Effects of tip clearance size and flowrate on the flow around the tip of an axial turbomachine rotor are studied experimentally. Visualizations and stereo-particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements in a refractive index-matched facility compare the performance, leakage velocity, and the trajectory, growth rate, and strength of the tip leakage vortex (TLV) for gaps of 0.49% and 2.3% of the blade chord, and two flowrates. Enlarging the tip clearance delays the TLV breakup in the aft part of the rotor passage at high flowrates but causes earlier breakup under pre-stall conditions. It also reduces the entrainment of endwall boundary layer vorticity from the separation point where the leakage and passage flows meet. Reducing the flowrate or tip gap shifts the location of the TLV detachment from the blade suction side (SS) upstream to points where the leakage velocity is 70–80% of the tip speed. Once detached, the growth rates of the total shed circulation are similar for all cases, i.e., varying the gap or flowrate mostly shifts the detachment point. The TLV migration away from the SS decreases with an increasing gap but not with the flowrate. Two mechanisms dominate this migration: initially, the leakage jet pushes the TLV away from the blade at 50% of the leakage velocity. Further downstream, the TLV is driven by its image on the other side of the endwall. Differences in migration rate are caused by the smaller distance between the TLV and its image for the narrow gap, and the increase in initial TLV strength with decreasing flowrate and gap.

The effect of film cooling on a transonic squealer tip has been examined in a high speed linear cascade, which operates at engine-realistic Mach and Reynolds numbers. Tests have been performed on two uncooled tip geometries with differing pressure side rim edge radii, and a cooled tip matching one of the uncooled cases. The pressure sensitive paint technique has been used to measure adiabatic film cooling effectiveness on the blade tip at a range of tip gaps and coolant mass flow rates. Complementary tip heat transfer coefficients have been measured using transient infrared thermography, and the effects of the coolant film on the tip heat transfer and engine heat flux were examined. The uncooled data show that the tip heat transfer coefficient distribution is governed by the nature of flow reattachments and impingements. The squealer tip can be broken down into three regions, each exhibiting a distinct response to a change in the tip gap, depending on the local behavior of the overtip leakage flow. Complementary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) shows that the addition of casing motion causes no change in the flow over the pressure side rim. Injected coolant interacts with the overtip leakage flow, which can locally enhance the tip heat transfer coefficient. The film effectiveness is dependent on both the coolant mass flow rate and tip clearance. At increased coolant mass flow, areas of high film effectiveness on the pressure side rim coincide strongly with a net heat flux reduction and in the subsonic tip region with low heat transfer coefficient.

Blade flutter in the last stage is an important design consideration for the manufacturers of steam turbines. Therefore, the accurate prediction method for blade flutter is critical. Since the majority of aerodynamic work contributing to flutter is done near the blade tip, resolving the tip leakage flow can increase the accuracy of flutter predictions. The previous research has shown that the induced vortices in the tip region can have a significant influence on the flow field near the tip. The structure of induced vortices due to the tip leakage vortex cannot be resolved by unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulations because of the high dissipation in turbulence models. To the best of author’s knowledge, the influence of induced vortices on flutter characteristics has not been investigated. In this paper, the results of detached-eddy simulation (DES) and URANS flutter simulations of a realistic-scale last-stage steam turbine are presented, and the influence of induced vortices on the flutter stability has been investigated. Significant differences for the predicted aerodynamic work coefficient distribution on the blade surface, especially on the rear half of the blade suction side near the tip, are observed. At the least stable interblade phase angle (IBPA), the induced vortices show a destabilizing effect on the blade aeroelastic stability. The motion of induced vortices during blade oscillation is dependent on the blade amplitude, and hence, the aerodynamic damping is also dependent on the blade vibration amplitude. In conclusion, the induced vortices can influence the predicted flutter characteristics of the steam turbine test case.

