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Automotive engine downsizing has placed an increased focus on the ability of the turbocharger to provide adequate boost levels across the full engine operating rage. To achieve the desired levels of turbocharger performance the turbine must be capable of operating effectively at the intended design point and also at off-design conditions. Mixed flow turbines (MFTs) provide a potential method to improve performance at off-design conditions and during transient engine operation. A unique feature of a MFT is the spanwise variation of incidence angle at the rotor leading edge. This results in additional flow separation from the blade suction surface near the hub under a wide range of operating conditions. The flow separation generates additional loss and has a detrimental impact on turbine performance. A novel design of turbine volute similar to a conventional twin-entry turbine volute was examined. The novel turbine volutes were designed to produce a spanwise variation in flow conditions at the rotor inlet. The primary objective was to reduce the incidence angle and increase the mass flow rate at the hub side of the passage relative to the shroud side, as it has previously been identified that this can be beneficial for MFT performance. A number of different volute geometries were examined by numerical analysis to determine the impact of key parameters on turbine performance. The results indicated that generating a suitable spanwise flow distribution could produce a moderate improvement in turbine efficiency at off-design operating conditions. The novel volute design also provided a means of achieving a degree of variable geometry operation to further improve off-design performance. Turbine performance was examined under the variable geometry operation and an improvement in turbine power output at low speed, off-design conditions was achieved. This was analogous to operating with a conventional pivoting vane variable geometry system and had the potential to benefit performance during transient engine operation.

In this article, a numerical investigation of the effect of a miniaturized five-hole probe downstream of a transonic low-pressure turbine vane row is presented. First, a numerical calibration of the probe was performed in uniform flow conditions, as is the case for any traditional calibration, for a wide range of Mach number, yaw angle, and pitch angle conditions. The effect of the probe on the general flow field throughout the turbine vane segments was then evaluated by performing a comparison between a setup with vanes only (no probe) and with vanes and probes. It was found that, as the probe traverses downstream the vane, the probe impact on the vane isentropic Mach number depends on the probe circumferential position. The highest impact was observed when the probe is located at the upper mid-passage (θ = 0.5), consisting of a relatively small reduction of the isentropic Mach number on the vane suction side of just 0.02. To assess the accuracy of the quantities “measured” by the probe, the probe-determined flow field was compared to the flow field of the vanes-only setup. A nonnegligible modification of the probe-determined local distributions of Mach number, yaw angle, and pitch angle is revealed with respect to the undisturbed flow. Further investigation involving stagnation point tracking showed that the artificial high circumferential variation of the yaw angle is not caused by a modification of the vane outlet flow angle, but is induced by nonuniform flow conditions downstream of the vanes. With knowledge of the above, a two-step correction is used to account for the effects of the nonuniformity of the flow, and its impact is evaluated on 2D and 3D flow regions. A significative effect of the correction was found on the probe-determined yaw angle, in which the difference from the vanes-only data was reduced to below 1 deg, except near the endwalls where larger discrepancies remain due to probe–endwall interactions. A shortfall of the correction was instead observed on the probe-determined Mach numbers. Finally, the pitch-wise averaged quantities were evaluated. It was observed that the highest differences between probe-determined and undisturbed data occur where radial gradients of total pressure are stronger and that the two-step correction had almost negligible impact on the pitch-wise averaged quantities.

This paper describes a coupled experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) campaign conducted on a 1.5 intermediate turbine stage in the full range of operating conditions, from start-up to design point under variable expansion ratio and physical speed. The test maintains engine similitude conditions and allows direct comparison with CFD data to assess the predictions accuracy. The choice of variables to describe the speedlines is also addressed by using both measured and predicted data. A discussion on velocity ratio versus corrected speed illustrates the advantages of the former parameter the adoption of which produces constant shape curves in a very wide range of operating conditions. The comparison between measurements and predictions suggests that CFD, in conjunction with performance correlations, is a viable tool to predict speedlines in a fairly wide range of conditions, provided that geometrical and operational details are carefully matched.

Due to stringent environmental legislation and increasing fuel costs, the efficiencies of modern turbofan engines have to be further improved. Commonly, this is facilitated by increasing the turbine inlet temperatures in excess of the melting point of the turbine components. This trend has reached a point where not only the high-pressure turbine has to be adequately cooled, but also components further downstream in the engine. Such a component is the turbine center frame (TCF), having a complex aerodynamic flow field that is also highly influenced by purge-mainstream interactions. The purge air, being injected through the wheelspace cavities of the upstream high-pressure turbine, bears a significant cooling potential for the TCF. Despite this, fundamental knowledge of the influencing parameters on heat transfer and film cooling in the TCF is still missing. This paper examines the influence of purge-to-mainstream blowing ratio, purge-to-mainstream density ratio and purge flow swirl angle on the convective heat transfer coefficient and the film cooling effectiveness in the TCF. The experiments are conducted in a sector-cascade test rig specifically designed for such heat transfer studies using infrared thermography and tailor-made flexible heating foils with constant heat flux. The inlet flow is characterized by radially traversing a five-hole-probe. Three purge-to-mainstream blowing ratios and an additional no purge case are investigated. The purge flow is injected without swirl and also with engine-similar swirl angles. The purge swirl and blowing ratio significantly impact the magnitude and the spread of film cooling in the TCF. Increasing blowing ratios lead to an intensification of heat transfer. By cooling the purge flow, a moderate variation in purge-to-mainstream density ratio is investigated, and the influence is found to be negligible.

The Inside-out ceramic turbine (ICT), a novel microturbine rotor architecture, has an air-cooled ring which keeps its composite rotating structural shroud within operating temperature. The cooling ring must achieve a significant radial temperature gradient with a minimal amount of cooling. The cooling ring is made through additive manufacturing, which opens the design space to tailored cooling geometries. Additively manufactured pin fin heat transfer enhancers are explored in this work to assess whether they hold any significant performance benefit over current rectangular cross-section open channels. Experimental friction factors and Nusselt numbers were determined for small, densely-packed pin fins over an asymmetrical thermal load. Results indicate that pressure loss is similar to what can be expected for additively manufactured pin fins, whereas heat transfer is lower due to the extremely tight streamwise pin spacing, in both in-line and staggered pin configurations. A design study presented in this paper suggests that pin fins are beneficial to an ICT for reducing cooling mass flow rate up to 40%, against an increase in cooling ring mass of roughly 50%.

The use of purge flow in gas turbines allows for high turbine entry temperatures, which are essential to produce high cycle efficiency. Purge air is bled from the compressor and reintroduced in the turbine to cool vulnerable components. Wheel-spaces are formed between adjacent rotating and stationary discs, with purge air supplied at low radius before exiting into the mainstream gas-path through a rim-seal at the disc periphery. An aerodynamic penalty is incurred as the purge flow egress interacts with the mainstream. This study presents unparalleled three-dimensional velocity data from a single-stage turbine test rig, specifically designed to investigate egress-mainstream interaction using optical measurement techniques. Volumetric Velocimetry is applied to the rotating environment with phase-locked measurements used to identify and track the vortical secondary flow features through the blade passage. A baseline case without purge flow is compared to experiments with a 1.7% purge mass fraction; the latter was chosen to ensure a fully sealed wheel-space. A non-localised vortex tracking function is applied to the data to identify the position of the core centroids. The strength of the secondary-flow vortices was determined by using a circulation criterion on rotated planes aligned to the vortex filaments. The pressure-side leg of the horseshoe vortex and a second vortex associated with the egress flow were identified by the experimental campaign. In the absence of purge flow the two vortices merged, forming the passage vortex. With the addition of purge flow, the two cores remained independent to 40% of the blade axial chord, while also demonstrating an increased radial migration and intensification of the passage vortex. The egress core was shown to remain closer to the suction-surface with purge flow. Importantly, where the vortex filaments demonstrated strong radial or tangential components of velocity, the circulation level calculated from axial planes underpredicted the true circulation by up to 50%.

