Wake-Wake Interactions and its Potential for Clocking in a Transonic High Pressure Turbine

Author(s):  
Frank Hummel

Two-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes calculations of a transonic single stage high pressure turbine were carried out with emphasis on the flow field behind the rotor. Detailed validation of the numerical procedure with experimental data showed excellent agreement in both time-averaged and time-resolved flow quantities. The numerical time-step as well as the grid resolution allowed the prediction of the Kármán vortex streets of both stator and rotor. Therefore the influence of the vorticity shed from the stator on the vortex street of the rotor is detectable. It was found that certain vortices in the rotor wake are enhanced while others are diminished by passing stator wake segments. A schematic of this process is presented. In the relative frame of reference the rotor is operating in a transonic flow field with shocks at the suction side trailing edge. These shocks interact with both rotor and stator wakes. It was found that a shock-modulation occurs in time and space due to the stator wake passing. In the absolute frame of reference behind the rotor a 50% variation in shock strength is observed according to the circumferential or clocking position. Furthermore a substantial weakening of the rotor suction side trailing edge shock in flow direction is detected in an unsteady flow simulation when compared to a steady state calculation which is caused by convection of upstream stator wake segments. The physics of the mentioned unsteady phenomena as well as their influence on design are discussed.

2001 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Hummel

Two-dimensional unsteady Navier–Stokes calculations of a transonic single-stage high-pressure turbine were carried out with emphasis on the flow field behind the rotor. Detailed validation of the numerical procedure with experimental data showed excellent agreement in both time-averaged and time-resolved flow quantities. The numerical timestep as well as the grid resolution allowed the prediction of the Ka´rma´n vortex streets of both stator and rotor. Therefore, the influence of the vorticity shed from the stator on the vortex street of the rotor is detectable. It was found that certain vortices in the rotor wake are enhanced while others are diminished by passing stator wake segments. A schematic of this process is presented. In the relative frame of reference, the rotor is operating in a transonic flow field with shocks at the suction side trailing edge. These shocks interact with both rotor and stator wakes. It was found that a shock modulation occurs in time and space due to the stator wake passing. In the absolute frame of reference behind the rotor, a 50-percent variation in shock strength is observed according to the circumferential or clocking position. Furthermore, a substantial weakening of the rotor suction side trailing edge shock in flow direction is detected in an unsteady flow simulation when compared to a steady-state calculation, which is caused by convection of upstream stator wake segments. The physics of the aforementioned unsteady phenomena as well as their influence on design are discussed.


Author(s):  
Knut Lehmann ◽  
Richard Thomas ◽  
Howard Hodson ◽  
Vassilis Stefanis

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the distribution of the convective heat transfer on the shroud of a high pressure turbine blade in a large scale rotating rig. A continuous thin heater foil technique has been adapted and implemented on the turbine shroud. Thermochromic Liquid Crystals were employed for the surface temperature measurements to derive the experimental heat transfer data. The heat transfer is presented on the shroud top surfaces and the three fins. The experiments were conducted for a variety of Reynolds numbers and flow coefficients. The effects of different inter-shroud gap sizes and reduced fin tip clearance gaps were also investigated. Details of the shroud flow field were obtained using an advanced Ammonia-Diazo surface flow visualisation technique. CFD predictions are compared with the experimental data and used to aid interpretation. Contour maps of the Nusselt number reveal that regions of highest heat transfer are mostly confined to the suction side of the shroud. Peak values exceed the average by as much as 100 percent. It has been found that the interaction between leakage flow through the inter-shroud gaps and the fin tip leakage jets are responsible for this high heat transfer. The inter-shroud gap leakage flow causes a disruption of the boundary layer on the turbine shroud. Furthermore, the development of the large recirculating shroud cavity vortices is severely altered by this leakage flow.