The optimum aspect ratio at which maximum efficiency occurs is relatively low, typically between 1 and 1.5. At these aspect ratios, inaccuracies inherently exist in the decomposition of the flow field into freestream and endwall components due to the absence of a discernible freestream. In this paper, a unique approach is taken: a “linear repeating stage” concept is used in conjunction with a novel way of defining the freestream flow. Through this approach, physically accurate decomposition of the flow field for aspect ratios as low as ∼0.5 can be achieved. This ability to accurately decompose the flow leads to several key findings. First, the endwall flow is found to be dependent on static pressure rise coefficient and endwall geometry, but independent of the aspect ratio. Second, the commonly accepted relationship that endwall loss coefficient varies inversely with the aspect ratio is shown to be physically inaccurate. Instead, a new term, which the authors refer to as the “effective aspect ratio,” should replace the term “aspect ratio.” Moreover, not doing so can result in efficiency errors of ∼0.6% at low aspect ratios. Finally, there exists a low aspect ratio limit below which the two endwall flows interact causing a large separation to occur along the span. From these findings, a low-order model is developed to model the effect of varying aspect ratio on compressor performance. The last section of the paper uses this low-order model and a simple analytical model to show that to a first order, the optimum aspect ratio is just a function of the loss generated by the endwalls at zero clearance and the rate of change in profile loss due to blade thickness. This means that once the endwall configuration has been selected, i.e., cantilever or shroud, the blade thickness sets the optimum aspect ratio.

Impinging jet arrays are typically used to cool several gas turbine parts. Some examples of such applications can be found in the internal cooling of high-pressure turbine airfoils or in the turbine blade tip clearances control of aero-engines. The effect of the wall-to-jets temperature ratio (TR) on heat transfer is generally neglected by the correlations available in the open literature. In the present contribution, the impact of the temperature ratio on the heat transfer for a real engine active clearance control system is analyzed by means of validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computations. At different jets Reynolds number and considering several impingement array arrangements, a wide range of target wall-to-jets temperature ratio is accounted for. Computational results prove that both local and averaged Nusselt numbers reduce with increasing. An in-depth analysis of the numerical data shows that the last mentioned evidence is motivated by both the heat transfer incurring between the spent coolant flow and the fresh jets and the variation of gas properties with temperature through the boundary layer. A scaling procedure, based on the TR power law, was proposed to estimate the Nusselt number at different wall temperature levels necessary to correct available open-literature correlations, typically developed with small temperature differences, for real engine applications.

This paper describes the role of tip leakage flow in creating the leading edge separation necessary for the onset of spike-type compressor rotating stall. A series of unsteady multipassage simulations, supported by experimental data, are used to define and illustrate the two competing mechanisms that cause the high incidence responsible for this separation: blockage from a casing-suction-surface corner separation and forward spillage of the tip leakage jet. The axial momentum flux in the tip leakage flow determines which mechanism dominates. At zero tip clearance, corner separation blockage dominates. As clearance is increased, the leakage flow reduces blockage, moving the stall flow coefficient to lower flow, i.e., giving a larger unstalled flow range. Increased clearance, however, means increased leakage jet momentum and contribution to leakage jet spillage. There is thus a clearance above which jet spillage dominates in creating incidence, so the stall flow coefficient increases and flow range decreases with clearance. As a consequence, there is a clearance for maximum flow range; for the two rotors in this study, the value was approximately 0.5% chord. The chordwise distribution of the leakage axial momentum is also important in determining stall onset. Shifting the distribution toward the trailing edge increases flow range for a leakage jet dominated geometry and reduces flow range for a corner separation dominated geometry. Guidelines are developed for flow range enhancement through control of tip leakage flow axial momentum magnitude and distribution. An example is given of how this might be achieved.

