An Experimental and Computational Study of Transonic Three-Dimensional Flow in a Turbine Cascade

Detailed experimental measurements of the flow in a cascade of turbine rotor blades with a nonplanar end wall are reported. The cascade geometry was chosen to model as closely as possible that of a H.P. gas turbine rotor blade. The blade section is designed for supersonic flow with an exit Mach number of 1.15 and the experiments covered a range of exit Mach numbers from 0.7–1.2. Significant three-dimensional effects were observed and the origin of these is discussed. The measurements are compared with data for the same blade section in a two-dimensional cascade and also with the predictions of two different fully three-dimensional inviscid flow calculation methods. It is found that both these calculations predict the major three-dimensional effects on the flow correctly.