The research performed in this work investigated evaporative spray cooling systems using water near a 45 degree bends in gas turbine exhaust piping systems. Both experimental data and numerical data were generated with the goal of evaluating the ability of Fluent 6.3.26 to predict the performance of these systems for the purpose of design using only modest computational resources. Three cases were investigated in this research: single phase exhaust flow with no water injection, injecting water before the bend and injecting water after the bend. Various probes were used to measure dry bulb temperature, total pressure and water mass flux of the two phase flow at the exit of the pipe. Seven hole probes and pitot static probes were used to measure single phase flow properties. Numerical simulations were performed using mass flow boundary conditions which were generated from experimental results. A turbulence model was selected for the simulations based on comparisons of single phase simulations with experimental data and convergence ability. Using Fluent’s discrete phase model, different wall boundary conditions for the discrete phase were used in order to find the model which would best match the evaporation rates of the experimental data. Mass flux values through the exit plane of the pipe were found to be the most reliable of all the two phase data collected. Results from numerical simulations revealed the shortcomings of the available discrete phase wall boundary conditions to accurately predict the interaction of the liquid phase with the wall. Experimental results for both cases showed extensive areas of the wall which had liquid film layers running down the length of the pipe. Simulations resulted in particles either failing to impact the wall and create a liquid film, or creating a liquid film which was much smaller than the film present in experimental results. This led to 8% and 15% discrepancy in evaporation amounts between numerical and experimental results for water injection upstream and downstream of the bend respectively. Under-prediction of areas wetted with a wall film in the simulations also led to gross over predictions of wall temperature in numerical results. / Thesis (Master, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-02 11:02:00.955

A subsonic wind tunnel facility was designed and built to test and optimize various diffuser-collector box geometries at the one-twelfth scale.  The facility was designed to run continuously at an inlet Mach number of 0.42 and an inlet hydraulic diameter Reynolds number of 340,000. Different combinations of diffusers, hubs, and exhaust collector boxes were designed and evaluated for overall optimum performance. Both 3-hole and 5-hole probes were traversed into the flow to generate multiple diffuser inlet and collector exit performance profile plots. Surface oil flow visualization was performed to gain an understanding of the complex 3D flow structures inside the diffuser-collector subsystem. The cutback radial hardware was found to increase the subsystem pressure recovery by over 10% from baseline resulting in an approximate 1% increase in gas turbine power output. / Master of Science