The current industrial standard for numerical simulations of axial compressors is the steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approach. Besides the well-known limitations of mixing planes, namely their inherent inability to capture the potential interaction and the wakes from the upstream blades, there is another flow feature which is lost, and which is a major accountable for the radial mixing: the transport of streamwise vorticity. Streamwise vorticity is generated for various reasons, mainly associated with secondary and tip-clearance flows. A strong link exists between the strain field associated with the vortices and the mixing augmentation: the strain field increases both the area available for mixing and the local gradients in fluid properties, which provide the driving potential for the mixing. In the rear compressor stages, due to high clearances and low aspect ratios, only accounting for the development of secondary and clearance flow structures, it is possible to properly predict the spanwise mixing. In this work, the results of steady and unsteady simulations on a heavy-duty axial compressor are compared with experimental data. Adopting an unsteady framework, the enhanced mixing in the rear stages is properly captured, in remarkable agreement with experimental distributions. On the contrary, steady analyses strongly underestimate the radial transport. It is inferred that the streamwise vorticity associated with clearance flows is a major driver of radial mixing, and restraining it by pitch-averaging the flow at mixing planes is the reason why the steady approach cannot predict the radial transport in the rear part of the compressor.

Optimal turbine blade tip designs have the potential to enhance aerodynamic performance while reducing the thermal loads on one of the most vulnerable parts of the gas turbine. This paper describes a novel strategy to perform a multi-objective optimization of the tip geometry of a cooled turbine blade. The parameterization strategy generates arbitrary rim shapes around the coolant holes on the blade tip. The tip geometry performance is assessed using steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations with the k– ω shear stress transport (SST) model for the turbulence closure. The fluid domain is discretized with hexahedral elements, and the entire optimization is performed using identical mesh characteristics in all simulations. This is done to ensure an adequate comparison among all investigated designs. Isothermal walls were imposed at engine-representative levels to compute the convective heat flux for each case. The optimization objectives were a reduction in heat load and an increase in turbine row efficiency. The multi-objective optimization is performed using a differential evolution strategy. Improvements were achieved in both the aerodynamic efficiency and heat load reduction, relative to a conventional squealer tip arrangement. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that the inclusion of over-tip coolant flows impacts the over-tip flow field, and that the rim–coolant interaction can be used to create a synergistic performance enhancement.

Determination of a scalable Nusselt number (based on “adiabatic heat transfer coefficient”) has been the primary objective of the most existing heat transfer experimental studies. Based on the assumption that the wall thermal boundary conditions do not affect the flow field, the thermal measurements were mostly carried out at near adiabatic condition without matching the engine realistic wall-to-gas temperature ratio (TR). Recent numerical studies raised a question on the validity of this conventional practice in some applications, especially for turbine blade. Due to the relatively low thermal inertia of the over-tip-leakage (OTL) flow within the thin clearance, the fluids' transport properties vary greatly with different wall thermal boundary conditions and the two-way coupling between OTL aerodynamics and heat transfer cannot be neglected. The issue could become more severe when the gas turbine manufacturers are making effort to achieve much tighter clearance. However, there has been no experimental evidence to back up these numerical findings. In this study, transient thermal measurements were conducted in a high-temperature linear cascade rig for a range of tip clearance ratio (G/S) (0.3%, 0.4%, 0.6%, and 1%). Surface temperature history was captured by infrared thermography at a range of wall-to-gas TRs. Heat transfer coefficient (HTC) distributions were obtained based on a conventional data processing technique. The profound influence of tip surface thermal boundary condition on heat transfer and OTL flow was revealed by the first-of-its-kind experimental data obtained in the present experimental study.

The dimensionless model presented in part I of the corresponding paper to describe the flutter onset of two-fin rotating seals is exploited to extract valuable engineering trends with the design parameters. The analytical expression for the nondimensional work-per-cycle depends on three dimensionless parameters of which two of them are new. These parameters are simple but interrelate the effect of the pressure ratio, the height, and length of the interfin geometry, the seal clearance, the nodal diameter (ND), the fluid swirl velocity, the vibration frequency, and the torsion center location in a compact and intricate manner. It is shown that nonrelated physical parameters can actually have an equivalent impact on seal stability. It is concluded that the pressure ratio can be stabilizing or destabilizing depending on the case, whereas the swirl of the flow is always destabilizing. Finally, a simple method to extend the model to multiple interfin cavities, neglecting the unsteady interaction among them, is described.