The clearance that exists between the casing and turbine blade tips is one of the key drivers of efficiency in gas turbine engines. For this reason, engine manufacturers utilize precise manufacturing techniques and may use clearance control systems to minimize tip clearances to reduce associated losses. Despite these efforts, turbines typically exhibit some nominal casing ovality or rotor-casing eccentricity, and changes to blade tip clearance during operation commonly occur due to thermal and mechanical stresses. The present study investigates non-axisymmetric tip clearance effects by creating a rotor-casing eccentricity in a one-stage axial test turbine operating in a continuous-duration mode at engine-relevant conditions with engine representative hardware. A magnetic levitation bearing system was leveraged to move the turbine shaft to vary the rotor-casing eccentricity without test section disassembly. The results of this study indicate that rotor-casing eccentricity does not affect overall turbine efficiency over the range that was tested, but does locally influence efficiency and the rotor exit flow field. Comparisons of flow angle and secondary flow kinetic energy (SKE) agreed with previous studies and existing analytical methods, respectively. Collectively, these results indicate that tip clearance can be studied locally on an eccentric rotor.

Cooling design of highly loaded turbine blade tips is challenged by the scarcity of experimental data and the lack of physical understanding in cooling and overtip leakage (OTL) interaction under transonic conditions. To address these issues, this paper carried out transient thermal measurements through infrared thermography on a transonic flat tip with and without cooling injection. Experimental data of Nusselt number and cooling effectiveness were obtained and compared with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results for numerical validation. Both experimental data and simulation results show that cooling injection drastically augments tip Nusselt number near pressure side (PS) which is upstream of ejection, and in areas around coolant holes. Moreover, a strikingly low Nusselt number stripe is observed downstream of cooling injection from one of the holes in aft portion of blade. The strip is directed transverse to local OTL streamline flowing from pressure to suction side (SS) and sprawls to adjacent coolant wakes. Further numerical analyses concluded that cooling injection changes tip aerodynamics and overtip shock wave structure fundamentally. Oblique shock waves across the uncooled flat tip are replaced by a confined shock train downstream of cooling injection and between cooling holes, which is constituted by two shocks normal to local OTL flow coming from pressure side. Across the first shock, density and pressure increases abruptly, contributing to thickening of tip boundary layer and the plummet of skin friction on tip surface, which is responsible for the sharp decline of tip Nusselt number and therefore, formation of low heat transfer stripe downstream cooling injection.

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the effects of surface roughness on the profile loss of a flat-plate with a contoured wall. All of the measurements have been conducted for the suction side pressure gradient of a high-lift low pressure turbine airfoil at the fixed freestream turbulence intensity (Tu) of 3.2% under Reynolds numbers of Rec = 1. 2 · 105 (cruise) and Rec = 5.2 · 105 (take-off). The time-resolved streamwise and wall-normal velocity fields for three different surface roughness values of Ra/C · 105 = 0.065, 4.417, and 7.428 have been measured with a 2D hot-wire probe. At the take-off condition (Rec = 5.2 · 105), attached flow transition occurs, and increased surface roughness increases the loss. For all of the surfaces, momentum deficits in the laminar to early transition region (γ ≈ 0.05) are similar. For the intermediate transition (γ ≈ 0.5), increased roughness reduces the Reynolds stress and accelerates the breakdown of large-scale turbulent spots into small-scale turbulent eddies. Therefore, turbulent energy and momentum deficit are decreased for rough surfaces. For the late transition (γ > 0.9), transitional boundary layers become similar to turbulent boundary layers, and increased surface roughness increases turbulent mixing, boundary layer thickness, and, hence, the momentum deficit. On the other hand, at the cruise condition (Rec = 1.2 · 105), separated flow transition occurs and increased surface roughness decreases loss. Since the portion of turbulent flow is relatively small, the overall profile loss is mainly determined by the momentum deficit generated during transition. Increased roughness decreases the maximum height and length of the separation bubble but does not affect the separation bubble onset location. The beneficial effects of increased surface roughness on the profile loss appear in the separated shear layer and reattachment. Increased surface roughness increases turbulent mixing in the separated shear layer, reducing the shear layer thickness and momentum deficit. In addition, increased surface roughness reduces the length scale and turbulence intensity of the shed vortices. Consequently, turbulent mixing and momentum deficit during the reattachment of boundary layers are decreased, resulting in a lower profile loss.

The optimization of the turbine rotor tip geometry remains a vital opportunity to create more efficient and durable engines. Balancing the aerodynamic and thermal aspects, while maintaining the mechanical integrity, is key to reshape one of the most vulnerable and life-determining parts of the entire turbine. The ever-increasing turbine gas temperatures, combined with the difficulty of cooling the tip and the aerodynamically penalizing nature of the overtip leakage vortex, make the design of the tip a truly multidisciplinary challenge. While many earlier efforts focused on uncooled geometries or studied the aerothermal impact with a fixed cooling configuration, the current paper presents the outcome of a multi-objective optimization where both the squealer rim geometry and the cooling injection pattern were allowed to vary simultaneously. This study explores a significantly wider design space, seeking a further synergistic aerothermal benefit through the combination of a quasi-fully arbitrary cooling arrangement, with mutating squealer rim structures. Specifically, the current manuscript presents the results of over 330 cooled and uncooled squealer tip geometries. The high-pressure turbine tip was automatically altered using a novel parametrization strategy adopting a maximum of 40 design variables to vary the squealer rim structures, as well as the size and location of the various cooling holes. The aerodynamic and thermal characteristics of every design were evaluated through Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with the k–ω shear-stress transport (SST) model for the turbulence closure, adopting an unstructured hexahedral grid typically containing more than 8 × 106 cells. A multi-objective differential evolution algorithm was used to obtain a Pareto front of designs which maximize the aerodynamic efficiency, while minimizing the overtip thermal loads. Eventually, a detailed investigation and robustness study was performed on a set of prime squealer geometries, to further investigate the aerodynamic flow topology and the effect of various cooling injection schemes on the heat transfer patterns.

The development of techniques that reduce the losses in the endwall region is an important area of research as it supports an increase in the turbine design space through the use of higher lift blade designs while maintaining high efficiency. Several active and passive shape contouring methods that reduce losses generated by the secondary flow have been developed and investigated on a high-lift front-loaded low-pressure turbine research profile in a low-speed linear cascade configuration. This paper summarizes and compares alterations to the three-dimensional secondary flow field by the application of three different techniques: blade profile contouring, optimized endwall shape contouring, and localized low mass coefficient jets. Each method was applied to identical research blade profiles and compared in the same linear cascade wind tunnel resulting in a unique perspective into the loss reduction mechanisms associated with each technique. The design strategy will be discussed along with a detailed description of changes to the secondary flow field using in- and out-of-passage total pressure loss measurements and high-speed stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. The key findings include the loss reduction mechanisms associated with each approach and the manipulation of key endwall flow structures such as the passage vortex and a strong suction surface corner separation.

This study includes the design, validation, and fabrication via direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) of a gas turbine nozzle guide vanes (NGV) that incorporates three innovative cooling schemes specifically enabled by additive manufacturing. The novel NGV design is the culmination of an extensive research and development effort over a period of 4 years that included low- and high-speed cascade testing coupled with unsteady computational fluid dynamics for numerous candidate innovative cooling architectures. The final vane design (SJ-vane) consists of sweeping jet (SJ) film cooling holes on the suction surface (SS), sweeping jet impingement holes at the leading edge and double-wall partial length triangular pin-fin with impinging jet at the trailing edge. For comparison purposes, a second DMLS enabled vane (777-vane) was designed and fabricated with prototypical cooling circuits to serve as a baseline. This vane consists of a shaped film cooling holes on the suction surface, circular impingement holes at the leading edge, and full-length cylindrical pin-fins at the trailing edge. Experiments with the two DMLS enabled vanes were performed at the Ohio State University Turbine Reacting Flow Rig (TuRFR) at engine-relevant temperature (1375 K) and Mach number conditions. Infrared (IR) thermography was utilized to measure the wall temperature of the pressure and suction surface at several coolant mass flowrates to estimate the overall cooling effectiveness (ϕ). Results showed improved cooling performance for the advanced cooling schemes (sweeping jet film cooling, impingement cooling, and triangular pin-fin cooling) compared with the baseline cooling schemes.

