh are shown in Figure 4. Four
different surfaces are marked in the figure. The first surface comprises the
cyclic symmetry surfaces, i.e. the side faces of the modelled segment of the
wheel. The second surface is the central bore of the wheel. All remaining
surfaces are subdivided according to their z-coordinate. As shown in the figure,
surfaces with a positive z-coordinate are surfaces of the flow channel
(comprising also the blades), all surfaces with a negative z-coordinate are on
the back wall.
Surfaces of the blades and the
flow channel (BC #2)

Surfaces of the bore


(BC #3)

Cyclic symmetry plane


(BC #1)

Surfaces of the back


wall (BC #2)

Figure 4: Surface boundary condition (BC) for the thermal simulation

On the four surfaces, three different boundary conditions are applied:

1. Cyclic boundary condition (symmetry plane)

A cyclic boundary condition is applied to the cyclic symmetry planes.

2. Thermal load (back wall and surfaces of the flow channel)

On the back wall and surfaces of the flow channel, large heat fluxes occur with
strong steam generation. It is necessary to include a mathematical model which
accounts for the heat flux. The heat flux is primarily dependent on the surface
temperature. The dependence of the heat flux on the surface position is of
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

secondary importance, as will be demonstrated below. Thus, the heat flux is


assumed to be independent of the surface position; however, the surfaces of the
back wall and the surfaces of the flow channel are modeled separately.

Figure 5: Heat flux as a function of the difference between the temperature of the surface
and the boiling temperature of the quenching medium, from Lienhard and Lienhardiii.

A temperature dependent heat flux q& (T ) can be described by a heat transfer


coefficient α(T):

q& = α (T ) (T − T0 ), (2)

where T is the surface temperature and T0 is the temperature of the quenching


media. In literature (see e.g. VDI Atlasiv), various tables and empirical
equations for α(T) below the critical temperature (Tcrit ≈ 130oC at 1 bar
pressure) are given. At the critical temperature, the maximal heat flux q& max
occurs. Above the critical temperature the heat flux decreases (see Figure 5).
However, there is no data suitable for use when the surface temperature is
above Tcrit, as this is the case at the beginning of the quenching process.
Furthermore, the heat flux is strongly dependent on the size of the part, the
surface roughness and the quenching media. Thus the heat transfer coefficient
will be parameterized and the parameters will be optimized in Section 3. The
optimization procedure varies the parameters until the error between simulated
temperatures and experimentally measured values is minimal.

3: User defined boundary condition (for the bore)


A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

In contrast to the back wall and surfaces of the flow channel, the heat flux at
the surface of the bore is definitely dependent on the position along the length
of the bore. The quenching media can enter or exit the bore by the two
openings. Typically, the quenching media enters the bore from the lower
opening in a liquid phase and then evaporates while rising in the bore. The
media then exits the bore as steam at the upper opening as shown in Figure 2.
This leads to a clearly dependence of the heat flux on the position in the bore.
This dependence is difficult to model with a mathematical function. Thus, at
the bore, measured temperatures are set as boundary condition. Between the
measurement points, the temperature is interpolated.

2 c: Mechanical Simulation

In the mechanical simulation, the temperature distribution of the thermal


simulation is prescribed as a boundary condition at all nodes. For modeling the
material properties, elastic, plastic and high-temperature creep data is required.
Furthermore, a temperature dependent thermal expansion coefficient is needed.
Only the thermal expansion is responsible for the residual stresses in the
compressor wheel as all other forces (e.g. due to buoyancy forces) are not
considered. The mechanical simulation will not be described in this paper.

3: Determining the temperature dependent heat transfer coefficients for


back wall and surfaces of the flow channel

Since no data is available for the heat transfer coefficients for the back wall and
the surfaces of the flow channel, this data has to be determined in an iterative
optimization, in which the error between a measurement and the simulation is
to be minimized. Before an optimization can be started, the heat transfer
coefficient has to be parameterized as a function of temperature. Furthermore,
an objective function for the optimization has to be defined as a mathematical
function. Here, the objective function is to minimize the error between
measured and simulated temperature history at a set of 20 thermocouples at
various positions in the compressor wheel. The optimization of the parameter
values is an iterative and computationally intensive costly trial-and-error
search, which can be performed manually by an engineer or automated by an
optimization algorithm. In the following an automated process is described.

