Adapting OpenFOAM for

Turbomachinery Applications

Maryse Page and Martin Beaudoin

IREQ, Hydro-Québec’s Research Institute

Second OpenFOAM Workshop, Zagreb, 7-9 June 2007

 Outline of the presentation

¾ Context
¾ OpenFOAM for hydraulic turbines
ƒ Developments
ƒ High-performance computing
ƒ GPL
ƒ Future development
¾ Validation for hydraulic turbines

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 Hydro-Québec

¾ Québec’s electric utility

ƒ Power generation
ƒ Transmission
ƒ Distribution
¾ 35 GW installed capacity
¾ 97% power generation
based on hydroelectric
resources
¾ 50+ generating stations
¾ 350 hydroelectric
generating units
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 MATH: Hydraulic Turbine Analysis Models

¾ The MATH technology:

ƒ Analyze the hydraulic behaviour of
hydraulic turbine by CFD

Stay vanes &

guide vanes
Draft tube (diffuser)
(stator) Runner (rotor)

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 MATH technology
ƒ Improve the performance of hydraulic turbine by the
design of tailor-made modification
CFD analysis On-site implementation

modified runner
96
On-
On-site Turbine Efficiency
Pres Recovery Coef 95

94 modified runner
93

original runner
92
original runner
91

before modification
after modification 90
60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100

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 MATH technology

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 OpenFOAM: new addition in our CFD toolbox

¾ Open Source: potential for collaboration

¾ No runtime licensing fees
¾ High quality C++ source code
¾ Sound software architecture
ƒ Object oriented design and implementation
ƒ Encapsulation through libraries
ƒ Already parallelized for high-performance
computing
¾ Strong and active community with experts
still actively involved in the development

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 OpenFOAM for turbomachinery
¾ Objective: Developing basic steady-state
capabilities for hydraulic turbines

ƒ Multiple Frames of Reference (MFR)

ƒ Boundary conditions
ƒ Interfaces:
– General Grid Interface (GGI)
– Cyclic GGI
– Mixing plane
ƒ CGNS file converters

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 Turbomachinery modeling
¾ Unsteadiness from relative motion of
rotating and stationary parts
ƒ Requires 3D flow modeling of all the
hydraulic components
¾ Simplification by introducing:
ƒ cyclic BC
ƒ MFR – no relative mesh motion
¾ For steady-state flow, more
simplifications by:
ƒ neglecting transient interaction
ƒ averaging (mixing plane) between
rotating/stationary parts
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 Multiple Frame of Reference (MFR)
RANS formulation
inertial frame r r
div (u I ⊗ u I ) = − grad ( p / ρ ) +ν lap (u I )
(absolute velocity) r
div (u I ) = 0

rotating frame r r r r r r r r
div (u R ⊗ u R ) + 2Ω × u R + Ω × Ω × r = − grad ( p / ρ ) +ν lap (u R )
(relative velocity) r
div(u R ) = 0

rotating frame r r r r r
div (u R ⊗ u I ) + Ω × u I = − grad ( p / ρ ) +ν lap (u I )
(absolute velocity) r
div (u I ) = 0

ƒ No frame change at interface between

stationary and rotating domains
ƒ Application: simpleMFRFoam

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 Testcase: ERCOFTAC centrifugal pump

Ubaldi, Zunino, et al.,

LDV Investigation of the
Rotor-Stator
Aerodynamic Interaction
in a Centrifugal
Turbomachine, 1996.

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 MFR example: ERCOFTAC centrifugal pump

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 Boundary conditions

¾ Walls:
ƒ Rotating walls for MFR
ƒ Dictionary parameters
ƒ Evaluated at every time iteration
Type of wall Boundary Field dictionary entry
Spinning runnerConeTurbine99
{
type turboWallFixedValue;
frameType “fixed”;
velocityType “plusOmega”;
omegaWallRPM -595;
}

Counter-rotating draftTubeCone
{
type turboWallFixedValue;
frameType “rotating”;
velocityType “minusOmega”;
omegaWallRPM 0.0;
}

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 Boundary conditions

¾ Inlet / outlet profiles

ƒ Radial and meridian profiles
ƒ File format: CSV files (as CFX-5)
ƒ Evaluated at every time iteration

Type of profile Boundary Field dictionary entry

Draft tube inlet inlet
{
type cfx5ProfileFixedValue;
filePath “[Link]”;
fileFormat “CSV”;
profileType “Radial”;
fieldName “Velocity”;
}

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 Interfaces

¾ GGI interface:
ƒ New type of interface introduced by Hrvoje
Jasak in OpenFOAM 1.3_dev
ƒ Based on PatchToPatchInterpolation
– Not a sliding interface
– No remeshing required for the neighbouring cells
of the interface
ƒ Generalization needed:
– cyclicGGI
– partialGGI
– mixingPlaneGGI
ƒ On-going validation
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 Interfaces
¾ Generalization of GGI using simple transformations

GGI cyclicGGI
Cyclic • Not 1-to-1 • Generalization of
(1-to-1) cyclic for not 1-to-1
abutting
• Weighted abutting
Outlet CyclicGGI
interpolation Outlet
GGI
across
interface
Inlet
Inlet
90
90
9
5