Non-synchronous pressure and temperature fluctuations at the hub cavity of a turbine stage are the main focus of this study. Cavity modes are unsteady fluctuations generated at the cavity exit due to instabilities in this region. The cavity modes carried into the main flow impose an unsteady flow field in the rotor passages, which varies the passage-wise flow parameters considerably. A two-stage axial turbine was designed and tested in the “LISA” test facility at ETH Zurich. A reference case with baseline geometry and a modified case with an axial deflector at the hub cavity exit were tested. Comprehensive unsteady pressure and temperature measurements were performed using fast response aerodynamic (FRAP) and entropy probes (FENT), respectively. In addition, 12 fast response unsteady pressure transducers were mounted on the stationary wall of the cavity exit to measure the main characteristic parameters of the cavity modes. Full annular unsteady simulations were also carried out for both cases to support the experiments. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) successfully predicted the effect of cavity modes on both frequency and amplitude of the fluctuations. The cavity modes indicated fluctuation amplitudes up to eight times of the blade passing fluctuations at the cavity exit. The analysis shows that the convected cavity modes alter the efficiency of different rotor passages by redistributing the mass flow and the losses resulting in a drop in overall efficiency. This work suggests that implementing a small axial deflector at the hub cavity exit would completely eliminate the cavity modes leading to a reduced pressure unsteadiness and enhanced efficiency.

Three kinds of rotor tip configurations have been investigated numerically in the LISA 1.5-stage turbine, including the flat tip, the honeycomb tip, and the honeycomb tip with injection. The effect of the cavity depth and the injection mass flowrate on the turbine performance is studied in detail, evaluated by the isentropic total-to-total efficiency and the tip leakage mass flowrate. The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) method and the k–ω turbulence model are adopted in all the present computations. The numerical results show that the first-stage efficiency is increased by up to 0.66% and the tip leakage mass flowrate is reduced by about 1.87% of the main flow. The pressure field and the flow feature inside the gap are explored. The flow structures and the total pressure loss contours in the rotor passage are presented. Finally, the total pressure loss is newly defined by considering the injection effect. It is indicated that the injection mass flowrate should be carefully determined for excellent overall performance.

Recently developed lean-burn combustors offer reduced NOx emissions for gas turbines. The flow at exit of lean-burn combustors is dominated by hot streaks and residual swirl, which have been shown—individually—to impact turbine aerodynamic performance. Studies have shown that residual swirl at inlet to the high-pressure (HP) stage predominantly affects the vane aerodynamics, while hot streaks affect the rotor aerodynamics. Studies have also shown that these changes to the HP stage aerodynamics can affect the downstream intermediate-pressure (IP) vane aerodynamics. Yet, to date, there have been no published studies presenting experimental turbine test data with both swirl and hot streaks simultaneously present at inlet. This paper presents the first experimental and computational investigation into the effects of combined hot streaks and swirl on turbine aerodynamics. Experimental measurements were conducted in the Oxford Turbine Research Facility (OTRF), a short-duration rotating transonic facility, in which the nondimensional parameters relevant to turbine fluid mechanics and heat transfer are matched to engine conditions. The turbine under investigation is the recently commissioned LEMCOTEC turbine, which has been designed to represent modern aero-engine architectures and for robustness to lean-burn combustor-representative inlet flows. The turbine comprises an unshrouded HP stage with fully film-cooled vanes followed by low-turning IP vanes in an S-shaped duct. Two turbine inlet flows are considered. The first is uniform in total pressure, total temperature, and flow angle. The second features a nonuniform total temperature (hot streak) profile featuring strong radial and weak circumferential variation superimposed on a swirling velocity profile. This combined nonuniform profile is generated using a new combustor simulator that has recently been commissioned in the OTRF. Detailed area surveys of the flow were conducted at turbine inlet, HP rotor exit, and IP vane exit, and loading distributions were measured on the HP and IP vanes. Measurements and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) predictions suggest that the inlet temperature nonuniformity was relatively well preserved upon being convected through the turbine: the predicted root-mean-square variation in the IP vane exit total temperature field was approximately double that with uniform inlet conditions. Relatively poor comparisons between URANS and experiment highlight the challenge of accurately predicting the complex IP vane flow. In particular, small differences in exit whirl angle resulted in substantial differences in IP vane exit velocity and thus radial pressure gradient.

In modern commercial aviation engines, the low-pressure turbine (LPT) has a high outlet swirl to maximize turbine power to weight ratio. Downstream of the last LPT rotor is the turbine rear structure (TRS) that with relatively few low-aspect-ratio outlet guide vanes (OGV) de-swirls the flow to maximize the thrust. The performance of the TRS is strongly connected to secondary flow structures, which in turn are strongly influenced by the laminar-turbulent transition. Transition can be challenging to predict in turbomachinery due to the highly complex flow present. At the design point the TRS can have both by-pass transition and laminar separation with transition and a following turbulent reattachment. In addition, a TRS needs to perform well in a large off-design envelope, with large variations of the inlet swirl angle. Accurately predicting transition, both at the design point and in important off-design points, is critical for the development of future TRS modules. In modern geared and ultra-high by-pass engines the TRS swirl angle off-design requirements are also increasing. There are several available transition models in RANS simulations and most of them need parameter tuning when introduced to new conditions. Evaluation of these models for different turbomachinery components is relatively well covered in the literature even though the model specifics often is a classified property of engine manufacturers. However, there are no cases in the literature of transition prediction with experimental verification in the TRS at engine-realistic conditions. This work presents the first experimental verification of laminar-turbulent transition in a TRS module tested in the LPT-OGV experimental facility at Chalmers Laboratory of Thermal and Fluid Science. The facility is a semi-closed rig using a rotating 1.5 stage shrouded low-pressure turbine stage to create engine representative inlet conditions for the TRS downstream of the LPT stage. Transition was measured using differential IR-thermography (DIT) which is a non-intrusive two-dimensional measurement technique. The technique was specially developed at Chalmers for this particular purpose and validated by boundary layer hot-wire measurements. The numerical analysis was done using commercially available transition models in Fluent and Ansys CFX. Gamma-theta transition model was used with the k-omega SST turbulence model. Experiments and numerical simulations were performed at a chord Reynold number of 235000 and with LPT outlet swirl angles covering both the design point (ADP) and relevant off-design points. Numerical and experimental results show that agreement between transition models and experiments can be achieved at these conditions. Boundary layers on the pressure side and suction side undergo laminar-turbulent transition for the selected test range. At decreased OGV aerodynamic load, the boundary layer on the pressure side near the leading edge is laminar along most of the span. At higher OGV loads the secondary flow is influencing the region near the shroud on the pressure side as well as near the hub on the suction side. The transition on the suction side midspan is significantly influenced by the vane load. The numerical analysis was used to better understand the involved flow mechanisms.

Given the maturity of the gas turbine engine since its invention and also considering the limited and flattened level of resources expected to be allocated for NASA aeronautics research and development, we ask the question are NASA technology investments still needed to enable future turbine engine-based propulsion systems? If so, what is NASA’s unique role to justify NASA’s investment? To address this topic, we will first review the accomplishments and the impact that NASA Glenn Research Center has made on turbine engine technologies over the last 78 years. Specifically, this paper discusses NASA’s role and contributions to turbine engine development, specific to both 1) NASA’s role in conducting experiments to understand flow physics and provide relevant benchmark validation experiments for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code development, validation, and assessment; and 2) the impact of technologies resulting from NASA collaborations with industry, academia, and other government agencies. Note that the scope of the discussion is limited to the NASA technology contributions with which the author was intimately associated, and does not represent the entirety of the NASA contributions to turbine engine technology. The specific research, development, and demonstrations discussed herein were selected to both 1) provide a comprehensive review and reference list of the technology and its impact, and 2) identify NASA’s unique role and highlight how NASA’s involvement resulted in additional benefit to the gas turbine engine community. Secondly, we will discuss current NASA collaborations that are in progress and provide a status of the results. Finally, we discuss the challenges anticipated for future turbine engine-based propulsion systems for civil aviation and identify potential opportunities for collaboration where NASA involvement would be beneficial. Ultimately, the gas turbine engine community will decide if NASA involvement is needed to contribute to the development of the design and analysis tools, databases, and technology demonstration programs to meet these challenges for future turbine engine-based propulsion systems.