3 a: Measurements

Twenty thermocouples have been applied to a compressor wheel. The positions


of the thermocouples are shown in Figure 3. The thermocouples measure the
temperature history while quenching. They are positioned such that the
temperature is known at various positions of the bore, back wall, surface of the
flow channel an inside the compressor wheel. The measurements are required
to determine the unknown heat transfer coefficients.
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

3 b: Parameterization

For the parameterization of the heat transfer coefficient α, a function is


required that can approximate the curve given in Figure 5 precisely with the
smallest number of parameters possible. One possibility for the
parameterization is the following exponential function with the four parameters
α0, α1, TN und n:

⎛ ⎛ T − T ⎞n ⎞
α (T ) = α 0 + α1 exp⎜ − ⎜⎜ 0
⎟ ⎟, (3)
⎜ ⎝ TN ⎟⎠ ⎟
⎝ ⎠

where T0 is the temperature of the quenching media.

Parameter Function
α0 determines the value of α at high temperatures: α(T→∞) = α0
α1 determines the value of α at T = T0: α (T0) = α0 + α1
TN determines the rate of decay of the exponential term
N determines the slope at T = T0

Table 1: Influence of the parameters α0, α1, TN and n on the shape of the heat transfer
coefficient.

The influence of the 4 parameters on the shape of heat transfer coefficient


model is given in Table 1 and Figure 6 (left). The resulting heat flux q& is
added to Figure 6 (right). Advantages of this parameterization are the small
number of parameters, the C∞ smoothness (i.e. arbitrary times differentiable) of
the heat transfer coefficient (discontinuities may increase computation time)
and that the effect of each parameters is almost uncorrelated. Due to the
different orientation of the back wall and surfaces of the flow channel, the two
surfaces are separately parameterized such that in total 2 · 4 = 8 parameters are
to be determined by the optimization procedure.

3 c: Computing the Error between Measurement and Simulation

The error between measured and simulated temperature history is computed as


the root mean square error for thermocouple 9 to 20. Thermocouples 1 to 8 are
not considered for the error computation as these thermocouples are at the bore
where the temperature is set directly as a boundary condition. As the positions
of the thermocouples do not agree with a position of a node of the mesh, each
thermocouple has to be interpolated in space. As the simulation outputs only
information at discrete points in time, the simulated temperature at a
thermocouple has to be interpolated in time. Here the temperature is
interpolated linearly between two points in time. Figure 7 shows a simulated
and measured temperature history for a thermocouple.
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

Figure 6: Influence of the parameters α0, α1, TN and n on the shape of the heat transfer
coefficient α (left) and heat flux q& (right). The diagrams are normalized.

The error between simulation and measurement is determined for each


measured point in time by computing the distance d between a measured point
in time and the closest point of the interpolated temperature history of the
simulation as shown in Figure 7. For a thermocouple i with p measurement
points, the following mean square error Fi is computed:
2 2
⎛ Ti ,measurement
− Ti simulation (t ) ⎞ ⎛ timeasurement
−t⎞
Fi = ∑ min(d 2 (t ) )
1 p ⎜ j
⎟ ⎜ ,j

with d =
2
+
p j =1 t ⎜ T − T ⎟ ⎜ t −t ⎟
⎝ max min ⎠ ⎝ end start ⎠
(4)

The error is normalized by the extreme values of measured temperature Tmin


and Tmax and quenching time tmin und tmax. The root mean square error is then
computed as the root of the sum of the error Fi of each thermocouple i:

1 20
F= ∑ Fi .
12 i = 9
(5)

The above error computation is advantageous compared to an error


computation based only on either temperature or time as there is no
dependence on the slope of the temperature curve.

