The Use of Hot-Wire Anemometry to Investigate Unsteady Wake-Induced Boundary-Layer Development on a High Lift LP Turbine Cascade

Abstract

Recent research has revealed positive effects of unsteady flow on the development of boundary layers in turbine cascades, especially at conditions with a laminar suction side separation bubble at low Reynolds-numbers. Compared to steady flow a reduction of total pressure loss coefficient over a broad range of Reynolds-numbers has been shown. Taking into account the positive effects of wake-induced transition already during the design process, new high lift bladings with nearly the same low losses at unsteady inlet flow conditions could be achieved. This leads to a reduction of weight and cost of the whole turbine module for a constant stage loading. Unsteady flow in turbomachines is caused by the relative motion of rotor and stator rows. For simulating a moving blade row upstream of a linear cascade in the High Speed Cascade Wind Tunnel of the Universität der Bundeswehr München, a wake generator has been designed and built. The wakes are generated with bars, moving with a velocity of up to 40 m/s in the test section upstream of the cascade inlet plane. Unsteady flow causes the transition on the surface of the suction side of a low pressure turbine blade to move upstream whenever an incoming wake is present on the surface, moreover a laminar separation bubble can be diminished or even suppressed. In order to detect the effects of wakes on the boundary layer development a new hot-wire data acquisition system is required. Due to the fact that hot-wires give a good insight into boundary layer development a new hot-wire data acquisition system has been set up. The anemometry system is able of acquiring four channels simultaneously, therefore being capable of logging a triple hot-wire sensor and a bar trigger simultaneously. One further channel is utilised for a once-per revolution trigger. The once-per revolution trigger is used to start the measurement of one data block. Using the well established ensemble averaging technique, 300 ensembles each consisting of 5 wake passing periods have been acquired. Ensemble averaging can be directly performed without any data reduction. The adaptation of this new hot-wire anemometry data acquisition system to the High Speed Cascade Wind Tunnel of the Universität der Bundeswehr München is pointed out. First results on unsteady periodic boundary layer development of a highly loaded low pressure turbine cascade under unsteady inlet flow conditions are presented. During the present investigation four boundary layer traverses, ranging from x/lax = 0.82 to x/lax = 0.99 (suction side), at steady and unsteady inlet flow conditions (Ubar = 10 m/s) at an outlet Reynolds-number of Re2th = 100000 have been conducted.