Renewable Energy 170 (2021) 500e516

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Effect of chamber roughness and local smoothing on performance of a

CAES axial turbine
Xing Wang a, c, Xuehui Zhang a, b, c, Zhitao Zuo a, b, c, Yangli Zhu a, b, c, Wen Li a, b, c, *,
Haisheng Chen a, b, c, Yulong Ding d
a
Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11 Beisihuanxi Rd, Haidian District, Beijing, 100190, China
b
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.19(A) Yuquan Rd, Shijingshan District, Beijing, 100049, China
c
Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, liaoning Province, 116023, China
d
School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Axial turbine is a key device which influences the power output and efficiency of the Compressed Air
Received 21 February 2020 Energy Storage (CAES) system notably. In present study, the effect of chamber roughness on the effi-
Received in revised form ciency and flow loss characteristics of an axial turbine in the CAES system is investigated numerically to
1 September 2020
find a way to improve the performance and reduce the manufacturing cost. The results illustrate that the
Accepted 30 January 2021
efficiency is reduced nonlinearly with the increase of chamber roughness. An efficiency reduction of
Available online 2 February 2021
0.45% is obtained when chamber roughness is less than 10 mm at design point. However, the efficiency
reduction of 1.9% is obtained by the chamber roughness of 50 mm when the expansion ratio is less than
Keywords:
Axial turbine
1.9. Internal flow analysis reveals that the passage vortex near upper end wall in the left-part of stator
Chamber roughness ring is strengthen with the increase of chamber roughness. An efficiency recovery of 0.61% is achieved by
Aerodynamic performance “Local smoothing wall” which has wall roughness of 1.6 mm at only 11.26% of the wall area. The isentropic
Compressed air energy storage efficiency is also increased more than 0.6% compared to the full smooth wall wall when total pressure
ratio is 1.4.
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction roughness on boundary layer transition of an oscillating airfoil

With the increase of energy demand, the Compressed Air En-
ergy Storage (CAES) system has attracted more and more attention
in recent year. As a key power-output device, axial turbine is widely
adopted in many CAES systems [1e6] and it has been proven to be
one of the important devices in the system. Existing literature [7]
has illustrated that the efficiency of the CAES system presents same
changing amplitude when the efficiency of the turbine is varied.
Therefore, it is important to increase the efficiency of the axial
turbine to improve the performance of CAES system as high as
possible.
Blade roughness is one of the crucial factors which influences
the flow loss and aerodynamic performance of the turbomachinery,
and it has received widely investigation. Rasi Marzabadi and Soltani
[8] conducted a research to reveal the effect of leading-edge
* Corresponding author. Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Acad-
emy of Sciences, 11 Beisihuanxi Rd, Haidian District, Beijing, 100190, China.
E-mail address: liwen@iet.cn (W. Li).
adopted in wind turbine. Talebi [9] presented off-design perfor-
mance evaluation of a microturbine with the effects blade rough-
ness in a compressor. Bellucci [10] conducted a study on the
influence of blade roughness on a high-pressure steam turbine
stage with the unsteady effects of the upcoming wakes. Bagheri
Esfe [11] investigated the effects of blade surface roughness on
deviation angle and performance losses in wet steam turbines. Xu
et al. [12] investigated the effect of blade roughness on particle
deposition in a flue gas turbine. Kellersmann et al. [13] investigated
the surface roughness impact on low-pressure turbine
performance.
More in-deep investigations have also been conducted to reveal
the mechanism of blade roughness on the flow characteristics of
turbomachinery. Roberts and Yaras [14] conducted measurements
of separation-bubble transition over a range of surfaces with
randomly distributed roughness elements. Simens and Gungor [15]
conducted a direct numerical simulation to reveal the effect of type,
height, and location of the roughness element on a typical laminar
separation and turbulent transition encountered on suction side of

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.01.133
0960-1481/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Wang, X. Zhang, Z. Zuo et al. Renewable Energy 170 (2021) 500e516

low-pressure turbine blades. Hummel et al. [16] evaluated the ef- Table 1
fect of surface roughness and Reynolds number on the total pres- Operation condition of axial turbine in present study.

