Wake, Shock and Potential Field Interactions in a 1.5 Stage Turbine: Part II — Vane-Vane Interaction and Discussion of Results

The composition of the time-resolved surface pressure field around a high-pressure rotor blade caused by the presence of neighbouring blade rows is investigated with the individual effects of wake, shock and potential field interaction being determined. Two test geometries are considered: first, a high-pressure turbine stage coupled with a swan-necked diffuser exit duct; secondly, the same high-pressure stage but with a vane located in the downstream duct. Both tests were conducted at engine-representative Mach and Reynolds numbers and experimental data was acquired using fast-response pressure transducers mounted on the mid-height streamline of the HP rotor blades. The results are compared to time-resolved computational predictions of the flowfield in order to aid interpretation of experimental results and to determine the accuracy with which the computation predicts blade interaction. In the first half of this paper it is shown that, in addition to the two main interaction mechanisms (upstream vane-rotor and rotor-downstream vane interactions, presented in Miller et al. [1]) a third interaction occurs. This new interaction mechanism is shown to be caused by the interaction between the downstream vane’s potential field and the upstream vane’s trailing edge potential field and shock. The unsteady rotor surface static pressure fluctuations caused by this interaction are shown to occur on the late rotor suction surface at a frequency corresponding to the difference in the numbers of upstream and downstream vanes. The second part to the paper discusses the mechanisms that cause vane-rotor-vane interaction. The rotor’s operating point is periodically altered as it passes the downstream vane. It is shown that for a large downstream vane, the flow conditions in the rotor passage, at any instant in time, are close to being steady state.