Heat transfer and aerodynamic performance in worn squealer tip gap of a high-pressure gas turbine stage were numerically investigated. Effects of the starting location of wear and wear depth on tip heat transfer coefficient distributions and stage efficiency were analyzed to evaluate the aero-thermal performance degradations in the gas turbine stage after wear. At three starting locations of wear and five wear depths, flow patterns in worn squealer tip gap of the turbine stage were visualized and compared with the original design case. The results show that the counter-rotating vortex systems in tip cavity, as well as the interactions between leakage vortex and passage vortex, are significantly affected by the degree of wear damage. The starting location of wear and wear depth have pronounced influences on heat transfer and aerodynamic performance in squealer tip gap. After wear, the stage efficiency is decreased by about 0.3–1%, as the wear depth is equal to clearance gap size. In the serious worn case, thermal load on tip cavity floor is increased by about 60%, while the heat transfer on rims is reduced by about 20%. However, compared with the original design case, the area-averaged heat transfer coefficient on shroud is reduced by 5% at most.

A blade row that is located downstream of a combustor has an extremely high turbulence intensity at the inlet, typically above 10%. The peak turbulent length scale is also high, at around 20% of the chord of the downstream blade row. In a combustor, the turbulence is created by impinging jets in crossflow. This may result in the turbulence being anisotropic in nature. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of combustor turbulence on the loss mechanisms which occur in a turbine blade row. The paper has a number of important findings. The combustor turbulence is characterized and is shown to be isotropic in nature. It shows that, when no pressure gradient is present, combustor turbulence increases the loss of a turbulent boundary layer by 22%. The mechanism responsible for this change is shown to be a deep penetration of the turbulence into the boundary layer. It shows that the presence of combustor turbulence increases the profile loss and endwall loss in the turbine cascade studied by 37% and 47%, respectively. The presence of combustor turbulence also introduces a freestream loss resulting in the total loss of the turbine cascade rising by 47%. When these loss mechanisms were applied to the vane alone, of an engine representative high-pressure turbine, it was found to result in a 1.3% reduction in stage efficiency.

This work focuses on the parametric study of film cooling effectiveness on the turbine vane endwall under various flow conditions. The experiments were performed in a five-vane annular sector cascade facility in a blowdown wind tunnel. The controlled exit isentropic Mach numbers were 0.7, 0.9, and 1.0, from high subsonic to transonic conditions. The freestream turbulence intensity is estimated to be 12%. Three coolant-to-mainstream mass flow ratios (MFR) in the range 0.75%, 1.0%, and 1.25% are studied. N2, CO2, and Argon/SF6 mixture were used to investigate the effects of density ratio (DR), ranging from 1.0, 1.5, to 2.0. There are eight cylindrical holes on the endwall inside the passage. The pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique was used to capture the endwall pressure distribution for shock wave visualization and obtain the detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions. Both the high-fidelity effectiveness contour and the laterally (spanwise) averaged effectiveness were measured to quantify the parametric effect. This study will provide the gas turbine designer more insight on how the endwall film cooling effectiveness varies with different cooling flow conditions including shock wave through the endwall crossflow passage.

Gas turbines operate at extreme temperatures and pressures, constraining the use of both optical measurement techniques as well as probes. A strategy to overcome this challenge consists of instrumenting the external part of the engine, with sensors located in a gentler environment, and use numerical inverse methodologies to retrieve the relevant quantities in the flowpath. An inverse heat transfer approach is a procedure used to retrieve the temperature, pressure or mass flow through the engine based on the external casing temperature data. This manuscript proposes an improved Digital Filter Inverse Heat Transfer Method, that consists of a linearization of the heat conduction equation using sensitivity coefficients. The sensitivity coefficient characterizes the change of temperature due to a change in the heat flux. The heat conduction equation contains a non-linearity due to the temperature-dependent thermal properties of the materials. In previous literature, this problem is solved via iterative procedures that however increase the computational effort. The novelty of the proposed strategy consists of the inclusion of a non-iterative procedure to solve the non-linearity features. This procedure consists of the computation of the sensitivity coefficients in function of temperature, together with an interpolation where the measured temperature is used to retrieve the sensitivity coefficients in each timestep. These temperature-dependent sensitivity coefficients, are then used to compute the heat flux by solving the linear system of equations of the Digital Filter Method. This methodology was validated in the Purdue Experimental Turbine Aerothermal Lab (PETAL) annular wind tunnel, a two minutes transient experiment with flow temperatures up to 450K. Infrared thermography is used to measure the temperature in the outer surface of the inlet casing of a high pressure turbine. Surface thermocouples measure the endwall metal temperature. The metal temperature maps from the IR thermography were used to retrieve the heat flux with the inverse method. The inverse heat transfer method results were validated against a direct computation of the heat flux obtained from temperature readings of surface thermocouples. The experimental validation was complemented with an uncertainty analysis of the inverse methodology: the Karhunen-Loeve Expansion. This technique allows the propagation of uncertainty through stochastic systems of differential equations. In this case, the uncertainty of the inner casing heat flux has been evaluated through the simulation of different samples of the uncertain temperature field of the outer casing.

Ceramic matrix composite (CMC) has better durability at high temperature and lower material density, as compared to nickel-based superalloys which have been the standard material for hot section components of aero-engines. Among the CMC materials, SiC–SiC CMC is especially promising with its superior mechanical property at a higher temperature. It, however, inevitably needs environmental barrier coating (EBC) to protect the substrate against oxidation. The EBC also needs to have other functions and to meet various requirements. One such very critical requirement is the resistance to sand erosion, although the issue has not been investigated well so far. The primary contribution of this work is to reveal the erosion resistance of the CMC + EBC material with wind tunnel test data of good quality and to demonstrate what erosion behavior the material exhibits in a turbine cascade under particle-laden hot gas stream. In the present work, erosion tests were first carried out in a testing facility with an erosion media of 50 μm silica sand. The tests were conducted under a flow velocity of 225 m/s and a temperature of 1311 K to simulate typical aero-engine conditions, and impact angles of 30, 60, and 80 deg were investigated. The obtained data showed a typical brittle erosion mode, where the erosion rate had a positive dependence on the impact angles. A typical erosion model, Neilson–Gilchrist model, was applied to correlate the data, and the model was shown to have a good agreement with the experimental data once it was properly calibrated. Then, the numerical computation solving particle-laden flow was carried out to predict three-dimensional flow field and particle trajectories across the target turbine cascade. The erosion profile along the airfoil was calculated based on the obtained trajectories and the calibrated erosion model. The trajectories showed that the particles mostly impinged the airfoil pressure surface first and then the rebounded particles attacked the opposite suction surface as well. Accordingly, the predicted erosion profile showed a broad erosion band across the pressure surface and also some slight erosion peak at around the mid-chord of the suction surface.

In order to produce a more efficient design of a compact turbine driving a cryogenic engine turbo-pump for a satellite delivering rocket, a new supersonic loss model is proposed. The new model was constructed based on high-quality published data, composed of Schlieren photographs and experimental measurements, that combined provided a unique insight into the mechanisms driving supersonic losses. Using this as a cornerstone, model equations were formulated that predict the critical Mach number and shock loss and shock-induced mixing loss as functions of geometrical (i.e., blade outlet and uncovered turning angle and trailing edge thickness) and operational parameters (i.e., exit Mach number). A series of highly resolved CFD numerical simulations were conducted on an in-house designed state-of-the-art transonic turbine rotor row (around unity aspect ratio (AR)) to better understand changes in the shock system for varying parameters. The main outcome showed that pitch to chord ratio has a powerful impact on the shock system, and thus on the manner by which shock loss and shock-induced mixing loss is distributed to compose the overall supersonic losses. The numerical loss estimates for two pitch to chord ratios—t⁄c = 0.70 and t⁄c = 0.98—were compared with absolute loss data of a previously published similar blade with satisfactory agreement. Calibrated equations are provided to allow hands-on integration into existing overall turbine loss models, where supersonic losses play a key role, for further enhancement of preliminary turbine design.