In this paper, the effect of a novel honeycomb tip on suppressing tip leakage flow in turbine cascade has been experimentally and numerically studied. Compared to the flat tip cascade with 1%H blade height, the relative leakage flow in honeycomb tip cascade reduces from 3.05% to 2.73%, and the loss also decreases by 8.24%. For honeycomb tip, a number of small vortices are rolled up in the regular hexagonal honeycomb cavities to dissipate the kinetic energy of the clearance flow, and the fluid flowing into and out the cavities create aerodynamic interceptions to the upper clearance flow. As a result, the flow resistance in the clearance increased and the velocity of leakage flow reduced. As the gap height increases, the tip leakage flow and loss changes proportionally, but the growth rate in the honeycomb tip cascade is smaller. Considering its wear resistance of the honeycomb seal, a smaller gap height is allowed in the cascade with honeycomb tip, and that means honeycomb tip has better effect on suppressing leakage flow. Part honeycomb tip structure also retains the effect of suppressing leakage flow. It shows that locally convex honeycomb tip has better suppressing leakage flow effect than the whole honeycomb tip, but locally concave honeycomb tip is slightly less effective.

During engine operation, fan casing abradable liners are worn by the blade tip, resulting in the formation of trenches. This paper describes the influence of these trenches on the fan blade tip aerodynamics. A detailed understanding of the fan tip flow features for cropped and trenched clearances is first developed. A parametric model is then used to model trenches in the casing above the blade tip and varying blade tip positions. It is shown that increasing clearance via a trench reduces performance by less than increasing clearance through cropping the blade tip. A response surface method is then used to generate a model that can predict fan efficiency for a given set of clearance and trench parameters. This model can be used to influence fan blade design and understand engine performance degradation in service. It is shown that an efficiency benefit can be achieved by increasing the amount of tip rubbing, leading to a greater portion of the tip clearance sat within the trench. It is shown that the efficiency sensitivity to clearance is biased toward the leading edge (LE) for cropped tips and the trailing edge (TE) for trenches.

Variable geometry turbine (VGT) has been widely applied in internal combustion engines to improve engine transient response and torque at light load. One of the most popular VGTs is the variable nozzle turbine (VNT) in which the nozzle vanes can be rotated along the pivoting axis and thus the flow passage through the nozzle can be adjusted to match with different engine operating conditions. One disadvantage of the VNT is the turbine efficiency degradation due to the leakage flow in the nozzle endwall clearance, especially at small nozzle open condition. With the purpose to reduce the nozzle leakage flow and to improve turbine stage efficiency, a novel split sliding variable nozzle turbine (SSVNT) has been proposed. In the SSVNT design, the nozzle is divided into two parts: one part is fixed and the other part can move along the partition surface. When sliding the moving vane to large radius position, the nozzle flow passage opens up and the turbine has high flow capacity. When sliding the moving vane to small radius position, the nozzle flow passage closes down and the turbine has low flow capacity. As the fixed vane does not need endwall clearance, the leakage flow through the nozzle can be reduced. Based on calibrated numerical simulation, there is up to 12% turbine stage efficiency improvement with the SSVNT design at small nozzle open condition while maintaining the same performance at large nozzle open condition. The mechanism of efficiency improvement in the SSVNT design has been discussed.

Since the early work on axial compressors, the penalties due to radial clearances between blades and side walls are known and are an ongoing focus of research work. The periodic unsteadiness of the tip clearance vortex (TCV), due to its interaction with the stator wakes, has only rarely been addressed in research papers so far. The current work presents experimental and numerical results from a four-stage low-speed research compressor (LSRC) modeling a state-of-the-art compressor design. Time-resolved experimental measurements have been carried out at three different rotor tip clearances (gap to tip chord: 1.5%, 2.2%, 3.7%) to cover the third rotor's casing static pressure and exit flow field. These results are compared with either steady simulations using different turbulence models or harmonic Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) calculations to discuss the periodical unsteady TCV development at different clearance heights. The prediction of the local tip leakage flow is clearly improved by the explicit algebraic Reynolds stress model (EARSM) turbulence model compared to the standard shear stress transport (SST) model. The harmonic RANS calculations (using the SST model) improve the prediction of time-averaged pressure rise and are used to analyze the rotor stator interaction in detail. The interaction of the rotor tip flow field with the passing stator wakes causes a segmentation of the TCV and results in a sinusoidal variation in blockage downstream the rotor row.

