Abstract

A numerical evaluation of the effects of volcanic ash ingestion in a turbofan engine was carried out, with particular regard to the prediction of the erosion damage to fan blades. The ash concentration level examined in the study was below the flight limit because the aim of this study is to investigate the damage due to long-term exposure to low concentration levels. The work aims to the implementation of a numerical methodology that takes into account the geometry change of the fan blades during the exposure to volcanic ash. A dimensional and morphological characterization of a real volcanic ash sample from the Mount Etna volcano has been performed to model the particle flow dynamics using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The fan performance in terms of the total pressure increase was calculated for both the baseline and damaged geometries to quantify the performance deterioration trend with respect to the particle exposure time. For the calculation of the eroded fan performance, two different numerical approaches were considered. In the first approach, the erosion rate (ER) was evaluated based on the initial blade geometry and was held constant. In the second approach, the ER was updated as the erosion of the blade continued. The second approach shows a higher deterioration of the pressure rise across the fan, suggesting that the variation of the ER due to the blade shape modification cannot be neglected in the calculations.

Autore Pugliese

• Ficarella Antonio , De Giorgi Maria Grazia

Tutti gli autori

• M.G. De Giorgi , S. Campilongo , A. Ficarella

Titolo volume/Rivista

JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER

Anno di pubblicazione

2015

ISSN

0742-4795

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Scopus

1

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

28/04/2018

Settori ERC

Non Disponibile

Codici ASJC

Non Disponibile