A Simple Physics-Based Model for Particle Rebound and Deposition in Turbomachinery

A new model is proposed for predicting particle rebound and deposition in environments relevant to gas turbine engines. The model includes the following physical phenomena: elastic deformation, plastic deformation, adhesion, and shear removal. It also incorporates material property sensitivity to temperature and tangential-normal rebound velocity cross-dependencies observed in experiments. The model is well-suited for incorporation in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of complex gas turbine flows due to its algebraic (explicit) formulation. Model predictions are compared to coefficient of restitution data available in the open literature as well as deposition results from two different high-temperature turbine deposition facilities. While the model comparisons with experiments are in many cases promising, several key aspects of particle deposition remain elusive. The simple phenomenological nature of the model allows for parametric dependencies to be evaluated in a straightforward manner. It is hoped that this feature of the model will aid in identifying and resolving the remaining stubborn holdouts that prevent a universal model for particle deposition.