Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2015: Turbine Technical Conference and Exposition

GT2015
June 15 19, 2015, Montral, Canada

GT2015-42449

NUMERICAL ASSESSMENT OF FAN-DUCTING COUPLING FOR GAS TURBINE

VENTILATION SYSTEMS
Alessandro Corsini1 Giovanni Delibra1 Stefano Minotti2 - Stefano Rossin2
1 Dipartimento

di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, Sapienza Universit di Roma

Via Eudossiana, 18, I-00184 Rome, Italy
alessandro.corsini@uniroma1.it giovanni.delibra@uniroma1.it
2 GE

Oil&Gas
Via Felice Matteucci 2, 50127 Firenze, Italy. Tel: +39 0554232480 +39 0554586438
stefano.rossin@ge.com - stefano.minotti@ge.com

different operating points, corresponding to 1) clean and 2) dirty

filters operations, 3) minimum and 4) maximum pressure at the
discharge section. Large Eddy Simulations of the same duct were
carried out in the maximum loading condition for the fan to
investigate the unsteady response of the system and validate its
correct arrangement.
All the simulations were carried out using OpenFOAM, a
finite volume open source code for CFD analysis, treating the
filters as a porous medium and the fan as a static pressure
discontinuity according to the manufacturers characteristic
curve. RANS modelling was based on the cubic k- model of
Lien et al. while sub-grid scale modelling in LES was based on
the 1 equation model of Davidson.
Computations highlighted that the ventilation system was
able to work in similarity for flow rates between 15 m3/s and 23.2
m3/s and that the flow conditions onto the fan suggest that the
aerodynamic stress on the device could be reduced introducing
in the duct flow straighteners or inlet guided vanes.

ABSTRACT
Gas turbines enclosures entail a high number of auxiliary
systems which must be preserved from heat, ensuring therefore
the long term operation of the internal instrumentation and of the
data acquisition system. A dedicated ventilation system is
designed to keep the enclosure environment sufficiently cool and
dilute any gas coming from potential internal leakage to limiting
explosion risks. These systems are equipped with axial fans,
usually fed with air coming from the filter house which provides
air to the gas turbine combustion system, through dedicated
filters. The axial fans are embedded in a ducting system which
discharges fresh air inside the enclosure where the gas turbine is
housed. As the operations of the gas turbine need to be
guaranteed in the event of fan failure, a backup redundant system
is located in a duct parallel to the main one. One of the main
requirements of a ventilation fan is the reliability over the years
as the gas turbine can be installed in remote areas or unmanned
offshore platforms with limited accessibility for unplanned
maintenance.
For such reasons, the robustness of the ventilation system
and a proper understanding of coupling phenomena with the
axial fan is a key aspect to be addressed when designing a gasturbine system. Here a numerical study of a ventilation system
carried out with RANS and LES based methodologies will be
presented where the presence of the fan is synthetized by means
of static pressure discontinuity. Different operations of the fans
are investigated by means of RANS in order to compare the

INTRODUCTION
Gas turbine enclosures entail a number of components; they
are often considered part of the safety equipment and certified to
work for at least 10 years. The scope of the enclosure is to
manage any potential gas leak, by diluting the gas turbine
surrounding environment with sufficient fresh and filtered air to
avoid critical situations (i.e. explosion and fire). Instrumentation
cooling and acoustic insulation are additional factors which need

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design [2]. In this scenario is therefore necessary to synthetize

the effects of the fan in the CFD virtual test rig. This can be done
by synthetic descriptions such as actuator disks [2-3-4] or
pressure discontinuities [2]. Here we present a study based on
the latter, where the presence of the fan is accounted for by
adding to the momentum equation the static pressure rise as read
by the manufacturers characteristic curve. This approach is
modelled within a RANS and LES virtual test rigs. RANS
computations accounted for four different flow rates inside the
ventilation system, corresponding to different clogging of the
filters into the filter house and different pressure conditions at
discharge. The aim of these computations was to confirm that the
ventilation system was able to feed the fan with a correct velocity
profile, to avoid stall or choking. LES based computations were
performed for the higher flow rate, corresponding to the higher
load onto the fan to provide information on the time-variation of
the inflow velocity profile of the fan and therefore on its loading.

