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.

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.

Experimental Investigation of Separation and Transition Processes on a High-Lift Low-Pressure Turbine Profile Under Steady and Unsteady Inflow at Low Reynolds Number

The effects induced by the presence of incoming wakes on the boundary layer developing over a high-lift low-pressure turbine profile have been investigated in a linear cascade at mid-span.The tested Reynolds number is 70000,typical of the cruise operating condition.The results of the investigations performed under steady and unsteady inflow conditions are analyzed.The unsteady investigations have been performed at the reduced frequency of f+=0.62,representative of the real engine operating condition.Profile aerodynamic loadings as well as boundary layer velocity profiles have been measured to survey the separation and transition processes.Spectral analysis has been also performed to better understand the phenomena associated with the transition process under steady inflow.For the unsteady case,a phase-locked ensemble averaging technique has been employed to reconstruct the time-resolved boundary layer velocity distributions from the hot-wire instantaneous signal output.The ensemble-averaging technique allowed a detailed analysis of the effects induced by incoming wakes-boundary layer interaction in separation suppression.Time-resolved results are presented in terms of mean velocity and unresolved unsteadiness time-space plots.

Large eddy simulation of unsteady transitional flow on the low-pressure turbine blade

The aim of this paper is to predict the phenomenon of laminar separation, transition and reattachment in a low-pressure turbine （LPT）. Self-developed large eddy simulation program of compressible N-S equations was used to describe the flow structures of T 106A LPT blade profile at Reynolds number of 1.1×10^5 based on the exit isentropic velocity and chord length. The com- putational results show the distributions of time-averaged wall-static pressure coefficient and mean skin-friction coefficient on the blade surface. The locations of laminar separation and reattachment points occur around 87% and 98% axial chord, which agree well with experiment data. The two-dimensional shear layer is gradually unstable along the downstream half of the suc- tion side as a result of the spanwise fluctuation and the roll up of shear layer via Kelvin-Helmholtz （KH） instability. Three-dimensional motions appear near 84% axial chord which later triggers spanwise vortexes and streamwise vortexes, leading to transition to turbulence in the separation bubble. Through introducing the concept of dissipation function, the high loss mainly comes from the places where strong shear layer and intense fluctuation exist. Furthermore, the separation region is only an accumulation center of the low-energy fluid rather than an area of loss source.

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.

Passive Control of Laminar Separation Bubble with Spanwise Groove on a Low-speed Highly Loaded Low-pressure Turbine Blade

LES (Large-Eddy Simulation) computations were preformed to investigate the mechanisms of a kind of spanwisegroove for the passive control of laminar separation bubble on the suction surface of a low-speed highly loadedlow-pressure turbine blade at Re = 50,000 (Reynolds number, based on inlet velocity and axial chord length).Compared with the smooth suction surface, the numerical results indicate that: (1) the groove is effective toshorten and thin the separation bubble, which contributes the flow loss reduction on the groove surface, by thinningthe boundary layer behind the groove and promoting earlier transition inception in the separation bubble; (2)upstream movement of the transition inception location on the grooved surface is suggested being the result of thelower frequency at which the highest amplification rate of instability waves occurs, and the larger initial amplitudeof the disturbance at the most unstable frequency before transition; and (3) the viscous instability mode ispromoted on the grooved surface, due to the thinning of the boundary layer behind the groove.

Effects of Freestream Turbulence on Bypass Transition of Separated Boundary Layer on Low-Pressure Turbine Airfoils

This paper presents experimental studies on bypass transition of separated boundary layer on low-pressure turbine airfoils,focusing on the effects of freestream turbulence on the transition process.Hot-wire probe measurements are performed on the suction side of an airfoil in the low-pressure linear turbine cascade at several Reynolds number conditions.Freestream turbulence is enhanced by use of turbulence grid located upstream of the cascade.The results of this experimental study show that the location of boundary layer separation does not strongly de-pend on the freestream turbulence level.However,as the freestream turbulence level increases,the size of separa-tion bubble becomes small and the location of turbulent transition moves upstream.The size of separation bubble becomes small as the Reynolds number increases.At low freestream turbulence intensity,the velocity fluctuation due to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is observed clearly in the shear layer of the separation bubble.At high frees-tream turbulence intensity,the streak structures appear upstream of the separation location,indicating bypass transition of attached boundary layer occurs at high Reynolds number.