sure loss of a turbine blade by a test on a linear cascade. It was Operation Condition Parameters Unit Value
found that maximum loss increase caused by surface roughness total expansion ratio ptt e 2.7
occurs at the highest Reynolds number adopted in the test. Zhang Inlet total temperature Tin K 373
et al. [17] quantitative investigated the effect of surface roughness rotational speed n r/min 17, 200.0
and turbulence intensity on the aerodynamic performance of a Mass flow rate m_ kg/s 33.7

turbine Airfoil. The contributions of surface roughness and turbu-

lence intensity level to the aerodynamic losses, Mach number
profiles, normalized kinetic energy profiles and Integrated Aero- Table 2
Main stator and rotor geometry parameters of the axial
dynamics Losses (IAL) are revealed. Montomoli [18] investigated
turbine.
the separate and combined effects of roughness and wake passing
on the performance of a high-lift profile for low pressure turbines Geometric Parameters Value
at low Reynolds numbers. Numstator 26.0
The effect of blade roughness on the heat transfer is also Numrotor 44.0
investigated. Lorenz et al. [19,20] investigated the effect of surface Hout, stator/Din, stator 0.23
Hout, stator/LAxial, stator 1.20
roughness on the external heat transfer and aerodynamic losses on Hout, rotor/Din, rotor 0.13
a turbine airfoil experimentally. The results illustrated that the Hout, rotor/LAxial, rotor 1.74
eccentricity of roughness plays an important role in the onset of
transition and the turbulent heat transfer. Ikwubuo et al. [21]
further conducted a numerical simulation to determine the effect of ratio are adopted in the axial turbine, it means that the flow loss in
the hole roughness and surface roughness of blade on the film the flow channel are more sensitivity to the chamber roughness
cooling effectiveness reduction of a turbine blade. which causes more obvious non-uniform flow field at inlet of stator
The blade roughness was even employed to improve perfor- ring.
mance of the turbines. Mustafa Serdar GENÇ [22] adopted rough-
ened airfoil to control the adverse pressure gradients instead of the
vortex generators. Aldi [23] investigated the effect of different non- 3. Research method
uniform combinations of surface roughness levels on blades, and
significant work redistribution is found when roughness non- 3.1. CFD model
uniformity is adopted in span-wise direction. Van Rooij and Tim-
mer [24] investigated the proper design and an investigation on the A CFD model adopted in present study is depicted in Fig. 2. The
reduction of roughness sensitivity can be achieved both by proper flow domains for a chamber, a stator and a rotor are included.
design and by application of vortex generators on the upper surface Domain with single flow passage is employed for the rotor while
of the airfoil. domain with full cycle flow passage is adopted for stator to fully
The studies above mainly focus on the effect of blade roughness consider the non-uniform flow field at outlet of chamber. There-
for the turbines. However, the wall roughness of chamber or volute fore, the flow characteristic can be revealed with lower computa-
also influences the aerodynamic performance. Kamphues [25] has tional source cost. Uniform total pressure, uniform total
revealed the obvious effect of volute roughness on the turbocharger temperature, and flow angles are specified at inlet of the chamber.
compressor performance. For axial turbine, the roughness of a Average static pressure is specified at the outlet boundary of the
casting chamber without wall treatment can be more than 400 mm rotor. The “stage interface”, which performs a circumferential
[26]. As a result, the flow loss of the turbine may be increased averaging of the fluxes through bands on the stator and rotor
obviously due to the high wall shear stress and non-uniform flow domain interface, is adopted. The rotation speed is also applied on
distribution at inlet of stator ring. However, the effect of chamber the rotor domain which is based on the operation condition.
roughness on design and off-design performance of an axial tur- Different wall roughness is set on the surface of the chamber in the
bine, which also significantly influences the performance of CAES numerical simulation.
systems, is inadequate. Furthermore, the method for performance The material properties of the compressed air adopted in the
improvement based on chamber roughness treatment is also numerical simulation is obtained by calling the gas physical prop-
neglected. erty tables which are based on the software REFPROP [27]. These
The objective of this study is to determine the influence of tables are integrated into an RGP file by using in-house developed
chamber roughness on the aerodynamic efficiency and off-design code, which is adopted in the software of ANSYS CFX during solu-
performance of a CAES turbine using Computational Fluid Dy- tion process.
namic (CFD) analysis. A closer insight into the internal flow struc-
ture and loss mechanism is also performed. More importantly, a
3.1.1. Turbulence model
manufacturing method of “local smooth wall” is proposed and
The ANSYS CFX solver is adopted to conduct steady-state 3D
investigated to find out whether the chamber could be manufac-
viscous compressible flow simulations, the k-ε turbulence model is
tured in a cheaper way to obtain a better isentropic efficiency re-
adopted in present study for its good compromise between nu-
covery by selecting the locations of smoothed wall properly.
merical effort and computational accuracy which is suitable for
most engineering applications.
2. Research object
The model introduces two new variables into the system of
equations. The continuity equation is then:
One stage in a multi-stage axial flow turbine adopted in a
Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) system is selected as the vr v