to be dealt from the enclosure. For these reasons the enclosures

are equipped with dedicated systems such as fire protection and
ventilation.
Ventilation systems might be arranged in different
configurations to better fulfill space constraint and/or final user
requirements. The main items commonly used are:
air filters;
axial or centrifugal fans
ventilation dampers (gravity type);
firefighting dampers (actuated type);
ducts connecting all the devices to discharge air inside
the turbine enclosure;
backup system in case of failure of the primary system
(identical to the above mentioned one);
discharge ducting system from enclosure to external
environment.
To remove dust and particles from the air, two filtration
stages are used; the first one located in the filter house is
commonly share with the gas turbine suction. Downstream of
this filter stage, the air flow is split between the gas turbine and
the auxiliary ventilation system for the enclosure. A dedicated
suction chamber is housed inside the filter house in order to
accommodate the second filtering stage of the ventilation
system. From this suction chamber two separate and specular
ducts lead to the main and stand-by fan and discharge into a
common duct that is connected with the gas turbine enclosure.
The ventilation dampers are installed downstream the fans and
being gravity type they open only when the fans are switched on.
This type of dampers ensures that when the stand-by fan is
switched off, back flow cannot happen. Differently, the
firefighting dampers are actuated by a control system in case fire
is detected inside the enclosure [1].
The ventilation system needs to be able to work in different
conditions as, for example, filters get clogged over time or the
counter pressure at discharge changes for different reasons.
Moreover the same gas turbine can be fitted to different layouts
to compile with installation requirements. In this case the duct
layout could be adjusted with minor or major variations.
In this scenario, it is important to ensure that the axial fan is
able to operate safely, avoiding to originate blade stall and
reducing the flow distortions that can compromise performance
and in some cases the life of the fan.
Usually ventilation systems are designed and assembled
using empirical design rules and safety coefficients that account
for the overall effects of each component of the system itself. To
assess the robustness of the ventilation system to changes of the
duty point, however, a cost-effective tool that allows to simulate
the flow field with reasonable accuracy was developed. This tool
is based on CFD and allows to easily compute the flow field
inside the ventilation system and assess how the inflow of the fan
is affected by the changes in the operating conditions.
When dealing with the study of the complete ventilation
system, a CFD-based methodology faces the challenge
associated with the fact that meshing requirements of the axial
fan are not affordable, as would require time and computing
resources well beyond those available to the typical industrial

Figure 1. Schematic view of the ventilation system. Red:

section of the filter house accommodating the filters. Purple:
active fan. Blue: opened gravity damper.
DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST CASE
The configuration analyzed in the present work is shown in
in Figure 1 and entails a suction chamber that houses the

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compensate for the coarseness of the grid, adjusting the values

of sub-grid scale viscosity by solving a transport equation for
kSGS. Solving this additional equation with respect to standard
sgs-closure such as Smagorinsky or Germanos has a minor
effect in terms of computational requirements the equation is
numerically robust and does not require bounding and therefore
was selected for the current investigation. This approach was
preferred to unsteady RANS as in previous works [2,7] was
found able to reproduce a portion of the turbulence spectrum
(40% - 60%) so to give information on multi-scale phenomena
to which URANS is not sensitive [7]. Moreover, being the
ventilation system the target of the study, Reynolds number is
moderately high - Re=O(105) to make LES affordable.

secondary filter, two ventilation ducts with two axial fans.