This paper presents the predicted, as well as final experimental results for the design of an automatically optimized non-axisymmetric endwall and as such, attempts to close the loop between design and practice, providing additional information to other groups involved in the design of endwall contours. The contours designed in this investigation were manufactured using the direct laser sintering rapid prototyping method and installed and tested in the low-speed, 112-stage turbine at the CSIR’s test turbine facility (TTF) in Pretoria, South Africa. Steady-state 5-hole pressure probe traverses were used to characterize the performance and flow profiles upstream, immediately downstream and in a quasi-“mixed-out” sense downstream of the rotor. In addition to the datum (annular) case, both the computed as well as experimental results were compared to the corresponding results generated for a “generically” contoured rotor which was originally designed for a linear cascade test case, but one which used the same blade profile to the current case. The results show that in general both sets of contours performed well, although the added emphasis on flow correction for the contours produced in this investigation resulted in slightly worse performance in terms of loss at the rotor exit (X3) but greatly improved performance in terms of the efficiency and flow angles at the “mixed-out” (X4) measurement plane.

Further improvement of state-of-the-art Low Pressure (LP) turbines has become progressively more challenging. LP design is more than ever confronted to the need to further integrate complex models and to shift from single component design to the design of the complete LPT module at once. This leads to high-dimensional design spaces and automatically challenges its applicability within an industrial context, where CPU resources are limited and the cycle time crucial. The aerodynamic design of a multistage LP turbine is discussed for a design space defined by 350 parameters. Using an online surrogate-based optimisation (SBO) approach a significant efficiency gain of almost 0.5pt has been achieved. By discussing the sampling of the design space, the quality of the surrogate models, and the application of adequate data mining capabilities to steer the optimisation, it is shown that despite the high-dimensional nature of the design space the followed approach allows to obtain performance gains beyond target. The ability to control both global as well as local characteristics of the flow throughout the full LP turbine, in combination with an agile reaction of the search process after dynamically strengthening and/or enforcing new constraints in order to adapt to the review feedback, illustrates not only the feasibility but also the potential of a global design space for the LP module. It is demonstrated that intertwining the capabilities of dynamic SBO and efficient data mining allows to incorporate high-fidelity simulations in design cycle practices of certified engines or novel engine concepts to jointly optimise the multiple stages of the LPT.

This paper presents the unsteady flow interactions between an engine-representative high-pressure turbine (HPT) and lowpressure turbine (LPT) stage, connected by a turbine center frame (TCF) duct with non-turning struts. The setup was tested at the high-speed two-spool test turbine facility at the Institute for Thermal Turbomachinery and Machine Dynamics at Graz University of Technology and includes relevant purge and turbine rotor tip leakage flows. Due to the complexity of such a test, the unsteady component interactions in an HPT-TCF-LPT module have not received much attention in the past and require additional analysis to determine new approaches for further performance improvements on the system level. The flow downstream of an HPT is highly unsteady and dominated by stator-rotor interactions, which affect the flow behavior through the downstream TCF and LPT. To capture the unsteady flow structures, time-resolved aerodynamic measurements were carried out with a fast-response aerodynamic pressure probe (FRAPP) at three different measurement planes. In this paper, the time-resolved and phase-averaged flow fields with respect to the HPT and LPT trigger are studied. Since the two rotors are uncorrelated, the applied method allows the identification of the flow structures induced by either of them. Upstream of the LPT stage, the HPT flow structures evolving through the TCF duct dominate the flow fields. Downstream of the LPT stage, the flow is affected by both the HPT and the LPT secondary flow structures. The interactions between the various stator rows and the two rotors are detected by means of time-space plots and modal decomposition. To describe the fluctuations induced by both rotors, particularly the rotor-rotor interaction, the Rotor Synchronic Averaging (RSA) is used to analyze the flow field downstream of the LPT. The paper highlights the need to account for the HPT-induced unsteady mechanisms in addition to the LPT flow structures and the interaction of both to arrive at improved LPT designs.The project TRAVIATA (Turbine Research for Aerodynamical Vane-Frame Improvements in Advanced Two-Spool Arrangements) leading to this application has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 785313.

The inhomogeneity of temperature in a turbine is related to the nonuniform heat release and air injections in combustors. In addition, it is influenced by the interactions between turbine cascades and coolant injections. Temperature inhomogeneity results in nonuniform flow temperature at turbine outlets, which is commonly measured by multiple thermal couples arranged in the azimuthal direction to monitor the operation of a gas turbine engine. Therefore, the investigation of temperature inhomogeneity transportation in a multistage gas turbine should help in detecting and quantifying the over-temperature or flameout of combustors using turbine exhaust temperature. Here the transportation of temperature inhomogeneity inside the four-stage turbine of a 300-MW gas turbine engine was numerically investigated using 3D CFD. The computational domain included all four stages of the turbine, consisting of more than 500 blades and vanes. Realistic components (N2, O2, CO2, and H2O) with variable heat capacities were considered for hot gas and cooling air. Coolants were added to the computational domain through more than 19,000 mass and momentum source terms. his was simple compared to realistic cooling structures. A URANS CFD run with over-temperature/flameout at 6 selected combustors out of 24 was carried out. The temperature distributions at rotor–stator interfaces and the turbine outlet were quantified and characterized by Fourier transformations in the time domain and space domain. It is found that the transport process from the hot-streaks/cold-streaks at the inlet to the outlet is relatively stable. The cold and hot fluid is redistributed in time and space due to the stator and rotor blades, in the region with a large parameter gradient at the inlet, strong unsteady temperature field and composition field appear. The distribution of the exhaust gas composition has a stronger correlation with the inlet temperature distribution and is less susceptible to interference.

The prediction of aerodynamic damping is a relevant issue for turbomachinery design trends. Most of the conventional analysis methodologies for the study of aeroelastic forcing in use until recently neglect any hypothetical effects of adjacent rows. However, in recent years, it has become unquestionable that acoustic waves and nearly convected perturbations reflected in neighboring rows play a significant role in the evaluation of the overall unsteady loading of the blades. In this paper, a study of the impact of these effects in flutter stability margin is performed. For this analysis, ITP Aero’s in-house unsteady 3D frequency domain linearized RANS solver is used. The subject of this research is a setup which is a close representation of a proper LPT geometry. The influence of neighboring rows is examined, taking into consideration how the interactions between rows are scattered into several circumferential modes, as well as into radial modes. A quantitative assessment of all these effects is performed to understand the relative relevance of each one of them, and the results of unsteady aerodynamic blade loading are compared with those of a single-row simulation.

As aero gas turbine designs strive for ever greater efficiencies, the trend is for engine overall pressure ratios to rise. Although this provides greater thermal efficiency, it means that cycle temperatures also increase. One potential solution to managing the increasing temperatures is to employ a cooled cooling air system. In such a system, a purge flow into the main gas path downstream of the compressor will be required to prevent hot gas being ingested into the rotor drive cone cavity. However, the main gas path in compressors is aerodynamically sensitive and it is important to understand, and mitigate, the impact such a flow may have on the compressor outlet guide vanes, pre-diffuser, and the downstream combustion system aerodynamics. Initial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions demonstrated the potential of the purge flow to negatively affect the outlet guide vanes and alter the inlet conditions to the combustion system. The purge flow modified the incidence onto the outlet guide vane, at the hub, such that the secondary flows increased in magnitude. An experimental assessment carried out using an existing fully annular, isothermal test facility confirmed the CFD results and importantly demonstrated that the degradation in the combustor inlet flow resulted in an increased combustion system loss. At the proposed purge flow rate, equal to ∼1% of the mainstream flow, these effects were small with the system loss increasing by ∼4%. However, at higher purge flow rates (up to 3%), these effects became notable and the outlet guide vane and pre-diffuser flow degraded significantly with a resultant increase in the combustion system loss of ∼13%. To mitigate these effects, CFD was used to examine the effect of varying the purge flow swirl fraction in order to better align the flow at the hub of the outlet guide vane. With a swirl fraction of 0.65 (x rotor speed), the secondary flows were reduced below that of the datum case (with no purge flow). Experimental data showed good agreement with the predicted flow topology and performance trends but the measured data showed smaller absolute changes. Differences in system loss were measured with savings of around 10% at the turbine feed ports for a mass flow ratio of 1% and a swirl fraction of 0.65.