research object in present study. Its operation condition at design þ rUj ¼ 0 (1)
vt vxj
point and geometric parameters are shown in Table 1, and Table 2.
As shown in Fig. 1 and Table 2, the stator blades with low aspect The momentum equation is described as:
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Fig. 1. Geometry of the axial turbine adopted in energy system.

Fig. 2. CFD model for the axial turbine with chamber.

" !#
vrUi v
 vP 0 v vUi vUj 2 2 vU
þ rUi Uj ¼  þ m þ þ SMi (2) P 0 ¼ P þ rk þ meff k (4)
vt vxj vxi vxj eff vxj vxi 3 3 vxk

where SM i is the sum of body forces, meff is the effective viscosity

k2
accounting for turbulence, and P 0 is the modified pressure: mt ¼ Cm r (5)
ε

meff ¼ m þ mt (3) The values of k and ε come directly from the differential trans-
port equations for the turbulence kinetic energy and turbulence
dissipation rate:
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"  # where:
vðrkÞ v
 v m vk
þ rUj k ¼ mþ t þ Pk  rε þ Pkb (6) rDyut
vt vxj vxj sk vxj yþ ¼ (13)
m
"  #
vðrεÞ v
 v m vε rffiffiffiffiffiffi
þ rUj ε ¼ mþ t tw
vt vxj vxj sε vxj ut ¼ (14)
r
ε
þ ðCε1 Pk  Cε2 rε þ Cε1 Pεb Þ (7)
k where k is the Von Karman constant, uþ is the near-wall velocity, ut
is the friction velocity. tw is the wall shear stress. B is the constant,
where Cε1 , Cε2 , sk and sε are constants.
which equals to 5.2 [30]. For equivalent sand-grain roughness, the
Pk is the turbulence production due to viscous forces, which is
downward shift can be expressed as:
modeled using:
!   1

vUi vUj vUi 2 vUk vU DB ¼ ln 1 þ 0:3kþ (15)
Pk ¼ mt þ  3mt k þ rk (8) k S
vxj vxi vxj 3 vxk vxk
where kþS is the dimensionless value of kS, it is formed by the sand-
In equation (6), Pkb and Pεb represent the influence of the grain roughness kS, friction velocity ut, and the kinematic viscosity
buoyancy forces. The term Pkb in the full buoyancy model and coefficient v:
Boussinesq buoyancy model is defined as equations (9) and (10)

