Abstract
The requirements in the design of aerofoils for gas turbines are not limited to only meeting the aerothermal performance. A typical scenario for a turbine is to understand the impact of aerofoil skew on capacity, reaction and bearing thrust load. A means to achieve the target capacity could be by skewing the aerofoil. This, however, changes the stage reaction which in turn impacts the bearing thrust load. In the case of a multi stage turbine, the work split between the stages impacts the ratio of pressure drops and hence the contribution of the individual aerofoil rows to the overall capacity and bearing thrust load variation. This paper deals with a generic approach to visualise the variation of capacity and bearing thrust load with aerofoil skew for a stage of interest along with the Constraints that could be potentially imposed on the stage.
This methodology provides a useful mapping between parameters which are directly under the aerodynamicist’s control (i.e. aerofoil skew) to module- and system-level behaviours (i.e. capacity, bearing thrust load). It thereby allows informed choices to be made throughout the design process which deliver the turbine aerodynamic performance targets whilst respecting wider system-level constraints. Suitable optimisation within this design space will yield a design that is fundamentally robust to small deviations in skew angle. Additionally, qualitative variation of the gas path static pressure and reaction based on aerofoil skews are explained pictorially to facilitate the understanding.