The increasing demands on jet engines require progressive thermodynamic process parameters, which typically lead to higher aerothermal loadings and accordingly to designs with high complexity. State-of-the-art high-pressure turbine (HPT) nozzle guide vane (NGV) design involves vane profiles with three-dimensional features including a high amount of film cooling and profiled endwalls (PEWs). Typically, the specific mass flow, also called capacity, which governs the engine's operation, is set by the HPT NGV. Hence, geometric variations due to manufacturing scatter of the HPT NGV's passage can affect relevant aerodynamic quantities and the entire engine behavior. Within the traditional deterministic design approach, the influences of those geometric variations are covered by conservative assumptions and engineering experience. This paper addresses the consideration of variability due to the manufacturing of HPT NGVs through probabilistic CFD investigations. To establish a statistical database, 80 HPT NGVs are digitized with a high precision optical 3D scanning system to record the outer geometry. The vane profiles are parametrized by a section-based approach. For this purpose, traditional profile theory is combined with a novel method that enables the description of NGV profile variability taking the particular leading edge (LE) shape into account. Furthermore, the geometric variability of PEWs is incorporated by means of principle component analysis (PCA). On this basis, a probabilistic system assessment including a sensitivity analysis in terms of capacity and total pressure loss coefficient is realized. Sampling-based methods are applied to conduct a variety of 3D CFD simulations for a typical population of profile and endwall geometries. This probabilistic investigation using realistic input parameter distributions and correlations contributes to a robust NGV design in terms of relevant aerodynamic quantities.

Mixed flow turbines (MFTs) offer potential benefits for turbocharged engines when considering off-design performance and engine transient behavior. Although the performance and use of MFTs are described in the literature, little is published on the combined impact of the cone angle and the inlet blade angle, which are the defining features of such turbines. Numerical simulations were completed using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model that was validated against experimental measurements for a baseline geometry. The mechanical impact of the design changes was also analyzed. Based on the results of the numerical study, two rotors of different blade angle and cone angle were selected and manufactured. These rotors were tested using the Queen's University Belfast (QUB) low-temperature turbine test rig, which allowed for accurate and wide-range mapping of the turbine performance to low values of the velocity ratio. The performance results from these additional rotors were used to further validate the numerical findings. The numerical model was used to understand the underlying physical reasons for the measured performance differences through detailed consideration of the flow field at the rotor inlet and to document how the loss mechanisms and secondary flow structures developed with varying rotor inlet geometry. It was observed that large inlet blade cone angles resulted in strong separation and flow blockage near the hub at off-design conditions, which greatly reduced efficiency. However, the significant rotor inertia benefits achieved with the large blade cone angles were shown to compensate for the efficiency penalties and could be expected to deliver improved transient performance in downsized automotive engine applications.

Improvements in stage isentropic efficiency and reductions in total pressure loss are sought in a 1.5 stage axial turbine. This is representative of power generation equipment used in thermal power cycles, which delivers about 80% of the 20 × 1012 kWh world-wide electricity. Component-level improvements are therefore timely and important toward achieving carbon dioxide global emission targets. Secondary flow loss reduction is sought by applying a nonaxisymmetric endwall design to the turbine stator hub. A guide groove directs the pressure side branch of the horseshoe vortex away from the airfoil suction side, using a parametric endwall hub surface, which is defined as to obtain first-order smooth boundary connections to the remainder of the passage geometry. This delays the onset of the passage vortex and reduces its associated loss. The Automatic Process and Optimization Workbench (apow) generates a Kriging surrogate model from a set of Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations, which is used to optimize the hub surface. The three-dimensional steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes model with an axisymmetric hub is validated against reference experimental measurements from the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen. Comparative computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions with an optimized nonaxisymmetric hub show a decrease in the total pressure loss coefficient and an increase in the isentropic stage efficiency at and off design conditions.

Modern low pressure turbines (LPT) are designed in order to fulfil a various number of requirements such as high endurance, low noise, high efficiency, low weight and low fuel consumption. Regarding the reduction of the emitted noise, different designs of low pressure turbine exit guide vanes (aerodynamically and/or acoustically optimized) of the turbine exit casing (TEC) were tested and their noise reduction capabilities and aerodynamic performance were evaluated. In particular, measurements of TEC-losses were performed and differences in the losses were reported. Measurements were carried out in a one and a half stage subsonic turbine test facility at the engine relevant operating point approach. This work focuses on the study of the unsteady flow field downstream of an unshrouded low pressure turbine rotor. The influence on the upstream flow field of a TEC design including acoustically optimized vanes (Inverse cut-off TEC) is investigated and compared with a second TEC configuration without vanes (Vaneless TEC), by means of fast response aerodynamic pressure probe measurements. The second configuration served as a reference concerning the influence of TEGVs onto the upstream located LPT rotor. The interactions between the stator and rotor wakes, secondary flows and the turbine exit guide vanes potential effect are identified via modal decomposition according to the theory of Tyler and Sofrin. The main structures constituting the unsteady flow field are detected and the role of the major interaction effects in the loss generation mechanism and in the acoustic emission is analysed. This study based on the modal analysis of the unsteady flow field offers new insight into the main interaction mechanisms and their importance in the assessment of the aerodynamic and aeroelastic performance of modern low pressure turbine exit casings.

The role of gas-to-wall temperature ratio on bypass transition along a highly loaded turbine guide vane is investigated through time-resolved heat flux measurements for different flow conditions. The tests are conducted in the von Karman Institute (VKI) isentropic compression tube (CT-2) facility. High response thin films mounted on the vane (VKI LS89 airfoil) coupled with analog circuits are used for the heat flux measurements. The first detectable wall heat flux fluctuations denote the onset of transition which is also evaluated by both the heat transfer coefficient and the intermittency factor distributions along the suction side. The exit Mach number is kept constant during each test by means of a downstream sonic throat while the gas-to-wall temperature ratio is varied from 1.14 to 1.51 by changing the inlet gas temperature. Four test cases are considered for different exit Mach numbers (0.52 and 0.86) and freestream turbulence intensity levels (0.8% and 5.3%) while the isentropic exit chord Reynolds number is maintained at 106. In the present test campaign, the length and the evolution of the phenomenon indicate a measurable effect of the gas-to-wall temperature ratio for test cases with mild pressure gradients.

Vane pressure side heat transfer is studied numerically using large eddy simulation (LES) on an aft-loaded vane with a large leading edge over a range of turbulence conditions. Numerical simulations are performed in a linear cascade at exit chord Reynolds number of Re = 5.1 × 105 at low (Tu ≈ 0.7%), moderate (Tu ≈ 7.9%), and high (Tu ≈ 12.4%) freestream turbulence with varying length scales as prescribed by the experimental measurements of Varty and Ames (2016, “Experimental Heat Transfer Distributions Over an Aft Loaded Vane With a Large Leading Edge at Very High Turbulence Levels,” ASME Paper No. IMECE2016-67029). Heat transfer predictions on the vane pressure side are in a very good agreement with the experimental measurements and the heat transfer augmentation due to the freestream turbulence is well captured. At Tu ≈ 12.4%, freestream turbulence enhances the Stanton number on the pressure surface without boundary layer transition to turbulence by a maximum of about 50% relative to the low freestream turbulence case. Higher freestream turbulence generates elongated structures and high-velocity streaks wrapped around the leading edge that contain significant energy. Amplification of the velocity streaks is observed further downstream with max rms of 0.3 near the trailing edge but no transition to turbulence or formation of turbulence spots is observed on the pressure side. The heat transfer augmentation at the higher freestream turbulence is primarily due to the initial amplification of the low-frequency velocity perturbations inside the boundary layer that persist along the entire chord of the airfoil. Stanton numbers appear to scale with the streamwise velocity fluctuations inside the boundary layer.

