Computation and Simulation of Wake-Generated Unsteady Pressure and Boundary Layers in Cascades: Part 2—Simulation of Unsteady Boundary Layer Flow Physics

Abstract

The unsteady pressure and boundary layers on a turbomachinery blade row arising from periodic wakes due to upstream blade rows are investigated in this paper. Numerical simulations are carried out to understand the effects of the wake velocity defect and the wake turbulence intensity on the development of unsteady blade boundary layers. The boundary layer transition on the blade is found to be strongly influenced by the unsteady wake passing. Periodic transitional patches are generated by the high turbulence intensity in the passing wakes and transported downstream. The time-dependent transition results in large unsteadiness in the instantaneous local skin friction coefficient and a smoother time-averaged transition curve than the one observed in the steady boundary layer. A parametric study is then carried out to determine the influence of wake parameters on the development of the unsteady blade boundary layers. It is shown that the unsteadiness in the blade boundary layer increases with a decrease in the axial gap, an increase in wake/blade count ratio, or an increase in the wake traverse speed. The time-averaged boundary layer momentum thickness at the trailing edge of the blade is found to increase significantly for higher wake/blade count ratio and larger wake traverse speed. Increase of the wake/blade count ratio also results in higher frictional drag of the blade.