The unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of oscillating thin turbine blades were studied both experimentally and numerically to obtain the comprehensive knowledge on the aerodynamic damping of the blades operating in transonic flows. The experiment was carried out in a linear cascade tunnel by use of the influence coefficient method. The two flow conditions were adopted, namely, a near-design condition and an off-design condition with a higher back pressure. In the results for the near-design case, a strong vibration instability was observed in the positive side of the interblade phase angle. In the off-design case, however, the instability did not appear for almost all the interblade phase angles. A drastic change was found in the phase angle of unsteady aerodynamic force between the two cases, which change was a governing factor for the oscillation instability. Numerical simulation based on 2-D Euler equation revealed that the phase change came from the change in phase of the unsteady surface pressure across the shock impingement point on the blade suction surface in the off-design case. The numerical results also showed that the aerodynamic damping increased with increasing reduced frequency, and that the oscillation instability disappeared.
Aerodynamic Damping Characteristics of a Transonic Turbine Cascade