Downstream of the fans two gravity dampers are fitted. The two
ducts discharge into an open volume from where the air is
supplied to the gas turbine enclosure. The two fans are not
intended to operate in parallel, as one of the two is used as
backup in case of failure of the other. Here we will address the
working fan as main fan and the other as stand-by fan. Some
geometrical details on the geometry of the ventilation system are
given in Table 1.
Table 1 Ventilation system geometrical details
Area Inflow
4.8 m2
Area Fan Duct

1.0 m2

Length of Fan Duct

2.3 m

Area Outflow

3.0 m2

FILTER MODELLING
Filters inside the filter house were modelled as a porous
medium, according to Darcy-Forchheimer Law [8] that
introduces into momentum equation a pressure drop:

V
p
V V (1)
K
where p is the pressure gradient, the dynamic viscosity
of the fluid, the density of the fluid and K and two
experimental coefficients depending on the properties of the
porous material.
The main issue of this approach is that each material has a
peculiar value for the K and coefficients that were not available
from the supplier technical sheet and according to open literature
are quite complex to derive experimentally. This required to
derive proper values of those coefficients from the available data,
i.e. the blue characteristic curve in Figure 2.
According to [8] the values of these coefficients vary of
three orders of magnitude from material to material and so it was
important to derive a proper value to correctly characterize the
filters. To do so equation (1) was solved using the data available
from the suppliers characteristic curve with K and as
unknowns. Three different systems of equations were solved
corresponding to the three different possible combinations of two
of the three operating points for which data were available. The
three resulting values of K and were then averaged. In the same
Figure 2 are plotted in red the values of expected pressure drop
in the porous medium calculated using the derived coefficients,
resulting in good agreement with the data sheet and confirming
the guess from [8] that in the considered range of Reynolds
numbers these values have negligible variations. Finally in
Figure 2 black the values of the pressure drop expected from
computations are shown, further confirming this assumption. A
posteriori check of the values in the black line with those of
computations led to a maximum difference of +14Pa at Q=15
m3/s (Re = 94100).

NUMERICAL TECHNIQUE
The computational analysis was carried out using
OpenFOAM 2.3.x [5], an open source finite volume
computational fluid dynamic code. OpenFOAM was used to
solve
the
Navier-Stokes
incompressible
equations.
Computations were carried out with steady RANS and LES
methodologies.
RANS EDDY VISCOSITY MODEL
Corsini et al. [2] observed that a limiting factor in a RANS
formulation occurs with the standard definition of eddy viscosity
in most of the basic closure models. Modelling eddy viscosity
using Boussinesq approximation results in the Reynolds stress
tensor aligning with the velocitys gradient. The Reynolds stress
tensor is not aligned with the velocitys gradient in regions of
separated flow or impingement, and therefore, the modelling
approach for eddy viscosity does not accurately model the flowfield physics. A method to improve the accuracy with which one
models the flow-field physics without increasing the required
computational effort is to use a non-linear eddy viscosity model.
The formulation is better able to account for the production of
turbulent kinetic energy in impingement regions as it constitutes
a more realistic anisotropic reproduction of Reynolds stresses
with respect to linear eddy viscosity. This lead to the conclusion
of choosing a cubic low-Reynolds number formulation of the k model [6] for RANS computations, as other researchers have
demonstrated that this formulation partially recovers the
anisotropy of Reynolds stresses, and is able to correctly
reproduce flow-field features typically associated with
turbomachinery flow [2].
LES SUB-GRID SCALE MODEL
One of the limits of industrial applicability of Large Eddy
Simulations is the huge increase in computational requirements
of computational resources with respect to RANS. Cardillo et al.
[7] observed that the use of sub-grid scale models able to account
for backscatter such as the 1-equation model of Davidson, partly

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divergence scheme, with a convergence tolerance of 107 for all

computed quantities. LES computations were carried out using
central difference scheme for velocity convection and QUICK
scheme for kSGS equation, using a convergence tolerance of 107
for all computed quantities. The average CFL number in LES
was 0.02, the maximum value was 1.2.
NUMERICAL GRID
In the reported research, we undertook a grid sensitivity
analysis with RANS, using fan pressure drop between inlet and
outlet of the domain, keeping y+ values below 3. The grids
entailed 0.7M 1.5M, 3.15M and 5.5M hexahedral cells and
convergence of results was achieved at 3.2M. This grid was
further refined for LES calculations in order to control the aspect
ratio of the cells. Details for the final grids used for RANS and
LES are given in Table 3.
Table 3 Mesh quality and y+ values
3.15M hexahedra (RANS)
Number of cells
4.6M hexahedra (LES)
Minimum
Maximum
Average
Volume ratio
1
9
2
Aspect ratio
1
20
11
Skweness
0
0.5
0.2
Min. included angle
25
90
68
y+
0.8
3.6
1.9

