Unsteady Effects on Transonic Turbine Blade-Tip Heat Transfer

In a gas turbine engine the blade tips of the high-pressure turbine are exposed to high levels of convective heat transfer, because of the so-called tip-leakage phenomenon. The blade-lift distribution is known to control the flow distribution in the blade–tip gap. However, the interaction between upstream nozzle guide vanes and the rotor blades produces a time-varying flow field that induces varying flow conditions around the blade and within the tip gap. Extensive measurements of the unsteady blade-tip heat transfer have been made in an engine representative transonic turbine. These include measurements along the mean camber line of the blade tip, which have revealed significant variation in both time-mean and time-varying heat flux. The influences of potential interaction and the vane trailing edge have been observed. Numerical calculations of the turbine stage using a Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokes-based computational fluid dynamics code have also been conducted. In combination with the experimental results, these have enabled the time-varying flow field to be probed in the blade-relative frame of reference. This has allowed a deeper analysis of the unsteady heat-transfer data, and the quantification of the impact of vane potential field and vane trailing edge interaction on the tip-region flow and heat transfer. In particular, the separate effects of time-varying flow temperature and heat-transfer coefficient have been established.