Unsteady flow and load in 50% partial admission control stage with different admitting arc distributions

Full three-dimensional unsteady numerical investigation on an axial air turbine in 50% partial admission is conducted. The partial admission turbines are under different unsteady loading and unloading process, as well as flow parameters, respectively. The loss coefficient and static pressure distributions at the key position are presented in detail to analyze the nonuniformity originated from partial admission. The results show that the nonuniformity decreases along flow direction and the efficiency of control stage also decreases but with the uniformity improved downstream of the rotors with increasing admitting numbers in equal partial admission degree. The reasons for efficiency decreasing are reasonably explained with windage and sector end losses presented by static entropy distributions. The periodic changes of unsteady forces in amplitude and direction are also compared and transformed in the frequency domain by FFT method. The largest circumferential exciting force factor which is remarkably larger than the corresponding axial exciting force factor decreases by 13.2% with the increase of admitting arc number. Compared with the common distribution of two symmetric admitting arcs, the maximum exciting force factor of triangle admitting arc distribution drops 11.3% with the mere efficiency decrease of 1.32%. The multiple admitting arc turbines are more conducive to be applied to submarines which concerns more about exciting force other than efficiency. Efficiency and unsteady forces are both worth being taken into consideration in the practical applications