Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Mistuned Aerodynamic Influence Coefficients in an Oscillating LPT Cascade

Abstract

The effect of aerodynamic mistuning on the aerodynamic damping in an oscillating Low-Pressure Turbine (LPT) cascade is investigated. The considered aerodynamic mistuning is caused by blade-to-blade stagger angle variations. The study is carried out experimentally and numerically by employing the influence coefficient method. On the experimental side a sector cascade is used where one of the blades is made oscillating in three orthogonal modes. The unsteady blade surface pressure is acquired on the oscillating blade and two neighbour blades and reduced to aeroelastic stability data. By gradually de-staggering the oscillating blade, aerodynamically mistuned influence coefficients are acquired. On the numerical side full-scale time-marching RANS CFD simulations are performed using nominal and de-staggered blades. The study shows that variations in blade-to-blade stagger angle affect the aerodynamic influence coefficients and as a consequence overall aeroelastic stability. Whereas discrepancies are found in the exact prediction of mistuned influence coefficients compared to measured, the overall magnitude and trends are well captured.