Effect of Blade Tip Clearance on Turbine Shroud Heat/Mass Transfer

This study investigates the local heat/mass transfer characteristics on the stationary shroud with blade tip clearances for flat tip geometry. A large scale linear cascade is used and the relative motion between the blade and shroud is neglected in this study. A naphthalene sublimation method is employed to determine the detailed local heat/mass transfer coefficients on the shroud surface. The geometry of blade tip used in this study is flat and the tip clearance varies from 0.66% to 2.85% of the blade chord length. The flow enters the gap between the blade tip and shroud at the pressure side due to the pressure difference. Therefore, the heat/mass transfer characteristics on the shroud are changed significantly from those for no tip clearance. High heat/mass transfer region is observed along the pressure side of blade due to the entrance effect and the acceleration of the tip gap flow. Complex heat transfer patterns on the shroud are observed in the region where the blade tip and shroud are overlapped due to the flow separation and reattachment. Then, the heat/mass transfer coefficients on the shroud increase along the suction side of blade because tip leakage vortices are generated with interacting the main flow. The experimental results show that the heat/mass transfer characteristics are changed significantly with the gap distance between the tip of turbine blade and the shroud. However, the turbulence intensity of incoming flow has little influence on the heat/mass transfer coefficients on the shroud with tip clearance.