Structural and Aerodynamical Parametric Study of Truss-Core Gas Turbine Rotor Blade

Abstract

Improvement of turbine blades is currently the prime area of research dedicated to the development of more efficient gas turbines. This study examines the structural performance of the gas turbine rotor and stator blades with the implementation of Kagome truss-core structure as inner topology. The truss-core structure was hypothesised to improve the stress behaviour of the blade by reducing the mass and, hence, the centrifugal force induced by rotation, while remaining robust enough to withstand bending stress induced by the flow. In order to analyse the stress state of the truss-core model, fluid flow analysis of transonic turbomachinery was performed via the Frozen Rotor technique in ANSYS CFX and then coupled with ANSYS Mechanical. As a result, the combined surface load of the rotor was obtained and used to estimate the structural performance. By examining the obtained complex stress state of the rotor blades, the truss-core density-dependent structural performance was derived for the given initial and boundary conditions.