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The design and experimental investigation of a 4.5-inch-mean-diameter two-stage turbine are presented herein and used to study the effect of size on the efficiency of turbines in the auxiliary power drive class. The results of the experimental investigation indicated that design specific work was obtained at design speed at a total-to-static efficiency of 0.639. At design pressure ratio, design static-pressure distribution through the turbine was obtained with an equivalent specific work output of 33.2 Btu per pound and an efficiency of 0.656. It was found that, in the design of turbines in the auxiliary power drive class, Reynolds number plays an important part in the selection of the design efficiency. Comparison with theoretical efficiencies based on a loss coefficient and velocity diagrams are presented. Close agreement was obtained between theory and experiment when the loss coefficient was adjusted for changes in Reynolds number to the -1/5 power.

The effect of stator and rotor aspect ratio on transonic-turbine performance was experimentally investigated. The stator aspect ratios covered were 1.6. 0.8, and 0.4, while the rotor aspect ratios investigated were 1.46 and 0.73. It was found that the observed variation in turbine design-point efficiency was negligible. Thus, within the range of aspect ratio investigated, these results verify for turbines operating in the transonic flow range the finding of a reference report, which showed analytically that, if blade shape and solidity are held constant, the aspect ratio may be varied over a wide range without appreciable change in turbine efficiency.

A transonic turbine with a stator trailing-edge thickness reduced from 0.030 to 0.010 inch has been investigated experimentally. The performance results indicated an increase in efficiency of 0.6 of a point at design operation, and as much as 2.4 points at off-design conditions, as a result of reducing the trailing-edge thickness. This improvement could only be partially accounted for by the theoretical change in mixing loss for the two stator-blade rows, and it was felt that the improvement was largely due to a reduced amount of low-velocity fluids entering the rotor and the interference effect of these fluids whth the mainstream flow.

The experimental performance of a modified turbine for driving a supersonic compressor is presented and compared with the performance of the original configuration to illustrate the effect of small changes in the ratio of nozzle-throat area to rotor-throat area. Performance is based on the performance of turbines designed to operate with both blade rows close to choking. On the basis of the results of this investigation, the ratio of areas is concluded to become especially critical in the design of turbines such as those designed to drive high-speed, high-specific weight-flow compressors where the turbine nozzles and rotor are both very close to choking.