CFD Investigation of Temperature Rise in a Combustor Test Rig Exhaust System

This paper presents a study of temperature rise in the exhaust system of a combustor test rig, Test Cell #1, at the Gas Turbine Laboratory, Institute for Aerospace Research, the National Research Council of Canada. As the flow regime is supersonic with a mixture of hot air & water vapour, condensation of water vapour in the system is suggested to explain the temperature rise observed along the exhaust pipe. The method of Computational Flow Dynamics is used to carry out the first investigation on this hypothesis. The exhaust system is reproduced by CAD, meshed and modelled by the ANSYS-FLUENT CFD package. Simulations of a two-phase complex mixture are performed. The numerical results indicate that the pressure control devices in the exhaust flow towards the stack create phenomena similar to nozzles and yield condensed water into the system. The simulations of liquid phase content and temperature fields are qualitatively consistent with experimental observations and support the hypothesis that condensation is occurring and may therefore threaten the structural integrity of the system through thermal effects.