respectively: kþ
S ¼ kS ut v (16)
mt vr
Pkb ¼  g (9)
rsr i vxi

mt vT 3.1.3. Grid for the model

Pkb ¼ rbgi (10)
rsr vxi A hexahedral element is adopted for the stator and rotor do-
mains while a tetrahedral element is employed for chamber for its
where sr is the turbulence Schmidt Number. It is 0.9 in equation (9) complex geometry(see Fig. 3). The grid is refined near the wall and
while it equals to 1.0 in equation (10). tip clearance of the blade to satisfy the requirements of the tur-
The term Pεb, which has positive value, is proportional to Pkb. It is bulence model. The mean y þ value for the mesh element is about
defined as: 215, which satisfies the requirement of k-ε turbulence model in
ANSYS CFX [30], it has been adopted in the numerical simulation of
Pεb ¼ C3 maxð0; Pkb Þ (11) turbomachinery [31].
The grid validation is also conducted and the results are shown
in Table 3. The isentropic efficiency htt, which is based on the total
parameters at inlet and outlet of axial turbine, is selected as the
3.1.2. Rough wall treatment
performance index in the validation, it is defined as:
In present study, the sand-grain roughness kS is adopted to
describe the chamber roughness [28,29]. The effect of roughness on


H Ptot;in ; Ttot;in  H Ptot;out ; Ttot;out
the flow is treated based on downward shift in the logarithmic htt ¼

 (17)
H Ptot;in ; Ttot;in  H Ptot;out ; Stot;in
velocity profile:
It can be found that the isentropic efficiency htt is almost un-
1
uþ ¼ lnðyþ Þ þ B  DB (12) changed as the grid element increases from 84,000 to 1,060,000. In
k order to save the computing resource, about 840,000 grid elements
are adopted for the computations.

Fig. 3. Grid for the axial turbine with chamber.

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Table 3
Results of grid validation.

Number of grid element for components Total Grid element number htt/%
chamber Stator Rotor

394,419 215,875 235,824 6,298,020 87.21

614,233 231,200 290,851 6,951,257 86.86
841,288 247,455 298,451 7,672,569 86.88
1,068,909 279,049 446,947 8,771,130 86.88

Fig. 4. Test rig for present axial turbine.

3.2. Model validation
The CFD model is also validated by the experiment (see Fig. 4).
The test rig is shown in Fig. 5. When it is operated, the high pressure
air is heated by the heat exchanger first and flows into the 4-stage
turbine with inter-heaters. The turbine drives a generator to
generate electricity, which is then consumed by a load bank. Pipes
with insulation layer are adopted to reduce the heat dissipation
during the operation. The rotational speed is regulated at a specific
power which is set by the load bank. The second stage turbine is
investigated in present study.
The temperature and pressure sensors are located at inlet and
outlet of the turbine flow path, which refers to the method of NASA
technical paper [32]. The errors for the sensor, probe and flow
meters adopted in the test is list in Table 4. Based on the data in
Table 3 and the error transfer formula which is shown below, the
error for the isentropic efficiency is 0.7%.

Fig. 5. Measurement installation in present test rig.

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" rotorestator interface, adiabatic wall, the neglection of back cavity

2  2  2 #1=2 of stator and rotor in the CFD model and the effect of diffuser.
vf vf vf
dY ¼ dx þ dx þ :::::: þ dxn where H is the total enthalpy, Ptot is the total pressure, Ttot is the
vx1 1 vx2 2 vxn
total temperature, subscript in represents the inlet of turbine, and
"      #1=2 subscript out represents the outlet of turbine.
dY x1 vf dx1 2 x2 vf dx2 2 xn vf dxn 2
¼ þ þ :::::: þ
Y Y vx1 x1 Y vx2 x2 Y vxn xn
(18) 4. Results and discussion