Thermal closure of the engine casing is widely used to minimize undesirable blade tip leakage flows thus improving jet engine performance. This may be achieved using an impingement cooling scheme on the external casing wall, provided by manifolds attached to the outside of the engine. The assembly tolerance of these components leads to variation in the standoff distance between the manifold and the casing, and its effects on casing contraction must be understood to allow build tolerance to be specified. For cooling arrangements with promising performance, the variation in closure with standoff distance of z/d = 1–6 were investigated through a mixture of extensive numerical modeling and experimental validation. A cooling manifold, typical of that adopted by several engine companies, incorporating three different arrays of short cooling holes (chosen from previous study by Choi et al. (2016, “The Relative Performance of External Casing Impingement Cooling Arrangements for Thermal Control of Blade Tip Clearance,” ASME J. Turbomach., 138(3), p. 031005.)) and thermal control dummy flanges were considered. Typical contractions of 0.5–2.2 mm are achieved from the 0.02–0.35 kg/s of the current casing cooling flows. The variation in heat transfer coefficient observed with standoff distance is much lower for the sparse array investigated compared to previous designs employing arrays typical of blade cooling configurations. The reason for this is explained through interrogation of the local flow field and resultant heat transfer coefficient. This implies that acceptable control of the circumferential uniformity of case cooling can be achieved with relatively large assembly tolerance of the manifold relative to the casing.

The demand of increasing pressure ratios for modern high pressure compressors leads to decreasing blade heights in the last stages. As tip clearances (TC) cannot be reduced to any amount and minimum values might be necessary for safety reasons, the TC ratios of the last stages can reach values notably higher than current norms. This can be intensified by a compressor running in transient operations where thermal differences can lead to further growing clearances. For decades, the detrimental effects of large clearances on an axial compressor's operating range and efficiency are known and investigated. The ability of circumferential casing grooves in the rotor casing to improve the compressor's operating range has also been in the focus of research for many years. Their simplicity and ease of installation are one reason for their continuing popularity nowadays, where advanced methods to increase the operating range of an axial compressor are known. In the authors' previous paper, three different circumferential groove casing treatments were investigated in a single-stage environment in the low-speed axial research compressor at TU Dresden. One of these grooves was able to notably improve the operating range and the efficiency of the single stage compressor at very large rotor TC (5% of chord length). In this paper, the results of tests with this particular groove type in a three stage environment in the low-speed axial research compressor are presented. Two different rotor TC sizes of 1.2% and 5% of tip chord length were investigated. At the small TC, the grooves are almost neutral. Only small reductions in total pressure ratio and efficiency compared to the solid wall can be observed. If the compressor runs with large TC, it notably benefits from the casing grooves. Both, total pressure and efficiency can be improved by the grooves in a similar extent as in single stage tests. Five-hole probe measurements and unsteady wall pressure measurements show the influence of the groove on the flow field. With the help of numerical investigations, the different behavior of the grooves at the two TC sizes will be discussed.

In this paper, experiments and numerical modeling are used to quantify the effects of clearance and eccentricity on compressor performance and to examine the influence of each on flow distribution and stall margin. A change in the size of the tip-clearance gap influences the pressure rise and the stall margin of a compressor. Eccentricity of the tip-clearance gap then further exacerbates the negative effects of increasing tip-clearance. There are few studies in the literature dealing with the combined effect of clearance and eccentricity. There is also little guidance for engine designers, who have traditionally used rules of thumb to quantify these effects. One such rule states that the stall margin of an eccentric machine will be equal to that of a concentric machine with uniform clearance equal to the maximum eccentric clearance. In this paper, this rule of thumb is checked using experimental data and found to be overly pessimistic. In addition, eccentric clearance causes a variation in axial velocity around the circumference of the compressor. The current study uses a three-dimensional model which demonstrates the importance of radial flow gradients in capturing this redistribution. Flow redistribution has been treated analytically in the past, and for this reason, previous modeling has been restricted to two dimensions. The circumferential variation in axial velocity is also examined in terms of the local stability of the flow by considering the stalling flow coefficient of an equivalent axisymmetric compressor with the same local tip-clearance. The large clearance sector of the annulus is found to operate beyond its equivalent axisymmetric stall limit, which means that the small clearance sector of the annulus must be stabilizing the large clearance sector. An improved rule of thumb dealing with the effects of eccentricity is presented.

