Experimental and Computational Study of Novel Tip Leakage Mitigation Methods for High Pressure Turbine Blades

This paper presents computational and experimental study of a possible approach to reduce tip leakage losses. The study was conducted on the EEE (Energy Efficient Engine) HPT (High Pressure Turbine) rotor tip geometry. The CFD was done utilizing the commercial numerical solver ANSYS FLUENT. The experimental work was conducted in a low speed wind tunnel with linear cascade at the USNA (for Re = 30,000) and the NASA Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade facility at the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center for Re of 85,000 to 683,000 at two isentropic exit Mach numbers of 0.74 and 0.34 were reported. The overall scope of this study is to investigate how the tip leakage and overall blade losses are affected by injection from the tip surface at the camber line, and the jet blowing ratio. The results identify areas where future investigation can be explored in order to achieve higher performance of the high pressure turbines.