Figure 2. Characteristic curve of the filter. Blue: data sheet;

red: calculated values with regression technique; black:
values of pressure drop expected from computations.
To account for the directionality of the filters the pressure
drop from equation (1) was applied into momentum equation in
the direction of the filter themselves, resulting in a small
distortion of the velocity field when flowing through the porous
medium.
FAN AND GRAVITY DAMPER MODELLING
For this work the fan and the gravity damper are modelled
respectively as a static pressure rise and drop according to the
characteristic curves of the supplier as described in Corsini et al.,
[2]. The pressure drop of the gravity damper and the pressure rise
of the fan are applied as a gradient of pressure over the whole
span of cells that synthetize these components.

RESULTS
RANS ANALYSIS FLOW SURVEY

BOUNDARY
CONDITIONS
AND
NUMERICAL
SCHEMES
Standard boundary conditions were applied to the RANS
computations, Table 2; a total of four different flow rates was
investigated, namely Q = 15 m3/s, Q = 18 m3/s, Q = 20 m3/s and
Q = 23.2 m3/s. For LES computations a 5% weakly correlated
fluctuation was superimposed to the three velocity components
at the inlet; kSGS value was derived from an estimate of 5%
turbulence intensity. Given the evidence from RANS
computations, LES computations were carried out only at
Q=23.2 m3/s.
Inflow

Figure 3. Overview of 3D streamlines in the filter chamber

and distribution of k onto an axial section in the active fan
duct. Sphere glyphs show the pressure drop in the porous
medium higher diameter corresponds to higher pressure
drop.

Table 2 - Boundary conditions.

Mass flow rate; TI = 5%; Lt=0.07Dh

Outflow

Zero gradient

Solid walls

No-slip conditions

In the following velocity values are normalized with respect

to the bulk velocity at the inlet of the active fan duct. All the
quantities normalized according to this are labeled with an *.
An overview of the flow field at Q = 23.2 m3/s is given in
Figure 3, with three-dimensional streamlines and spherical

All RANS computations utilised a second order quadratic

upstream interpolation for a convective kinetics (QUICK)

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designing the ventilation system as clearly affects the heat

removal in the gas turbine enclosure.

glyphs. The glyphs show the effect of the filters, with spheres of
higher diameters corresponding to higher pressure drop. The
major losses are in the section overlooking the duct with the
active fan, recognizable also for the swirl of the streamlines
generated by the asymmetric placement of the duct with respect
to the filter house. In Figure 4 and Figure 5 2D streamlines are
plotted onto two planes passing through the axis of the fan and
perpendicular to each other. The active fan duct is characterized
by separation at the inlet, at the junction with the filter house.

Figure 5. Overview of 2D streamlines colored with

normalised velocity magnitude on the plane highlighted in
the sketch.

Figure 4. Overview of 2D streamlines colored with

normalised velocity magnitude on the plane highlighted in
the sketch.
Separation has no constant length over the 360 deg of the
duct cross-section, but notably separation is closed before
reaching the fan. This is due to the proximity of the fan to the
junction and to the strong acceleration of the fluid due to the
restriction of the cross-section. This mechanism is recognizable
as a built-in fluid dynamic safe as it avoid ingestion of
recirculating bubbles released at the junction of the filter house
and the duct. In Figure 4 the secondary duct with the backup fan
is visible as well, and streamlines highlight the slow recirculating
motion in the closed part of the circuit. At the outflow, the
asymmetry of the system leads to recirculation and blockage of
the flow over 1/3 of the outlet section. This recirculation is
clearly three-dimensional and, as visible from Figure 5, is also
generated by the combined effect of the inclination of the outlet
region and the high velocity wake released from the fan. The
overall effect at the discharge section is to have a strong
asymmetry of the flow that needs to be taken into account when