where Y represents the indirect measurement error; x represents The effect of chamber roughness on aerodynamic performance
the direct measurement error; 1~n represent the number of direct of the turbine is investigated firstly. And then, the effect of chamber
measurement error. roughness on internal flow loss is further analyzed. Based on the
The results of experimental validation is shown in Table 5, As the results, an efficiency improvement way using “local smoothed
second stage of the multi-stage turbine, little variation of expansion wall” is proposed, investigated and analyzed.
ratio can be obtained for present axial turbine to depict a curve for
expansion ratio versus the corrected mass flow rate. Therefore, only
the result at design point is provided.
4.1. Effect of chamber roughness on aerodynamic performance
It can be found that the isentropic efficiency htt obtained by
experiment is 85.52%, and the isentropic efficiency obtained by the
The variation of isentropic efficiency with the chamber rough-
CFD model is 86.88%. The relative error is 1.36%, which within the
ness is depicted in Fig. 6. The kS of 0e50 mm, which within the
engineering permissible error range. These errors may be attrib-
accuracy requirement of casting, is adopted in the present study. It
uted to the adoption of circumferential average treatment at
can be found that the isentropic efficiency mainly decreased with
the increase of wall roughness, and a nonlinear variation is
Table 4 observed. The isentropic efficiency presents more sensitive reduc-
Errors for the sensor, probe and flow meters adopted in the tion of 0.45% when wall roughness is less than 10 mm. However, the
test. isentropic efficiency reduction of 0.15% is obtained when kS is
Devices Errors increased from 25 mm to 50 mm. The mass flow rate of the turbine
also presents similar variation.
Pressure sensor ±0.10%
Temperature sensor ±0.50% As shown in Fig. 7, it can be found that the isentropic efficiency
Flow meters ±1.00% present an overall reduction when the chamber roughness is
increased. The operation range with high efficiency is narrowed,
and the efficiency reductions more than 1% are observed both for
Table 5 the chamber with wall roughness of 12.5 mm and 50 mm when total
Experimental validation for present model. pressure ratio less than 1.6. For the wall roughness of 50 mm, a slight
Experiment CFD Relative error sensitivity of 0.1% is observed when total pressure ratio varies from
2.2 to 2.8, it can be mainly attribute to a result of numerical
htt/% 85.52 86.88 1.36%
simulation error.

Fig. 6. Variation of isentropic efficiency and mass flow rate of turbine with chamber roughness at design point.

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Fig. 7. Effect of wall roughness on off-design performance of the axial turbine.

Fig. 8. Wall shear distribution for the chamber with smooth wall.

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4.2. Effect of chamber roughness on internal flow loss As shown in Fig. 12, obvious non-uniformity distributions of attack
characteristics angle are observed at location 1 to 6 when wall roughness is
increased. Furthermore, the attack angle in most of the stator
The internal flow loss is also influenced by the chamber passage is increased with the increase of wall roughness of cham-
roughness. In present study, it is necessary to conduct a coupling ber. However, the attack angle at location 7 and 8 are not signifi-
internal flow investigation including chamber and stator to provide cantly influenced.
a guide for further improvement. The flow loss distribution in stator is also influenced. The energy
The shear distribution on the chamber surface without and with loss coefficient is adopted to evaluate the flow loss in the stator,
wall roughness are compared with the results depicted in Fig. 8 and which is defined as follows:
Fig. 9 respectively. As shown in Fig. 8, region 1 near the top of the
chamber outlet presents higher wall shear when original smooth
 g1
 g1
wall is adopted. However, as shown in Fig. 9, the wall shear near the Pstat; out Ptot; out g  Pstat; out Ptot; in g
zComp ¼
 g1 (19)
top region of outlet of the chamber is obviously increased with the
1  Pstat;out Ptot; out g
increase of chamber roughness. Same result can also be found in
the region near the waist of the chamber (region 2). The variation of
where Pstat is the static pressure, Ptot is the total pressure, g is the
average wall shear stress with wall roughness is also provided in
Table 6 to show the trend quantitatively.
As a result, the total pressure distribution at inlet of stator are Table 6
influenced. Fig. 11 and Fig. 12 depicted the effect of wall roughness Variation of average wall shear stress with wall roughness.
on the total pressure and attack angle distribution at inlet of stator. Wall roughness/mm Average wall shear stress/Pa
The observe location is defined in Fig. 10. As shown in Fig. 11, non-
6.3 145.34
uniformity distribution of total pressure is found with the increase 12.5 168.53
of chamber roughness. More obvious total pressure reduction can 25.0 196.74
also be observed in the upper part of the stator passage. The attack 50.0 230.57
angle at inlet of stator is also influenced by the chamber roughness.

Fig. 9. Wall shear distribution for the chamber with different wall roughness.