Author(s):  
Brian R. Green ◽  
Randall M. Mathison ◽  
Michael G. Dunn

The effect of rotor purge flow on the unsteady aerodynamics of a high-pressure turbine stage operating at design corrected conditions has been investigated both experimentally and computationally. The experimental configuration consisted of a single-stage high-pressure turbine with a modern film-cooling configuration on the vane airfoil as well as the inner and outer end-wall surfaces. Purge flow was introduced into the cavity located between the high-pressure vane and the high-pressure disk. The high-pressure blades and the downstream low-pressure turbine nozzle row were not cooled. All hardware featured an aerodynamic design typical of a commercial high-pressure ratio turbine, and the flow path geometry was representative of the actual engine hardware. In addition to instrumentation in the main flow path, the stationary and rotating seals of the purge flow cavity were instrumented with high frequency response, flush-mounted pressure transducers and miniature thermocouples to measure flow field parameters above and below the angel wing. Predictions of the time-dependent flow field in the turbine flow path were obtained using FINE/Turbo, a three-dimensional, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes CFD code that had the capability to perform both steady and unsteady analysis. The steady and unsteady flow fields throughout the turbine were predicted using a three blade-row computational model that incorporated the purge flow cavity between the high-pressure vane and disk. The predictions were performed in an effort to mimic the design process with no adjustment of boundary conditions to better match the experimental data. The time-accurate predictions were generated using the harmonic method. Part I of this paper concentrates on the comparison of the time-averaged and time-accurate predictions with measurements in and around the purge flow cavity. The degree of agreement between the measured and predicted parameters is described in detail, providing confidence in the predictions for flow field analysis that will be provided in Part II.


Author(s):  
S. Zerobin ◽  
S. Bauinger ◽  
A. Marn ◽  
A. Peters ◽  
F. Heitmeir ◽  
...  

This paper presents an experimental study of the unsteady flow field downstream of a high pressure turbine with ejected purge flows, with a special focus on a flow field discussion using the mode detection approach according to the theory of Tyler and Sofrin. Measurements were carried out in a product-representative one and a half stage turbine test setup, which consists of a high-pressure turbine stage followed by an intermediate turbine center frame and a low-pressure turbine vane row. Four independent purge mass flows were injected through the forward and aft cavities of the unshrouded high-pressure turbine rotor. A fast-response pressure probe was used to acquire time-resolved data at the turbine center frame duct inlet and exit. The interactions between the stator, rotor, and turbine center frame duct are identified as spinning modes, propagating in azimuthal direction. Time-space diagrams illustrate the amplitude variation of the detected modes along the span. The composition of the unsteadiness and its major contributors are of interest to determine the role of unsteadiness in the turbine center frame duct loss generation mechanisms and to avoid high levels of blade vibrations in the low-pressure turbine which can in turn result in increased acoustic emissions. This work offers new insight into the unsteady flow behavior downstream of a purged high-pressure turbine and its propagation through an engine-representative turbine center frame duct configuration.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Ju¨rgen Rehder

As part of a European research project, the aerodynamic and thermodynamic performance of a high pressure turbine cascade with different trailing edge cooling configurations was investigated in the wind tunnel for linear cascades at DLR in Go¨ttingen. A transonic rotor profile with a relative thick trailing edge was chosen for the experiments. Three trailing edge cooling configurations were applied, first central trailing edge ejection, second a trailing edge shape with a pressure side cut-back and slot equipped with a diffuser rib array, and third pressure side film cooling through a row of cylindrical holes. For comparison, aerodynamic investigations on a reference cascade with solid blades (no cooling holes or slots) were performed. The experiments covered the subsonic, transonic and supersonic exit Mach number range of the cascade while varying cooling mass flow ratios up to 2 %. This paper analyzes the effect of coolant ejection on the airfoil losses. Emphasis was given on separating the different loss contributions due to shocks, pressure, and suction side boundary layer, trailing edge, and mixing of the coolant flow. Employed measurement techniques are schlieren visualization, blade surface pressure measurements, and traverses by pneumatic probes in the cascade exit flow field and around the trailing edge. The results show that central trailing edge ejection significantly reduces the mixing losses and therefore decreases the overall loss. Higher loss levels are obtained when applying the configurations with pressure side blowing. In particular, the cut-back geometry reveals strong mixing losses due to the low momentum coolant fluid, which is decelerated by the diffuser rib array inside the slot. The influence of coolant flow rate on the trailing edge loss is tremendous, too. Shock and boundary layer losses are major contributions to the overall loss but are less affected by the coolant. Finally a parameter variation changing the temperature ratio of coolant to main flow was performed, resulting in increasing losses with decreasing coolant temperature.


