Open AccessInvestigation of Tip Leakage Effects in Transonic Flow Using a Parallel Unstructured Navier-Stokes Code
Author(s) -
C-W. Hustad,
A. Bölcs,
M. U. Wehner
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
volume 1: aircraft engine; marine; turbomachinery; microturbines and small turbomachinery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
DOI - 10.1115/97-gt-202
Subject(s) - transonic , mach number , cascade , supersonic speed , inflow , mechanics , turbine blade , boundary layer , flow (mathematics) , turbine , computer science , physics , mechanical engineering , aerodynamics , engineering , chemical engineering
Calculated results for tip flow around two different blade configurations are presented and compared with experimental data. The first configuration (case number 1) is a flat-plate profile tested in a linear transonic tunnel — the profile is an idealized representation of the aft-section of some highly curved turbine blades. The second configuration (case number 2) originates from the outer profile on the last-stage-blade of a steam turbine, however it is also reminiscient of a section from a turbine blade with supersonic exit flow. This configuration was tested in an annular cascade at Mach numbers representative of engine operating conditions. The computed results were obtained using a parallel 3D unstructured Navier-Stokes code. The code runs on a work-station cluster, as well as being optimized for the 256 processor Cray T3D at EPFL: the code is capable of gigaflop performance using more than 3 million cells — adaptive mesh refinement thus allows enhanced resolution within the tip gap region. For each configuration we have calculated two Runs. In both cases, Run-1 is similar to the experimental conditions, so that direct comparison between measured and calculated results is possible. With case number 1/Run-2 we re-calculated the flow without imposing a prescribed inflow boundary-layer along the sidewall. Comparison between the two runs helped reveal how free-stream total pressure can establish itself within the tip gap region. For the second configuration — in the annular cascade — we were interested in observing the influence of relative movement between the blade tip and adjacent sidewall. Hence for case number 2/Run-2 we imposed a circumferential velocity on the adjacent sidewall. This modified the effective sidewall boundary-layer and had a noticeable influence on the development of the tip-leakage flow.