In modern lean-burn aero-engine combustors, highly swirling flow structures are adopted to control the fuel-air mixing and to provide the correct flame stabilization mechanisms. Aggressive swirl fields and high turbulence intensities are hence expected in the combustor-turbine interface. Moreover, to maximize the engine cycle efficiency, an accurate design of the high-pressure nozzle cooling system must be pursued: in a film-cooled nozzle, the air taken from last compressor stages is ejected through discrete holes drilled on vane surfaces to provide a cold layer between hot gases and turbine components. In this context, the interactions between the swirling combustor outflow and the vane film cooling flows play a major role in the definition of a well-performing cooling scheme, demanding for experimental campaigns at representative flow conditions. An annular three-sector combustor simulator with fully cooled high-pressure vanes has been designed and installed at THT Lab of University of Florence. The test rig is equipped with three axial swirlers, effusion-cooled liners, and six film-cooled high-pressure vanes passages, for a vortex-to-vane count ratio of 1:2. The relative clocking position between swirlers and vanes has been chosen in order to have the leading edge of the central airfoil aligned with the central swirler. In this experimental work, adiabatic film effectiveness measurements have been carried out in the central sector vanes, in order to characterize the film-cooling performance under swirling inflow conditions. The pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique, based on heat and mass transfer analogy, has been exploited to catch highly detailed 2D distributions. Carbon dioxide has been used as coolant in order to reach a coolant-to-mainstream density ratio of 1.5. Turbulence and five-hole probe measurements at inlet/outlet of the cascade have been carried out as well, in order to highlight the characteristics of the flow field passing through the cascade and to provide precise boundary conditions. Results have shown a relevant effect of the swirling mainflow on the film cooling behavior. Differences have been found between the central airfoil and the adjacent ones, both in terms of leading edge stagnation point position and of pressure and suction side film coverage characteristics.

The influences of blade loading profile on wake convection and wake/wake interaction were studied in two different blade designs for high-pressure (HP) turbines (front-loaded (FL) and aft-loaded (AL)), installed in linear cascades. A high-speed moving bar (HSMB) apparatus replicated wake shedding, and a closed loop wind tunnel produced engine-relevant Mach numbers (Ma = 0.7) and Reynolds numbers (Re = 3 × 105). The FL blades had approximately 10% greater total pressure loss when operated with unsteady wake passage. Phase conditioned particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were made in the aft portion of the blade channel and downstream of the blade trailing edge. The turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) in the wake was approximately 30% higher for the FL blades when the wake entered the measurement field-of-view. The pressure field in the upstream region of the FL blade design is believed to induce high magnitude strain rates—leading to increased TKE production—and more aggressively turn and dilate the unmixed wake—leading to increased mixing related losses. The higher TKE for the FL blades largely dissipated, being approximately equal to the AL wake by the time the wake reached the end of the blade passage. The interaction of the convected wake with the wake from the blade trailing edge caused periodic vortex shedding at the second harmonic of the convected wake frequency. This interaction also modulated the strength of the trailing edge wake. However, little difference was found in the modulation amplitudes between different cases due to similar strengths of the convected wakes in this region. The higher wake TKE in the upstream portion of the blade channel for the FL blades, therefore, is expected to be the cause of the higher total pressure loss.

Accurate predictions of unsteady forcing on turbine blades are essential for the avoidance of high-cycle-fatigue issues during turbine engine development. Further, if one can demonstrate that predictions of unsteady interaction in a turbine are accurate, then it becomes possible to anticipate resonant-stress problems and mitigate them through aerodynamic design changes during the development cycle. A successful reduction in unsteady forcing for a transonic turbine with significant shock interactions due to downstream components is presented here. A pair of methods to reduce the unsteadiness was considered and rigorously analyzed using a three-dimensional (3D), time-resolved Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver. The first method relied on the physics of shock reflections itself and involved altering the stacking of downstream components to achieve a bowed airfoil. The second method considered was circumferentially asymmetric vane spacing which is well known to spread the unsteadiness due to vane-blade interaction over a range of frequencies. Both methods of forcing reduction were analyzed separately and predicted to reduce unsteady pressures on the blade as intended. Then, both design changes were implemented together in a transonic turbine experiment and successfully shown to manipulate the blade unsteadiness in keeping with the design-level predictions. This demonstration was accomplished through comparisons of measured time-resolved pressures on the turbine blade to others obtained in a baseline experiment that included neither asymmetric spacing nor bowing of the downstream vane. The measured data were further compared to rigorous post-test simulations of the complete turbine annulus including a bowed downstream vane of nonuniform pitch.

This study was motivated by the difficulties to assess the aerothermodynamic effects of heat transfer on the performance of turbocharger turbine by only looking at the global performance parameters, and by the lack of efforts to quantify the physical mechanisms associated with heat transfer. In this study, we aimed to investigate the sensitivity of performance to heat loss, to quantify the aerothermodynamic mechanisms associated with heat transfer and to study the available energy utilization by a turbocharger turbine. Exergy analysis was performed based on the predicted three-dimensional flow field by detached eddy simulation (DES). Our study showed that at a specified mass flow rate, (1) pressure ratio drop is less sensitive to heat loss as compared to turbine power reduction, (2) turbine power drop due to heat loss is relatively insignificant as compared to the exergy lost via heat transfer and thermal irreversibilities, and (3) a single-stage turbine is not an effective machine to harvest all the available exhaust energy in the system.

An experimental investigation of the geometrical parameter effects on the film cooling performance of a fan-shaped hole was conducted on a low speed flat-plate facility. The pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique and steady liquid crystal (SLC) technique were employed to determine the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficients, respectively, for a blowing ratio ranging from 0.3 to 3 and a density ratio of DR = 1.5. Several geometrical parameters were investigated, including lateral expansion angle, length-to-diameter ratio, and hole entrance shape. Local, laterally averaged, and area-averaged adiabatic film cooling effectiveness, heat transfer coefficients, and net heat flux reduction (NHFR) were shown to provide a comprehensive understanding on the geometrical parameter effects on the thermal performance. A novel method was proposed for designing a fan-shaped hole with short length-to-diameter ratio to design to achieve high film cooling performance. The original and optimized fan-shaped holes were compared in terms of adiabatic film cooling effectiveness, heat transfer coefficients, and NHFR. Results showed that the optimized fan-shaped hole with short length-to-diameter ratio, large lateral diffusion angle, and slot hole entrance shape obtained highest overall thermal performance. It demonstrated the feasibility of adopting the proposed design method to design fan-shaped holes applied in thin wall gas turbine blades.

This two-part paper deals with the influence of high-pressure turbine (HPT) purge flows on the aerodynamic performance of turbine center frames (TCF). Measurements were carried out in a product-representative one and a half-stage turbine test setup. Four individual purge mass flows differing in flow rate, pressure, and temperature were injected through the hub and tip, forward and aft cavities of the unshrouded HPT rotor. Two TCF designs, equipped with nonturning struts, were tested and compared. In this first part of the paper, the influence of different purge flow rates (PFR) is discussed, while in the second part of the paper, the impact of the individual hub and tip purge flows on the TCF aerodynamics is investigated. The acquired measurement data illustrate that the interaction of the ejected purge flow with the main flow enhances the secondary flow structures through the TCF duct. Depending on the PFR, the radial migration of purge air onto the strut surfaces directly impacts the loss behavior of the duct. The losses associated with the flow close to the struts and in the strut wakes are highly dependent on the relative position between the HPT vane and the strut leading edge (LE), as well as the interaction between vane wake and ejected purge flow. This first-time experimental assessment demonstrates that a reduction in the purge air requirement benefits the engine system performance by lowering the TCF total pressure loss.

The aerodynamic behavior of turbine center frame (TCF) ducts under the presence of high-pressure turbine (HPT) purge flows was experimentally investigated in this two-part paper. While the first part of the paper demonstrated the impact of varying the purge flow rates (PFR) on the loss behavior of two different TCF designs, the second part concentrates on the influence of individual hub and tip purge flows on the main flow evolution and loss generation mechanisms through the TCF ducts. Therefore, measurements were conducted at six different operating conditions in a one and a half stage turbine test setup, featuring four individual purge flows injected through the hub and tip, forward and aft cavities of the HPT rotor. The outcomes of this first-time assessment indicate that a HPT purge flow reduction generally benefits TCF performance. Decreasing one of the rotor case PFRs leads to an improved duct pressure loss. The purge flows from the rotor aft hub and tip cavities are demonstrated to play a particularly important role for improving the duct aerodynamic behavior. In contrast, the forward rotor hub purge flow actually stabilizes the flow in the TCF duct and reducing this purge flow can penalize TCF performance. These particular HPT/TCF interactions should be taken into account whenever high-pressure turbine purge flow reductions are pursued.

