Large-Eddy Simulation of Turbine Rim Seal Flow

Abstract

The flow field in a complete one-stage axial-flow turbine with 30 stator and 62 rotor blades is investigated by large-eddy simulation (LES). To solve the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, a massively parallelized finite-volume flow solver based on an efficient Cartesian cut-cell/level-set approach, which ensures a strict conservation of mass, momentum and energy, is used. This numerical method contains two adaptive Cartesian meshes, one mesh to track the embedded surface boundaries and a second mesh to resolve the fluid domain and to solve the conservation equations. The overall approach allows large scale simulations of turbomachinery applications with multiple relatively moving boundaries in a single frame of reference. The relative motion of the geometries is described by a kinematic motion level-set interface method. The focus of the numerical analysis is on the flow inside the cavity between the stator and the rotor disks. Full 360° computations of the turbine stage with a single lip rim seal geometry are conducted. First, the impact of the mesh resolution on the LES results is analyzed. Second, the LES results are compared to experimental data, followed by a detailed analysis of the flow field inside the rotor-stator wheel space. A dominant mode unrelated to the rotor frequency and its harmonics is identified, which shows a major impact on the ingress of the hot gas into the rotor-stator wheel space.