Controlling secondary flow in high-lift low-pressure turbine using boundary-layer slot suction

The design of high-lift Low-Pressure Turbines(LPTs)causes the separation of the boundary layer on the suction side of the blade and leads to a strong secondary flow.This present study aims to minimize secondary losses through endwall slot suction and incoming wakes in a front-loaded high-lift LPT cascade with Zweifel of 1.58 under low Reynolds number of 25000.Two slotted schemes for the boundary layer of the endwall were designed(Plan A and Plan B),and the effects of suction mass flow on secondary flow were studied.The underlying physics of the endwall boundary layer of the suction and secondary flow under unsteady wakes was discussed.The results show that slot suction at the endwall boundary layer can significantly suppress the secondary flow by removing low-momentum fluids.Plans A and B significantly reduced the secondary kinetic energy by 44.2%and 36.9%,respectively,compared with the baseline cascade at the suction mass flow ratios of 1%.With an increase in the mass flow ratio of suction,the secondary flow was gradually reduced in both Plans A and B.It is more beneficial to control the secondary flow to destroy the intersection of the pressure side and suction side of the horseshoe vortex before it develops into a passage vortex.Under unsteady wakes,the combined effects of incoming wakes and endwall boundary layer suction can further suppress the secondary flow at the suction mass flow ratios of 2%for Plan A,because the positive and negative vorticity inside upstream wakes accelerated the mixing of the main flow and secondary flow and thus increased the energy of secondary vortices.

Unsteady wakes-secondary flow interactions in a high-lift low-pressure turbine cascade

Detailed experimental measurements were conducted to study the interactions between incoming wakes and endwall secondary flow in a high-lift Low-Pressure Turbine(LPT)cascade.All of the measurements were conducted in both the presence and absence of incoming wakes,and numerical analysis was performed to elucidate the flow mechanism.With increasing Reynolds number,the influence of the incoming wakes on suppressing the secondary flow gradually increased owing to the greater influence of incoming wakes on reducing the negative incidence angle at higher Reynolds numbers,leading to a lower blade loading near the leading edge and suppression of the Pressure Side(PS)leg of the horseshoe vortex.However,the effect of unsteady wakes on suppressing the profile losses gradually became weaker owing to the reduced size of the Suction Side(SS)separation bubble and increased mixing loss in the free-flow region at high Reynolds numbers.Incoming wakes clearly improved the aerodynamic performance of the low-pressure turbine cascade at low Reynolds numbers of 25,000 and 50,000.In contrast,at the high Reynolds number of 100,000,the profile loss at the midspan and mass-averaged total losses downstream of the cascade were higher in the presence of wakes than in the absence of wakes,and the unsteady wakes exerted a negative influence on the aerodynamic performance of the LPT cascade.

Numerical investigation on bowed blades of large meridional expansion Turbine

To improve the performance of the Turbofan engine,several measures should be considered during design process.Such measures,relating to aerodynamic characteristic design,include the maximum enthalpy per stage,the shortest axial length,the minimum blade rows and the highest efficient in design and off design condition.To satisfy theses design characters,the meridian geometry of the engine will be excurvature at a high degree transition part between HP and LP turbines.The study is to investigate the effect of blade bowing on flow loss at blade tip and root of the type of turbine.Such turbine,tending towards separation,with severe secondary flow at the tip and strong radial flow at exit,was simulated by the 3D N-S solver Numerca,and there were several different stacking line bowing schemes in all.The results show that tip negative bowing and root positive bowing is able to weaken radial flow,consequently reduce the flow loss at the tip and root.