Investigation of Unsteady Aerodynamic Blade Excitation Mechanisms in Transonic Turbine Stages

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the blade pressure perturbation levels and the resulting rotor blade force in three high-pressure transonic turbine stages, based on three-dimensional unsteady viscous computations. The aim is to identify stage characteristics that correlate with the perturbation strength and degree of force realization on the rotor blades. To address the effects of off-design operation, the computations were performed at high subsonic, design and higher vane exit Mach number operating conditions. Furthermore spanwise variations in pressure levels and blade force are addressed. In our investigation the RMS of the pressure perturbations integrated in both time and along the blade surface is utilized as a global measure of the blade pressure perturbation strength on the rotor blade surface. The relative strength of the different pressure perturbation events on the rotor blade surface is also investigated. To obtain information about the relative strength of events related to the blade passing frequency the pressure field is Fourier decomposed in time at different radial positions along the blade arc-length. With the help of the observations and results from the blade pressure study, the radial variations of the unsteady blade force are addressed.