Unsteady Passing Wake Effects on Turbine Blade Tip Aerodynamic and Aerothermal Performance With Film Cooling

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, upstream unsteady passing wake effects on the rotor blade tip with film cooling have been numerically examined. The geometry and flow conditions of the first stage of GE-E3 high-pressure turbine have been used to obtain the unsteady three-dimensional blade tip flow and heat transfer characteristics. The first stage of GE-E3 high-pressure turbine has 46 guide vanes and 76 rotor blades. In the process of calculation, compromise the computational resources and accuracy to simplify the number of the guide vane and rotor blade to 38:76. Namely, each computational domain comprises of one guide vane and two rotor blades. The computational boundary conditions are consistent with the GE-E3 annular cascade test conditions. In the case of 1% blade span tip clearance, through comparing the steady results, time-averaged and time-resolved unsteady results, the investigation of the unsteady passing wake effects on flat tip aerodynamic and aerothermal performance without film cooling holes (NC) and three cases with film cooling holes are conducted. To be specific, near the leading edge (C123), at the central area (C456) and near the trailing edge (C789). This paper emphasizes the variation of leakage flow and heat transfer coefficient at different unsteady instants. The results show that the time-averaged leakage flow is pretty similar to the steady results, but the increment of the leakage flow can rise to more than 8% at the maximum envelope. Moreover, the heat transfer coefficient discrepancy between steady results and time-averaged results is almost below 4%, but the dramatic growth of the instantaneous heat transfer coefficient along the pressure side is in excess of 20% due to the shift of the pressure spot.