Figure 6. Overview of 2D streamlines colored with

normalised swirl velocity magnitude on the planes
highlighted in the sketch.
Figure 6 shows secondary motions inside the active fan duct
by means of 2D streamlines on axial cross-sections at the inlet of
the duct and inside the rotor. The first confirms that separation
occurs at the junction with the filter house over all the 350 deg
of the duct and that a swirling motion is present due to the
asymmetric placement of the duct. This secondary swirling

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region is convected downstream and is able to reach the rotor of

the fan.

Figure 8. Normalised axial (top) and tangential (bottom)

velocity profiles at the inlet of the rotor along 8 lines at 45deg
(see insert).
Figure 7. Normalised axial (top) and tangential (bottom)
velocity profiles at the inlet of the active fan duct section
along 8 lines at 45deg (see insert).

In the rotor region separation occurs at the hub of the fan,

due to the shape of the spinner cone. Notably, the secondary
motion that was shown in previous Figure 6 is accelerated by the
change in cross-section, leading to a strong asymmetry of the
axial component of velocity over the circumference of the rotor
at 90% of the span of the rotor maximum values of velocity in
fact exceeds 1.2 on line 6, while on line 2 at the same span
velocity value is 0.6. Similar asymmetry is recognizable onto the
peripheral component of velocity.
The effect of these flow distortions onto the fan operations
are shown in Figure 9, where plots of are shown over three
circumferences at 50%, 66% and 99% of the span of the rotor
blade. These confirm that over 2/3 of the span the flow field
inclination has minor variations (less than 5 deg) but that those

In Figure 7 and Figure 8 axial and tangential velocity

profiles are plotted against radius in the same sections of Figure
6. The axial velocity profile at the inflow confirm that the fluid
is separated at the junction, but also shows little difference in the
core of the duct. The major effect in fact is recognizable on the
tangential velocity profiles, that highlight the swirling motion of
the flow that can reach overall 20% of the bulk velocity value.

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with an amplitude of about 30 m/s. This means that the

instantaneous velocity reaches peaks of 20% with respect to the
bulk velocity in the fan section. The reason for these fluctuations
of the velocity is partially unveiled in Figure 11, where 2D
streamlines in the fan duct are plotted at three time instants T1,
T2 and T3 (see reference in Figure 10). Streamlines show a series
of separation bubbles are shed at the junction with the filter
house. Most of them are ironed out by the restriction of the crosssection area, but some are able to reach the region of the rotor.

variations at the tip of the blade exceed 35 deg leading to stress

onto the rotor. This basically suggest the necessity of
conditioning the flow by means of straighteners or inlet guide
vanes.
On the other hand, RANS studies lead also to another
important conclusion. In fact a total of four different flow rates
were investigated, from 15 m3/s to 23.2 m3/s. Normalising the
velocity with respect to the bulk velocity in the fan duct the major
characteristics of the flow did not change, and, more important,
the velocity profiles at the inflow of the rotor and the angles of
attach showed only minor variations. This confirms that this
arrangement of the ventilation system is robust and able to
operate over a large range of operating points.

Figure 9. angle vs on 3 span positions. Here = 0 on x

axis
LES ANALYSIS
A flow survey carried out on the mean velocity field lead to
findings comparable with those of the RANS survey. Minor
differences in the extent of recirculation were found in the active
fan duct and in the outlet region. Nevertheless the major
characteristics remained unchanged especially when dealing
with the velocity profiles onto the section of the rotor. This
conforms that the chosen RANS methodology is robust enough
to predict the major characteristics of the average flow field. On
the contrary, LES unveils the dynamic of the system, and in
particular its effects onto the blades of the rotor. In Figure 10
time signals acquired at points P1 (inside the filter house) and P2
(near the leading edge of the rotor) are plotted against time. In
P1 the flow is not strongly conditioned as a slow recirculating
motion is present due to the volume of the filter house and the
backup fan duct and no periodicity was found over a time
interval comparable with the time scale of the fan. On the
contrary, at P2 a periodic signal is recognizable, unveiling a
pulsating effect onto the fan. The shape is similar to a sinusoid