Aerodynamic Loading Distribution Effects on the Overall Performance of Ultra-High-Lift LP Turbine Cascades

The present paper reports the results of an experimental investigation aimed at comparing aerodynamic perform- ance of three low-pressure turbine cascades for several Reynolds numbers under steady and unsteady inflows. This study is focused on finding design criteria useful to reduce both profile and secondary losses in the aero-engine LP turbine for the different flight conditions. The baseline blade cascade, characterized by a standard aerodynamic loading （Zw=1.03）, has been compared with two Ultra-High-Lift profiles with the same Zweifel number （Zw=1.3 for both cascades）, but different velocity peak positions, leading to front and mid-loaded blade cascade configurations. The aerodynamic flow fields downstream of the cascades have been experimentally in- vestigated for Reynolds numbers in the range 70000〈Re〈300000, where lower and upper limits are typical of cruise and take-off/landing conditions, respectively. The effects induced by the incoming wakes at the reduced frequency ./＋=0.62 on both profile and secondary flow losses for the three different cascade designs have been studied. Total pressure and velocity distributions have been measured by means of a miniaturized 5-hole probe in a tangential plane downstream of the cascade for both inflow conditions. The analysis of the results allows the evaluation of the aerodynamic performance of the blade cascades in terms of profile and secondary losses and the understanding of the effects of loading distribution and Zweifel number on secondary flows. When operating un- der unsteady inflow, contrarily to the steady case, the mid-loaded cascade has been found to be characterized by the lowest profile and secondary losses, making it the most attractive solution for the design of blades working in real conditions where unsteady inflow effects are present.

Control of LP Turbine Rotor Blade Underloading Using Stator Blade Compound Lean at Root

Due to a large gradient of reaction, LP rotor blades remain underloaded at the root over some range of volumetric flow rates. An interesting design to control the flow through the root passage of the overloaded stator and underloaded moving blade row is compound lean at the root of stator blades. The paper describes results of numerical investigations from a 3D NS solver FlowER conducted for several configurations of stator blade compound lean. The computations are carried out for a wide range of volumetric flow rates, accounting for the nominal operating regime as well as low and high load. It is found that compound lean induces additional blade force, streamwise curvature and redistribution of flow parameters in the stage, including pressure and mass flow rate spanwise that can improve the flow conditions in both the stator and the rotor. The obtained efficiency improvements depend greatly on the flow regime, with the highest gains in the region of low load.

Combined Experimental and Numerical Investigations on the Roughness Effects on the Aerodynamic Performances of LPT Blades

The aerodynamic performance of a high-load low-pressure turbine blade cascade has been analyzed for three different distributed surface roughness levels(Ra) for steady and unsteady inflows. Results from CFD simulations and experiments are presented for two different Reynolds numbers(300000 and 70000 representative of take-off and cruise conditions, respectively) in order to evaluate the roughness effects for two typical operating conditions. Computational fluid dynamics has been used to support and interpret experimental results, analyzing in detail the flow field on the blade surface and evaluating the non-dimensional local roughness parameters, further contributing to understand how and where roughness have some influence on the aerodynamic performance of the blade. The total pressure distributions in the wake region have been measured by means of a five-hole miniaturized pressure probe for the different flow conditions, allowing the evaluation of profile losses and of their dependence on the surface finish, as well as a direct comparison with the simulations. Results reported in the paper clearly highlight that only at the highest Reynolds number tested(Re=300000) surface roughness have some influence on the blade performance, both for steady and unsteady incoming flows. In this flow condition profile losses grow as the surface roughness increases, while no appreciable variations have been found at the lowest Reynolds number. The boundary layer evolution and the wake structure have shown that this trend is due to a thickening of the suction side boundary layer associated to an anticipation of transition process. On the other side, no effects have been observed on the pressure side boundary layer.

Unsteady Inflow Effects on the Wake Shed from a High-Lift LPT Blade Subjected to Boundary Layer Laminar Separation

An experimental investigation on the near and far wake of a cascade of high-lift low-pressure turbine blades subjected to boundary layer separation over the suction side surface has been carried out, under steady and unsteady inflows. Two Reynolds number conditions, representative of take-off/landing and cruise operating conditions of the real engine, have been tested. The effect of upstream wake-boundary layer interaction on the wake shed from the profile has been investigated in a three-blade large-scale linear turbine cascade. The comparison between the wakes shed under steady and unsteady inflows has been performed through the analysis of mean velocity and Reynolds stress components measured at midspan of the central blade by means of a two-component crossed miniature hot-wire probe. The wake development has been analyzed in the region between 2% and 100% of the blade chord from the central blade trailing edge, aligned with the blade exit direction. Wake integral parameters, half-width and maximum velocity defects have been evaluated from the mean velocity distributions to quantify the modifications induced on the vane wake by the upstream wake. Moreover the thicknesses of the two wake shear layers have been considered separately in order to identify the effects of Reynolds number and incoming flow on the wake shape. The self-preserving state of the wake has been looked at, taking into account the different thicknesses of the two shear layers. The evaluation of the power density spectra of the velocity fluctuations allowed the study of the wake unsteady behavior, and the detection of the effects induced by the different operating conditions on the trailing edge vortex shedding.