3 d: Optimization Algorithm

After parameterizing the problem and defining an objective function, the


optimization problem can be formulated in mathematical terms as the search
for the optimal parameters of an error function:

( )
find arg min F([α 0 ,α1 , n, TN ]backwall , [α 0 ,α1 , n, TN ] surfaces of the flow channel) . (6)
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

T- T0
1
d

0 1 t

Figure 7: Error computation between measurement points [filled circle] and simulation [-
- -]. For each measurement point, the distance d to the next value of the simulation is
computed [<->], where the values of the simulation are linearly interpolated over time t.

This optimization problem is solved with automated optimization using an


algorithm as driving engine to search for suitable parameters for the heat
transfer coefficients. Established optimization algorithms are gradient-based
methods (e.g. BFGSv) or non-gradient methods. For this optimization problem,
gradient-based methods are problematic, as the objective function is a result of
an iterative FE-solver (ABAQUS). Thus, the function evaluation is not exact
but contains noise due to e.g. rounding errors, stop criteria of the equation
solver and time integration errors. Since the computing of gradients using finite
difference methods is highly sensitive to noisevi vii, gradient-based methods are
unsuitable for this problem.

Non-gradient methods are distinguished into deterministic methods (e.g.


SIMPLEXviii) and (semi-)stochastic methods (e.g. Evolutionary Algorithmsix).
While deterministic methods operate with a fixed scheme for computing the
position of the next search points, stochastic methods use random processes
and statistical information of the already computed solutions for computing the
next search points. Thus, stochastic methods are in general more robust in
dealing with noise and discontinuities in the objective functionx.

For the described investigations the CMA-evolution strategyxi is used. This


strategy comprises the advantages of stochastic methods against noise and in
addition „learns“ from the set of evaluated search points for updating a
covariance matrix. This matrix is then used to sample new search points. A
further advantage of stochastic methods is the concept of population-based
search. A population of new search points is always sampled and these points
can be evaluated in parallel on today’s computer clusters.
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

4: Optimization Result

An optimization was started for the optimization problem given in Section 3.


Three ABAQUS simulations were always executed in parallel, each on one
Pentium4 Linux computer (2.53GHz, 512 MB RAM). For the mesh given in
Figure 3 each computation requires about 25 min and 30 MB RAM. The whole
optimization required one week on the 3 computers.

Figure 8: Convergence plot of the optimization: The evolution of the error F is plotted
over the iteration counter

In Figure 8 the evolution of the objective function is shown. The objective


function represents the normalized root mean square error between the
measured and the simulation temperature history for the thermocouples 9 to 20,
which are shown in Figure 3. The optimization was stopped after executing
1160 ABAQUS simulations as the variation in the parameters was only minor
and no further significant change in the parameters or objective function was
expected.

In Figure 9, the resulting heat transfer coefficient for the back wall and surfaces
of the flow channel are given. One unexpected result is that the heat transfer
coefficient of the two surfaces back wall and surfaces of the flow channel is
almost identical, especially for normalized temperatures T < 0.4. One would
expect that the different orientation of the two surfaces has a major effect on
the heat transfer as the orientation can promote or hinder the detachment of
steam bubbles and thus influence the heat transfer ii. However, since the heat
transfer values are similar for the two surfaces, the assumption in Section 2b
that the heat transfer coefficient is not dependent on the surface position is
justified.
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

Figure 9: Optimized heat transfer coefficient α (left) and heat flux q& (right) for back wall
and surfaces of the flow channel. The diagram shows normalized values.

Figure 10 shows a typical temperature distribution inside the compressor wheel


while quenching. At this point in time, the blades of the wheel are already
cooled to the temperature of the quenching medium, while the main mass of
the wheel is still at about the temperature of the solution annealing. The blades
have a similar effect as cooling fins (e.g., for engines) as a high heat flux goes
through them. Thus, it is important to include them in the simulation.

