Concepts NREC regularly conducts industry-sponsored consortia and internally-funded projects that continue to expand our extensive knowledge and applied technology expertise. For over 20 years, our consortium sponsors have received the following benefits:
- Leveraged their R&D funds. Consortium programs are extremely cost-effective because sponsors receive advanced design and development technology while paying only a fraction of the cost of the entire project.
- Directed the research program to best suit their needs. Sponsors have the opportunity to participate in choosing the direction of the applied research by suggesting tasks and setting priorities among alternative approaches.
- Kept up with advancing technology. Whether monitoring progress of the outside world or progress within a given organization, sponsors find the consortium programs very useful in keeping current with advancing technology.
- Obtained valuable patent rights. Valuable technologies developed under consortium programs may be patented. Patent rights are granted to current participants of the project on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license basis. Organizations joining later must pay a supplementary license fee to cover patent rights.
Research Sponsors Receive Exclusive Results to Turbomachinery Performance and Reliability Issues
Sponsors of Concepts NREC international consortia programs include equipment users, equipment manufacturers, government agencies, and independent research organizations. These collaborative, applied investigations generate important technical information and data on turbomachinery performance and reliability. Results are distributed exclusively to sponsors so they can improve product designs and resolve operational problems.
Ongoing Consortia:
Predicting and Minimizing Axial Thrust
It is very important to accurately estimate impeller or rotor axial thrust, and account for the resulting loads in the design process. High axial thrust levels can lead to high maintenance costs, or even catastrophic failure of turbomachinery. This can occur due to rapid wear of thrust bearings or cross-coupling effects on radial bearings, which in turn alter the rotordynamic coefficients of the machine, which can lead to unstable whirl. Eccentricities in the shaft may also result in adverse fluid mechanical cross-coupling effects, and thus, bring about larger than expected axial thrusts and performance reduction. Metal-to-metal contact or rub can occur due to large axial loads in rolling element or fluid film type thrust bearings.
Advanced Turbomachinery Volute Design and Modeling
In modern, high-performance turbomachinery (pumps, compressors, and turbines), significant attention must be given to the details of design and how each design parameter impacts system performance. Volute design parameters significantly affect the performance of the machine in terms of the pressure recovery coefficient, losses, and efficiency, as well as off-design performance, stability, radial loads, and bearing life. The consortium's goal is to resolve several of the critical volute design issues that directly influence industrial turbomachine performance. Consortium work includes testing of different volute configurations in air and in water. The volute design and testing activity is complemented by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of several designs. The CFD results are expected to be useful both in the design process and in the analysis process. Comparisons of actual performance to CFD models will validate the CFD methodology for future application in design, with the aim of eventually reducing the need for expensive volute fabrication and testing.
Defect-Tolerant Design for Turbomachinery
Metal fatigue - both high-cycle and low-cycle - has been the principal cause of catastrophic failures throughout the history of turbomachinery. As a consequence, sophisticated methods for safeguarding against metal fatigue have become a central part of the design of turbomachines. These methods have been successful in catastrophic fatigue failures so long as metallurgical defects are not present. Until fairly recently, the frequency of defect-related failures has been low enough that the industry has managed to live with them. The push for ever-higher performance, however, has now led to an increasing use of ultra-high-strength alloys. Unfortunately, the higher the yield strength of an alloy, the more sensitive it is to defects. As a consequence, catastrophic fatigue failures originating from very small defects have become increasingly common in turbomachines, to the point that users are legitimately demanding that something be done to prevent defect-related failures.
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