Transition Effects on Secondary Flows in a Turbine Cascade

Abstract

The regions of laminar and turbulent flow have been investigated in a linear cascade of a high tuming HP rotor blades. Measurements of intermittency close to the blade and end wall surfaces have shown substantial areas of laminar and transitional flow. The implications for turbulence modelling are important, and Navier-Stokes computations have been performed to investigate how well transition can be modelled in such a flow. Using the intermittency data to specify transitional areas, the mixing length model of turbulence produces excellent results, although there is some sensitivity to the assumed freestream length scale. High Reynolds k-ε model results show too much turbulence and loss using the measured high inlet length scale, but the results are improved with the Kato-Launder modification. A low Reynolds number model does not seem to predict the transition effects, although more work is required with this model.