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.

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.

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.

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.