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Fig. 10. Definition of the observation location.
heat capacity ratio, subscript Comp represents the component of
the turbine, such as chamber, stator and rotor; in represents the
inlet of a component, and subscript out represents the outlet of a
component.
As shown in Fig. 13, the energy loss coefficient at inlet of stator is
Fig. 11. Effect of wall roughness on the total pressure distribution at inlet of stator.
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Renewable Energy 170 (2021) 500e516
increased with the increase of the wall roughness. In addition,
energy loss increment is found in the upper region of the stator
passage at most of the locations.
A detailed internal flow loss distribution is depicted in Fig. 14. At
location 3, the influence range and intensity of vortex near upper
end wall is increased, and the secondary flow loss is also raised
accordingly, as a result, the energy loss coefficient depicted in
Fig. 13 (b) is increased obviously. However, with the influence of
negative attack angle, no obvious passage vortex is formed and the
secondary flow loss is slightly increased near end wall at location 5
and location 7, and the increment of flow loss in the main part of the
stator passage is mainly caused by the fluid with high entropy
coming from chamber. In general, the secondary flow vortex near
upper end wall, which is determined by the total pressure and
attack angle at inlet of stator, plays an important role in the flow
loss.
4.3. Efficiency improvement of turbine with local smooth wall
In order to reduce the flow loss increased by the wall roughness,
a “local smooth wall” is provided by reducing the wall roughness in
a specific region instead of smoothing the complete chamber. The
location with smoothing treatment is determined mainly from
three aspects: most contribution to the wall shear and isentropic
efficiency, lower costs for manufacturing, and easier to processing.
Fig. 15 illustrates the chamber region requiring smooth wall.
The effect of local smoothed method on efficiency of the turbine
is provided in Table 7. Three different wall roughness kS,Local for local
smooth wall, which are 0.0 mm, 0.8 mm, and 1.6 mm respectively, are
included and compared. It can be found that the isentropic effi-
ciency can be increased by 0.66% when local smooth wall with
kS,Local ¼ 0.0 mm is adopted. In addition, the isentropic efficiency can
still be increased by 0.63% and 0.61% when kS,Local are 0.8 mm and
1.6 mm respectively. In general, from a manufacturing perspective,
“local smooth wall” with kS,local of 0.8 mme1.6 mm can be employed
in practice while the roughness of remaining surface is 50 mm.
In order to highlight the performance improvement more
clearly, “local smooth wall” with kS,Local ¼ 0.0 mm is adopted in the
X. Wang, X. Zhang, Z. Zuo et al. Renewable Energy 170 (2021) 500e516

Fig. 12. Effect of wall roughness on the attack angle distribution at inlet of stator.

Fig. 13. Effect of wall roughness on the energy loss distribution in the stator.

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Fig. 14. Variation of the flow structure in stator passage with circumferential direction.

Fig. 15. Region with local smooth wall in the chamber.

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Table 7
Effect of local smoothed method on efficiency of the turbine.

scheme htt/% Efficiency Improvement

Smooth wall 86.80 e

kS ¼ 50 mm 85.84 e
Local smooth wall, kS,Local ¼ 0.0 mm 86.50 0.66%
Local smooth wall, kS,Local ¼ 0.8 mm 86.47 0.63%
Local smooth wall, kS,Local ¼ 1.6 mm 86.45 0.61%

Fig. 16. Variation of wall shear in the chamber due to “local smooth wall”.

Fig. 17. Total pressure distribution at inlet of stator due to “local smooth wall”.