Figure 10: Contour lines of a typical temperature distribution in the compressor wheel
while quenching. While the thin blades already cooled to environmental temperature, the
core shows still high temperatures.

A comparison between simulated and measured temperature history is given


for four thermocouples in Figure 11. In general, there is a good agreement in
the temperature history. The best agreement is found in the main mass of the
wheel (thermocouple 10). This shows that the sum of the simulated heat fluxes
through all surfaces as they affect the core, agrees with the measurement.
Figure 11 shows also a good agreement between the calculated and
experimental quenching rate (i.e. the slope of the temperature curves agree).
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

This is important for predicting the resulting material properties, which depend
on the cooling rate.

T- T0

T- T0

Figure 11: Simulated and measured temperature history at thermocouple 10, 12, 14, and
19. The diagram shows normalized values.

5: Conclusions and Outlook

This paper shows how the temperature distribution during quenching of a


compressor wheel for exhaust-gas turbochargers can be simulated. The focus is
on the interaction between compressor wheel and quenching media that can be
specified by setting surface temperatures or heat fluxes as a boundary condition
of the simulation.

At the bore, the temperature history of a measurement was directly set as


boundary condition. At the back wall and the surfaces of the flow channel,
temperature dependent heat transfer coefficients were set. As no values for the
heat transfer coefficients were found in literature, the heat transfer values were
parameterized using an exponential function. The parameterization contains a
minimal number of parameters, which were also physically interpreted. The
result of the parameter optimization is convincing: The simulated and
measured temperature curves show good agreement in temperature and
temperature gradient. The latter is important for computing the resulting
material properties.
A FINITE ELEMENT APPROACH FOR SIMULATING THE
QUENCHING OF LARGE ALUMINIUM COMPRESSOR WHEELS

An open question is whether or not the surface boundary conditions can be


transferred to compressor wheels of different sizes, for which no measurements
exist. As for the considered wheel, the temperature was set directly as
boundary condition to the bore, transfer to different geometries is not possible
as the temperature curve would be different. Thus, a model for the heat transfer
along the bore is required. This model has to account for the variation in heat
flux over the length of the bore.

REFERENCES
i
www.abaqus.com
ii
C.R. BOER, N. REBELLO, H. RYDSTAD, and G.SCHRÖDER. Process Modeling of Metal
Forming and Thermomechanical Treatment, Springer-Verlag, 1986
iii
J. H. LIENHARD IV and JOHN H. LIENHARD V. A Heat Transfer Textbook, 3rd edition,
2003, download at http://web.mit.edu/lienhard/www/ahtt.html
iv
VDI-Wärmeatlas: Recherchieren - Berechnen - Konstruieren : Wärmeübergang und
Strömung in Verfahrenstechnik und Chemie, Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, VDI-Gesellschaft
Verfahrenstechnik und Chemieingenieurwesen (VDI-GVC), 8. Aufl., VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf,
1998
v
J. DENNIS and R. B. SCHNABEL. Numerical Methods for Unconstrained Optimization and
Nonlinear Equations, Series in Computational Mathematics. Prentice-Hall, 1993
vi
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W. TROSSET. A rigorous framework for optimization of expensive functions by surrogates,
ICASE Report No. 98-47. Technical report, NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA,
1998
vii
D. BÜCHE. Multi-Objective Evolutionary Optimization of Gas Turbine Components, Diss.,
Technische Wissenschaften, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ETH Zürich, Nr. 15240,
Shaker Verlag (ISBN 3-8322-2800-4), 2004
viii
J. A. NELDER and R. MEAD. „A simplex method for function minimization“. Computer
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T. BÄCK and H.-P. SCHWEFEL. „An overview of evolutionary algorithms for parameter
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D. V. ARNOLD and H.-G. BEYER. „A comparison of evolution strategies with other direct
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xi
N. HANSEN and A. OSTERMEIER. „Completely Derandomized Self-Adaptation in
Evolution Strategies“. Evolutionary Computation, 9(2), pp. 159-195, 2001

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