Time-Resolved Pressure Measurements at a Dual-Cavity Test Rig for Research on the Internal Air System of an Industrial Gas Turbine

Abstract

This paper reports about time-resolved examination of the pressure in a dual-cavity test rig for research on the cooling air supply of industrial gas turbines. The test rig has stationary and telemetric instrumentation. Both systems are capable of time-resolved pressure measurement. The design of the test rig is based on a simplified geometry of the internal cavities of the high pressure turbine with receiver holes and simulates the restriction imposed by internal blade cooling flow circuits. The test rig consists of a rotor-stator cavity and a rotor-rotor cavity. The Stage One and Stage Two supplies are separated inside the rotor-stator cavity. The air enters axially without pre-swirl at the outer radius of the stator and leaves the rotor-stator cavity through three rotating, axially directed connecting holes at a radius that varies among the investigated cases. Therefore, different flow paths in the cavities are studied. The research is focused on the branched cooling air supply system, but the flow path can also be analyzed separately. The rim seal flow is not examined in the research work presented here. Pressure fluctuations in the main gas path caused, for instance, by blade passing and combustor noise, are a well-known phenomenon and therefore the subject of current research, whereas experimental examinations of the pressure fluctuations in the internal air system of gas turbines are very rare. A detailed examination of the pressure in the internal air system is significant in light of the pressure difference between the main gas path and internal air system, which is the driving force for hot gas ingestion. In that sense, the difference between the average pressure on the main gas side to the average pressure in the internal air system is not enough to avoid hot gas ingestion. Therefore, this paper focuses on pressure fluctuations in the internal cavities. The measurements of the pressure fluctuations in the rotor-stator cavity are presented for different operating conditions. The influence of the rotational speed, the mass flow rate, the flow path and the sensor position in the cavity on the time-resolved pressure is examined. Furthermore, time-resolved pressure measurements from the rotor-rotor cavity are presented. Variations of the axial gap size and the radial location of the connecting holes respective to the outlets of the rotor-stator cavity are described.