Application of RANS and LES to the Prediction of Flows in High Pressure Turbine Components

Abstract

This paper investigates the capability of numerical simulations to estimate unsteady flows and wall heat fluxes in turbine components with both structured and unstructured flow solvers. Different numerical approaches are assessed, from steady-state methods based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations to more sophisticated methods such as the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) technique. Three test cases are investigated: the vortex shedding induced by a turbine guide vane, the wall heat transfer in another turbine guide vane and a separated flow phenomenon in an internal turbine cooling channel. Steady flow simulations usually fail to predict the mean effects of unsteady flows (such as vortex shedding) and wall heat transfer, mainly because laminar-to turbulent transition and the inlet turbulent intensity are not correctly taken into account. Actually, only the LES (partially) succeeds to accurately estimate unsteady flows and wall heat fluxes in complex configurations. The results presented in this paper indicate that this method considerably improves the level of physical description (including boundary layer transition). However, the LES still requires developments and validations for such complex flows. This study also points out the dependency of results to parameters such as the freestream turbulence intensity. When feasible solutions obtained with both structured and unstructured flow solvers are compared to experimental data.