Clocking effects on aerodynamics of a gas turbine low pressure axial turbine, part 2: Unsteady simulation

Abstract

Unsteady, viscous compressible flow is numerically simulated within first two stages of a low pressure turbine of a gas turbine engine under different clocking of its stator blades rows. Zonal DES turbulence modeling has been used for flow simulations. Time-dependent wake flow trajectory is modeled and visualized within the blades passages. All characteristics of the passage wake flow, including its V-shape motion, re-orientation, elongation, expansion, and stretching, are properly simulated. Unsteady flow field results together with those of general aerodynamic performance of the optimum and worst clocking cases are presented and compared with each other. Analyses of the flow simulation results showed that the optimum clocking of the blades rows occurs while the upstream wake flow impinges on the downstream stator blade leading edge region. Final results demonstrated that under the optimum clocking of the second stator, the inlet total pressure of the second rotor blades row and its output power increase by 0.1% and 0.336%, respectively. Consequently, efficiency of the second stage increases by 0.35%. In addition, total output power of the whole two stages increases by 0.237%.