Axial Loss Development in Low Pressure Turbine Cascades

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The objective of this work presented in this paper is to study the performance of low-pressure turbines in detail by extensive numerical simulations. The numerical flow simulations were conducted using the general purpose code ANSYS CFX. Particular attention is focused on the loss development in the axial direction within the flow passage of the cascade. It is shown that modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are able to break down the integral loss of the turbine profile into its components, depending on attached and separated flow areas. In addition, the numerical results allow one to show the composition of the loss depending on the Reynolds number. The method of the analysis of axial loss development presented here allows for a much more comprehensive investigation and evaluation of the quality of the numerical results. For this reason, the paper also demonstrates the capability of this method to quantify the influence of the axial velocity density ratio, the inflow turbulence level, the inflow angle, and the Reynolds number on the loss configuration and the flow angle of the cascade as well as a comparison of steady state and transient results. The validation data of this low pressure turbine (LPT) cascade have been obtained at the High Speed Cascade Wind Tunnel of the Institute of Jet Propulsion. For this purpose, experiments were conducted within the range of Re2th = 40,000 to 400,000. To gather data at realistic engine operation conditions, the wind tunnel allows for an independent variation of Reynolds and Mach number. The experimental results presented herein contain detailed pressure measurements as well as measurements with 3D hot-wire anemometry. However, this paper shows only integral values of the experimental as well as the numerical results to protect the proprietary nature of the LPT design.