Author(s):  
Huimin Tang ◽  
Shuaiqiang Liu ◽  
Hualing Luo

Profiled endwall is an effective method to improve aerodynamic performance of turbine. This approach has been widely studied in the past decade on many engines. When automatic design optimisation is considered, most of the researches are usually based on the assumption of a simplified simulation model without considering cooling and rim seal flows. However, many researchers find out that some of the benefits achieved by optimization procedure are lost when applying the high-fidelity geometry configuration. Previously, an optimization procedure has been implemented by integrating the in-house geometry manipulator, a commercial three-dimensional CFD flow solver and the optimization driver, IsightTM. This optimization procedure has been executed [12] to design profiled endwalls for a turbine cascade and a one-and-half stage axial turbine. Improvements of the turbine performance have been achieved. As the profiled endwall is applied to a high pressure turbine, the problems of cooling and rim seal flows should be addressed. In this work, the effects of rim seal flow and cooling on the flow field of two-stage high pressure turbine have been presented. Three optimization runs are performed to design the profiled endwall of Rotor-One with different optimization model to consider the effects of rim flow and cooling separately. It is found that the rim seal flow has a significant impact on the flow field. The cooling is able to change the operation condition greatly, but barely affects the secondary flow in the turbine. The influences of the profiled endwalls on the flow field in turbine and cavities have been analyzed in detail. A significant reduction of secondary flows and corresponding increase of performance are achieved when taking account of the rim flows into the optimization. The traditional optimization mechanism of profiled endwall is to reduce the cross passage gradient, which has great influence on the strength of the secondary flow. However, with considering the rim seal flows, the profiled endwall improves the turbine performance mainly by controlling the path of rim seal flow. Then the optimization procedure with consideration of rim seal flow has also been applied to the design of the profiled endwall for Stator Two.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Yuefeng Li ◽  
Huazhao Xu ◽  
Jianhua Wang ◽  
Wei Song ◽  
Ming Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper adopted Scale Adaptive Simulation (SAS) to investigate fluid flow and cooling characteristics in detail downstream of a high pressure turbine (HPT) blade trailing edge (TE) cutback region. The effects of typical TE configurations on cutback cooling performance are investigated including three types of internal turbulators, the cutback with/without land extensions and three kinds of ejection lip profiles. The elliptic pin fins with streamwise orientation significantly improve ηaw at the rear part of the cutback surface over the baseline model with cylindrical pin fins and slightly increase Cd. However, the elliptic pin fins with spanwise orientation drastically reduce the ηaw and Cd. Downstream of the cutback, the coherent structures are strongly disturbed and become chaotic compared to the TE with cylindrical and streamwise oriented elliptic pin fins. The application of land extensions only causes an evident change to the coherent structure immediate downstream of the lip, and slightly improves ηaw and reduces Cd over the baseline model on the rear part of the cutback surface. Rounded lip shapes B and C also show an obvious increase in ηaw on the rear part of the cutback surface but only a minor increase in Cd compared to the straight lip shape A. The rounded lip helps the coolant diffuse into the TE cutback and reduce the intensity of mixing. Due to larger rounding radius of shape B, the cooling effectiveness predicted by shape B is slightly better than shape C.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kamenik ◽  
David J. Toal ◽  
Andy Keane ◽  
Lars Högner ◽  
Marcus Meyer ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Kenta Mizutori ◽  
Koji Fukudome ◽  
Makoto Yamamoto ◽  
Masaya Suzuki

Abstract We performed numerical simulation to understand deposition phenomena on high-pressure turbine vane. Several deposition models were compared and the OSU model showed good adaptation to any flow field and material, so it was implemented on UPACS. After the implementation, the simulations of deposition phenomenon in several cases of the flow field were conducted. From the results, particles adhere on the leading edge and the trailing edge side of the pressure surface. Also, the calculation of the total pressure loss coefficient was conducted after computing the flow field after deposition. The total pressure loss coefficient increased after deposition and it was revealed that the deposition deteriorates aerodynamic performance.


Author(s):  
J. P. Clark ◽  
A. S. Aggarwala ◽  
M. A. Velonis ◽  
R. E. Gacek ◽  
S. S. Magge ◽  
...  

The ability to predict levels of unsteady forcing on high-pressure turbine blades is critical to avoid high-cycle fatigue failures. In this study, 3D time-resolved computational fluid dynamics is used within the design cycle to predict accurately the levels of unsteady forcing on a single-stage high-pressure turbine blade. Further, nozzle-guide-vane geometry changes including asymmetric circumferential spacing and suction-side modification are considered and rigorously analyzed to reduce levels of unsteady blade forcing. The latter is ultimately implemented in a development engine, and it is shown successfully to reduce resonant stresses on the blade. This investigation builds upon data that was recently obtained in a full-scale, transonic turbine rig to validate a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) flow solver for the prediction of both the magnitude and phase of unsteady forcing in a single-stage HPT and the lessons learned in that study.


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