This effort focuses on the comparison of unsteadiness due to as-measured turbine blades in a transonic turbine to that obtained with blueprint geometries via computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes flow solver with the two-equation Wilcox turbulence model is used as the numerical analysis tool for comparison between the blueprint geometries and as-manufactured geometries obtained from a structured light optical measurement system. The nominal turbine CFD grid data defined for analysis of the blueprint blade were geometrically modified to reflect as-manufactured turbine blades using an established mesh metamorphosis algorithm. The approach uses a modified neural network to iteratively update the source mesh to the target mesh. In this case, the source is the interior CFD surface grid while the target is the surface blade geometry obtained from the optical scanner. Nodes interior to the CFD surface were updated using a modified iterative spring analogy to avoid grid corruption when matching as-manufactured part geometry. This approach avoids the tedious manual approach of regenerating the CFD grid and does not rely on geometry obtained from coordinate measurement machine (CMM) sections, but rather a point cloud representing the entirety of the turbine blade. Surface pressure traces and the discrete Fourier transforms (DFT) thereof from numerical predictions of as-measured geometries are then compared both to blueprint predictions and to experimental measurements. The importance of incorporating as-measured geometries in analyses to explain deviations between numerical predictions of blueprint geometries and experimental results is readily apparent. Further analysis of every casting produced in the creation of the test turbine yields variations that one can expect in both aero-performance and unsteady loading as a consequence of manufacturing tolerances. Finally, the use of measured airfoil geometries to reduce the unsteady load on a target blade in a region of interest is successfully demonstrated.

Variable geometry turbine (VGT) has been widely applied in internal combustion engines to improve the engine transient response and torque at low speed. One of the most popular variable geometry turbine is the variable nozzle turbine (VNT), in which the nozzle vanes can be rotated along the pivoting axis and thus the flow passage through the nozzle can be adjusted to match with different engine operating conditions. One disadvantage of the VNT is the turbine efficiency degradation due to the leakage flow in the nozzle endwall clearance, which is needed to allow the nozzle vanes to rotate without sticking. Especially at small nozzle open condition, there is large loading on the nozzle and high pressure gradient between the nozzle pressure and suction side. Strong leakage flow exists inside the nozzle endwall clearance from pressure side to suction side, leading to large flow loss and turbine stage efficiency degradation. In the present paper, a novel split sliding variable nozzle turbine (SSVNT) has been proposed to reduce the nozzle leakage flow and to improve turbine stage efficiency. The idea is to divide the nozzle into two parts: one part is fixed and the other part can slide along the partition surface. The mechanism of nozzle flow passage variation in SSVNT is different from that of the traditional pivoting VNT. The sliding vane and the fixed vane together form an integrated vane. The flow of the turbine is determined by the passage of the integrated vanes. When moving the sliding vane to large radius position, the nozzle flow passage opens up and the turbine has high flow capacity. When moving the sliding vane towards small radius position, the nozzle flow passage closes down and the turbine has low flow capacity. As the fixed vane doesn’t need endwall clearance, there is no leakage flow inside the fixed vane and the total leakage flow through the integrated vane can be reduced. Based on calibrated numerical modeling, the analysis results showed that there is up to 12% turbine stage efficiency improvement with the SSVNT design at small nozzle open condition while maintaining the same flow capacity and efficiency at large nozzle open condition, compared to the conventional VNT. The mechanism of efficiency improvement in the SSVNT design has also been discussed.

The present study aims at characterizing the flow field and heat transfer for a schematic but realistic vane cooling scheme. Experimentally, both velocity and heat transfer measurements are conducted to provide a detailed database of the investigated configuration. From a numerical point of view, the configuration is investigated using isotropic and anisotropic Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) turbulence models. A hybrid RANS/large eddy simulation (LES) technique is also considered to evaluate potential unsteady effects. Both experimental and numerical results show a very complex three-dimensional (3D) flow. Air is not evenly distributed between different injections, mainly because of a large recirculation flow. Due to the strong flow deviation at the hole inlet, the velocity distribution and the turbulence characteristics at the hole exit are far from fully developed profiles. The comparison between particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements and numerical results shows a reasonable agreement. However, coming to heat transfer, all RANS models exhibit a major overestimation compared to IR thermography measurements. The Billard–Laurence model does not bring any improvement compared to a classical k–ω shear stress transport (SST) model. The hybrid RANS/LES simulation provides the best heat transfer estimation, exhibiting potential unsteady effects ignored by RANS models. Those conclusions are different from the ones usually obtained for a single fully developed impinging jet.

The aspect of hub cavity purge has been investigated in a high-pressure axial low-reaction turbine stage. The cavity purge is an important part of the secondary air system, used to isolate the cavities below the hub level from the hot main annulus flow. A full-scale cold-flow experimental rig featuring a rotating stage was used in the investigation, quantifying main annulus flow field impact with respect to purge flow rate as it was injected upstream of the rotor. Five operating speeds were investigated of which three with respect to purge flow, namely, a high loading design case, and two high-speed points encompassing the peak efficiency. At each of these operating speeds, the amount of purge flow was varied from 0% to 2%. Observing the effect of the purge rate on measurement plane averaged parameters, a minor flow angle decrease and Mach number increase is seen for the low speed case, while maintaining near constant values for the higher operating speeds. The prominent effect due to purge is seen in the efficiency, showing a linear sensitivity to purge of 1.3%-points for every 1% of added purge flow for the investigated speeds. While spatial average values of flow angle and Mach number are essentially unaffected by purge injection, important spanwise variations are observed and highlighted. The secondary flow structure is strengthened in the hub region, leading to a generally increased over-turning and lowered flow velocity. Meanwhile, the added volume flow through the rotor leads to higher outlet flow velocities visible at higher span, with associated decreased turning. A radial efficiency distribution is utilized, showing negative impact through span heights from 15% to 70%. Pitchwise variation of investigated flow parameters is significantly influenced by purge flow, making this a parameter to include for instance when evaluating benefits of stator clocking positions.

Turbine vane endwalls are highly susceptible to intensive heat load due to their large exposed area and complex flow field especially for the first stage of the vane. Therefore, a suitable film cooling design that properly distributes the given amount of coolant is critical to keep the vane endwall from failure at the same time to maintain a good balance between manufacturing cost, performance, and durability. This work is focused on film cooling effectiveness evaluation on full-scale heavy-duty turbine vane endwall and the performance comparison with different film cooling pattern designs in the literature. The area of interest (AOI) of this study is on the inner endwall (hub) of turbine vane. Tests were performed in a three-vane annular sector cascade under the mainstream Reynolds number 350,000; the related inlet Mach number is 0.09 and the freestream turbulence intensity is 12%. Two variables, coolant-to-mainstream mass flow ratios (MFR = 2–4%) and density ratios (DR = 1.0, 1.5), are investigated. The conduction-error free pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique is utilized to evaluate the local flow behavior as well as the film cooling performance. The presented results are expected to provide the gas turbine engine designer a direct comparison between two film-hole configurations on a full-scale vane endwall under the same amount of coolant usage.

Blade-to-blade interactions in a low-pressure turbine (LPT) were investigated using highly resolved compressible large eddy simulations (LESs). For a realistic setup, a stator and rotor configuration with profiles typical of LPTs was used. Simulations were conducted with an in-house solver varying the gap size between stator and rotor from 21.5% to 43% rotor chord. To investigate the effect of the gap size on the prevailing loss mechanisms, a loss breakdown was conducted. It was found that in the large gap (LG) size case, the turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) levels of the stator wake close to the rotor leading edge were only one third of those in the small gap (SG) case, due to the longer distance of constant area mixing. The small time-averaged suction side separation on the blade, found in the LG case, disappeared in the SG calculations, confirming how stronger wakes can keep the boundary layer attached. The higher intensity wake impinging on the blade, however, did not affect the time-averaged losses calculated using the control volume approach of Denton. On the other hand, losses computed by taking cross sections upstream and downstream of the blade revealed a greater distortion loss generated by the stator wakes in the SG case. Despite the suction side separation suppression, the SG case gave higher losses overall due to the incoming wake turbulent kinetic energy amplification along the blade passage.