Cyclic
(1-to-1) CyclicGGI

partialGGI mixingPlaneGGI
• Not 1-to-1 • Circumferential
abutting averaging across
• Weighted the interface
interpolation
• Partial overlap
with cyclic

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 Support for the CGNS file format

¾ AIAA standard for CFD data ([Link])

¾ Archival and data exchange between tools
¾ Importing and exporting:
ƒ Mesh, solution, BC
ƒ Interface:
– Automatic reconstruction of 1-to-1 cyclic
• Relaxed criteria for matching faces
• Cyclic patches for non-planar surfaces
– GGI: on-going activity
ƒ Converters:
– cgnsToFoam
– foamToCGNS
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 High-performance computing with OF
¾ Recent acquisition of a supercomputer at IREQ
ƒ IBM 1350 Beowulf cluster
ƒ 500 AMD Opteron 64-bit CPUs (1000 cores)
ƒ 250 x 8 GB = 2 TB of distributed RAM
ƒ 30 TB of fast storage (IBM GPFS parallel file system)
ƒ Infiniband 4x interconnect (10 Gbps)
ƒ Water-cooled rear door heat exchangers
ƒ Running NPACI Rocks 4.2.1 (Centos 4.4)
¾ OpenFOAM will be an important application for this
cluster:
ƒ Optimization loop
ƒ Unsteady simulations
ƒ Fluid-structure interactions
ƒ LES in diffuser
ƒ Free surface simulations

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 High-performance computing with OF

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 Hydro-Québec and the GNU GPL
¾ The GNU General Public License (GPL) covers the activities
of copying, distributing and modifying software source code.
¾ Users of software covered by the GPL are free or have the
rights to:
ƒ Execute the software, for whatever purpose.
ƒ Have access to the source code.
ƒ Redistribute copies of the software, including the source code.
ƒ Modify the software and distribute the modifications to the
public.
¾ The GPL does not extend to the input data nor to the
results generated with GPL covered software.
¾ The GPL will automatically extend to libraries or source
code linked with the original software.
¾ For more information about the GPL:
ƒ [Link]
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 Hydro-Québec and the GNU GPL
¾ Hydro-Québec wants to protect the Intellectual Property
coming from its R&D activities, including software source
code.
¾ By default, we cannot “give away” our source code.
¾ HQ R&D CFD team wants to contribute actively to the
development of OpenFOAM.
¾ We strongly believe in the added value of collaboration
through Open Source development.
¾ We had to explain the ramifications of the GPL to HQ R&D
managers and researchers, and we got the approval to share
our work related to OpenFOAM with the community.

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 Future development

¾ Optimization loop with OpenFOAM as the

principal computing engine
¾ Balancing the allocation of large computing
resources between parallel and distributed
processing
ƒ Partitioning parameters
ƒ Available computing resources
ƒ Size of problem
¾ Source code contributions

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 Validating OpenFOAM for Turbomachinery

¾ Testcases:
ƒ ERCOFTAC conical diffuser
ƒ Turbine 99 draft tube
ƒ Draft tube
¾ Computational parameters:
ƒ divScheme for momentum equation:
– limitedLinearV
– linearUpwind
ƒ application:
– simpleFoam
– transientSimpleFoam

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 ERCOFTAC conical diffuser

Clausen, Koh and Wood, Measurements

of a swirling turbulent boundary layer
developing in a conical diffuser, Exp.
Thermal and Fluid Science, 1993.

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 ERCOFTAC conical diffuser

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 Turbine 99 Workshop 3

CSIVb

CSIa
CSIb CSIII
CSII

[Link]

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 T99-w3, Engineering quantities
1.20
1.00 OpenFOAM
1.1 CFX-5
0.80 1
0.9
0.60 0.8
y

0.40 0.7
0.20 cprm 0.6

y
0.5
0.00 OpenFOAM 0.4
elbow cfx-5
-0.20 experiments
0.3
0.2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 0.1
Distance [m] 0 Ib II III IVa

1.20 0.2 OpenFOAM

0.18 cfx-5
1.00
0.16
0.80 corner 0.14

ζ
0.60 0.12
y

0.40 0.1

y
0.20 0.08
0.00 OpenFOAM 0.06
elbow cfx-5 0.04
-0.20 experiments 0.02
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 0 Ib II III IVa
Distance [m]

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 Draft tube
¾ 2 runner configurations:
ƒ original runner
ƒ modified runner

near best efficiency for

the hydraulic turbine.

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 Draft tube
¾ application: simpleFoam
¾ divSchemes:
ƒ div(phi,U): limitedLinearV 1

original runner modified runner

residual stagnation
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 Draft tube - simpleFoam

modified runner

original runner

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 Draft tube
¾ application: transientSimpleFoam
¾ divSchemes:
ƒ div(phi,U): limitedLinearV 1
¾ ddtSchemes: Euler
original runner

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 Draft tube – transientSimpleFoam

unsteady phenomena
quasi-periodic

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 Draft tube - OpenFOAM

time

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 Draft tube - OpenFOAM

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 Draft tube – CFX-5

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