Figure 10. Velocity signals in 2 points P1 and P2 respectively

placed in the filter house and at the leading edge of the rotor.
Time instants T1, T2 and T3 are highlighted for analysis of
next figures.
Such change of the inflow condition affects the operation of
the fan by change of the local angle of attack. In Figure 12
azimuthal plots of are shown, being defined as the
difference between the average value of on the circumference
and the instantaneous value of . At midspan the changes in a is
mainly confined in a 5deg range. At 66% of the span of the
blade the same is true, but the variation is milder, suggesting that
the hub region is affected by the wake of the spinner cone. Near
the casing of the fan much stronger fluctuations are recognizable
and can be possibly associated to the effect of the recirculations
that are released from the junction with the filter house onto the
boundary layer developing over the casing.

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T1
T2
T3
Figure 11. 2D streamlines colored with normalized velocity magnitude on the planes shown in the top sketches for T1, T2 and
T3

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changing the main flow characteristics and more importantly

without changing the average velocity field seen from the rotor
of the fan. This confirmed the robustness of the layout.
Moreover, RANS results have shown that the short distance
between the fan position and the suction chamber has a partial
control over the separations driven by the junction. This
constitutes a fluid dynamic safe mechanism to control the flow
at the inflow of the fan.
Finally RANS computations highlighted the fact that
conditioning the flow field by means of straighteners or inlet
guided vanes can positively affect the fan operations by ironing
out the azimuthal variations of the angle of attack due to the
swirling motion inside the duct.
LES computations unveiled how the reduced distance of the
fan from the inlet of the duct is able to only partially shield the
rotor from ingesting separated flow. In particular the deviation of
the angle of the flow with the axial direction can exceed 10 deg,
especially in the tip region. This further confirms that inlet
guided vanes can reduce the unsteady load onto the blade of the
rotor and reduce fatigue effects onto the blade [9-10].
NOMENCLATURE
Latin
D
Dh
k
kSGS
Lt
P
p
Q
Ubulk

[m]
[m]
[m2/s2]
[m2/s2]
[m]
[W]
[Pa]
[m3/s]

y+
yn

Fan diameter
Hydraulic diameter
Turbulent kinetic energy
Subgrid Turbulent kinetic Energy
Turbulence length scale
Power
Static pressure
Volume flow rate
Bulk velocity at the inflow of the
active fan duct
Absolute, relative and rotation velocity
Friction velocity
Non dimensional wall distance=ynu v
Wall distance

Symbols

ptot

Angle between V and axial direction

Mean value of over a circumference

Fan total pressure rise

Fan efficiency. =pQ/P
Azimuthal coordinate
dynamic viscosity
kinematic viscosity
density
Angular velocity

[deg]
[deg]
[deg]
[Pa]
[%]
[deg]
[Pa s]
[m2/s]
[kg/m3]
[1/s]

V, W, U

Figure 12. plots over three circumferences at 50% (top),

66% (centre) and 99% (bottom) of the span of the blade at
three time instants.
CONCLUSIONS
A ventilation system for gas turbine enclosure was analyzed
by means of RANS and LES computations, aiming at
investigating the effects onto the fan operations and identifying
the possible drawbacks of the layout.
Steady state RANS highlighted that this layout was able to
operate at different flow rates (from 15 m3/s to 23.2 m3/s) without

[m/s]
[m/s]
[-]
[-]
[m]

Acronyms, subscripts and superscripts

*
Quantity is normalized with respect to Ubulk
CFD
Computational Fluid Dynamics
LES
Large Eddy Simulations

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QUICK
RANS
TI

Quadratic Upwind Interpolation Convection

scheme
Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes
Turbulence intensity

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DIMA and GE Oil&Gas undertook this study over GEDIMA 2014 contract.
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