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analysis below. As shown in Fig. 16, the wall shear in the region with wall. It means that the cost can be also reduced significantly if same
“local smooth wall” is obviously decreased. As a result, the wall treatment method is applied.
boundary layer thickness is reduced and the flow pattern is also
improved. As shown in Fig. 17 and Fig. 18, more uniform in distri-
5. Conclusion
bution of total pressure at inlet of stator is achieved by “local
smooth wall”, and the distortion of attack angle at inlet of stator is
In present study, the effect of chamber roughness on the aero-
also reduced. In general, the flow distribution at inlet of stator is
dynamic performance of the axial turbine is investigated. The in-
more similar to that of the chamber with smooth wall.
ternal flow structure and loss with the influence of chamber
The energy loss in the stator is also reduced by the chamber with
roughness is also analyzed. A “local smooth wall” is proposed to
“local smooth wall”. As shown in Fig. 19, the energy loss coefficient
reduce the flow loss with lower manufacturing time and cost. The
at inlet of stator is decreased when chamber with “local smoothed
conclusion is obtained as follows:
wall” is adopted. In addition, obvious energy loss reduction is
observed in the upper region of the stator. A closer look at internal
(1) The isentropic efficiency decreased with the increase of wall
flow loss distribution is depicted in Fig. 20. It can be found that the
roughness nonlinearly. Obvious efficiency reduction of 0.45%
secondary flow vortex near upper end wall of stator is weaken and
is observed when wall roughness is less than 10 mm. How-
smaller, and the end wall loss is also suppressed. The region marked
ever, the isentropic efficiency begins to level off when wall
with circle shown in Fig. 20 is the evidence for the flow loss
roughness is increased from 25 mm to 50 mm, and the isen-
reduction realized by the chamber with “local smooth wall”.
tropic efficiency reduction is only 0.15%. At off-design con-
The chamber with “local smoothed wall” also present positive
dition, the efficiency reduction of 1.9% is found for the axial
effect on the off-design performance of the axial turbine. As the
turbine with wall roughness of 50 mm when total pressure
curves shown in Fig. 21, the isentropic efficiency for axial turbine
ratio less than 1.9.
with “local smooth wall” chamber increases by more 1% point
(2) Different flow loss characteristics are found in the stator
compared to the chamber with ks ¼ 50 mm when the ptt is varied
passage distributing along circumferential direction. The
from 1.4 to 1.6. Furthermore, compared to the chamber with
secondary flow corresponding to passage vortex near upper
smooth wall, obvious efficiency increment of 0.6% is even found at
end wall is increased with the increase of wall roughness in
ptt ¼ 1.4 when the chamber with “local smooth wall” is adopted. At the passages located in the left-part of the stator ring.
the same time, the cost for the wall treatment of chamber is
However, no obvious passage vortex is formed in the pas-
obviously reduced. As shown in Fig. 22, the polishing area for local
sages located in the right-part of the stator ring, and only the
smooth wall can be reduced by 90% compared to the full smoothed
secondary flow loss near end wall is increased. In general, the

Fig. 18. Attack angle distribution at inlet of stator due to “local smooth wall”.

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Fig. 19. Variation of energy loss in the stator due to “local smooth wall”.

Fig. 20. Variation of flow loss distribution in the stator due to “local smooth wall”.

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Fig. 21. Effect of “local smoothed wall” on off-design performance of the turbine.

Fig. 22. Cost for different wall Treatment.

secondary flow vortex near upper end wall, which is deter-
mined by the total pressure and attack angle at inlet of stator,
plays an important role in the flow loss.
(3) A “local smooth wall” with 0.8 mme1.6 mm of kS,Local is pro-
posed to reduce the flow loss with lower manufacturing time
and cost. Compared to a chamber with wall roughness of
50 mm, the isentropic efficiency can be recovered by 0.63%
when only 11.26% of the chamber wall is smoothed with wall
roughness of 1.6 mm. The secondary flow vortex near upper
end wall of stator is weaken and smaller, and the end wall
514
loss is also suppressed. Furthermore, the isentropic efficiency
for axial turbine with “local smooth wall” chamber is even
increased by more than 0.6% point compared to the chamber
with smooth wall when the ptt is 1.4.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xing Wang: Conceptualization. Xuehui Zhang: Investigation.
Zhitao Zuo: Data curation. Yangli Zhu: Validation. Wen Li: Writing
X. Wang, X. Zhang, Z. Zuo et al. Renewable Energy 170 (2021) 500e516

- original draft, Writing - review & editing. Haisheng Chen: Su- tot Total
pervision. Yulong Ding: Funding acquisition. tt Total to total

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