Investigation of Flow Behavior and Porous Medium Resistance Coefficients for Metallic-Cloth Fibers

Abstract

The flow through porous metallic-cloth fibers influences the cloth seal leakage performance. Measuring the actual seal leakage proves difficult with challenging turbine operating conditions. A non-Darcian porous medium Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was employed for the flow within porous metallic-cloth fibers. CFD analyses need leakage data depending on the pressure load to calibrate flow resistance coefficients. A test rig was built to measure leakage with respect to the pressure load and weave orientation in four directions. The Sutherland-ideal gas approach was utilized to determine the flow resistance coefficients for Dutch twill metallic-cloth fibers as a function of pressure load. The results show that metallic-cloth fiber leakage is a linear function of pressure load. The best–worst order for leakage performance was the warp, diagonal, shute, and cross directions. For the best sealing performance, the flow direction in metallic-cloth fibers would be the warp direction. The flow resistance coefficients depend on the evaluation of the pressure level, which changes over the weave flow thickness. This is represented with the pressure constant (Cdown). The best match between the test and CFD leakages was obtained for the weave directions of warp (0.9), shute (0.9), diagonal (0.7), and cross (0.0). Calibrating the resistance coefficients with respect to the pressure and temperature enables performing CFD analyses in turbine conditions.