Aerothermal Investigations of Tip Leakage Flow in Axial Flow Turbines—Part II: Effect of Relative Casing Motion

Abstract

A numerical study has been performed to investigate the effect of casing motion on the tip leakage flow and heat transfer characteristics in unshrouded axial flow turbines. The relative motion between the blade tip and the casing was simulated by moving the casing in a direction from the suction side to the pressure side of the stationary blade. Base line flat tip geometry and squealer type geometries, namely, double squealer or cavity and suction side squealer, were considered at a clearance gap of 1.6%C. The computations were performed using a single blade with periodic boundary conditions imposed along the boundaries in the pitchwise direction. Turbulence was modeled using the shear stress transport k-ω model. The flow conditions correspond to an exit Reynolds number of 2.3×105. The results were compared to those obtained without the relative casing motion reported in Part I of this paper. In general, the effect of relative casing motion was to decrease the tip leakage mass flow and the average heat transfer to the tip due to the decrease in leakage flow velocity caused by a drop in driving pressure difference. Compared to the computations with stationary casing, in the case of all the three geometries considered, the average heat transfer to the suction surface of the blade was found to be larger in the case of the computations with relative casing motion. At a larger clearance gap of 2.8%C, in case of a flat tip, while the tip leakage mass flow decreased due to relative casing motion, only a smaller change in the average heat transfer to the tip and the suction surface of the blade was noticed.