Effects of a large rotor tip gap on the performance of a one and a half stage axial compressor are investigated in detail with a numerical simulation based on large eddy simulation (LES) and available particle image velocimetry (PIV) data. This paper studies the main flow physics, including why and how the loss generation is increased with the large rotor tip gap. The present study reveals that when the tip gap becomes large, tip clearance fluid goes over the tip clearance core vortex and enters into the next blade's tip gap, which is called double-leakage tip clearance flow. As the tip clearance flow enters into the adjacent blade's tip gap, a vortex rope with a lower pressure core is generated. This vortex rope breaks up the tip clearance core vortex of the adjacent blade, resulting in a large additional mixing. This double-leakage tip clearance flow occurs at all the operating conditions, from design flow to near stall condition, with the large tip gap for the current compressor stage. The double-leakage tip clearance flow, its interaction with the tip clearance core vortex of the adjacent blade, and the resulting large mixing loss are the main flow mechanism of the large rotor tip gap in the compressor. When the tip clearance is smaller, flow near the end wall follows more closely with the main passage flow and this double-leakage tip clearance flow does not happen near the design flow condition for the current compressor stage. When the compressor with a large tip gap operates at near stall operation, a strong vortex rope is generated near the leading edge due to the double-leakage flow. Part of this vortex separates from the path of the tip clearance core vortex and travels from the suction side of the blade toward the pressure side of the blade. This vortex is generated periodically at near stall operation with a large tip gap. As the vortex travels from the suction side to the pressure side of the blade, a large fluctuation of local pressure forces blade vibration. Nonsynchronous blade vibration occurs due to this vortex as the frequency of this vortex generation is not the same as the rotor. The present investigation confirms that this vortex is a part of separated tip clearance vortex, which is caused by the double-leakage tip clearance flow.

This paper presents a numerical study on blade vibration for the transonic compressor rig at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUD), Darmstadt, Germany. The vibration was experimentally observed for the second eigenmode of the rotor blades at nonsynchronous frequencies and is simulated for two rotational speeds using a time-linearized approach. The numerical simulation results are in close agreement with the experiment in both cases. The vibration phenomenon shows similarities to flutter. Numerical simulations and comparison with the experimental observations showed that vibrations occur near the compressor stability limit due to interaction of the blade movement with a pressure fluctuation pattern originating from the tip clearance flow. The tip clearance flow pattern travels in the backward direction, seen from the rotating frame of reference, and causes a forward traveling structural vibration pattern with the same phase difference between blades. When decreasing the rotor tip gap size, the mechanism causing the vibration is alleviated.

In this study, the impact of single grooves at different locations on compressor stability and tip clearance flow are numerically and experimentally investigated. Initially, the numerical stall margin improvement (SMI) curve is examined using experimental data. Then, the evolution of the interface between the tip leakage flow (TLF) and the incoming main flow (MF) in the prestall and stall inception processes for two typical grooves, i.e., the worst and the optimal grooves in terms of their SMI, are compared with the smooth casing. The results show two different interface behaviors throughout the throttling process. The compressor with the worst single groove casing first experiences a long-length-scale disturbance after the interface near the blade suction side spills in front of the rotor leading-edge plane, and then goes through spikes after the whole interface spills. With the smooth casing and the optimal single groove near midchord, the interface reaches the rotor leading edge at the last stable operating point and spikes appear once the whole interface spills over the rotor leading edge. A model that illustrates the spillage patterns of the interface for the two stall precursors is thus proposed accordingly and used to explain their effectiveness in terms of the SMI. At last, the relevance of these results to the preliminary selection of groove locations for multigroove casing treatments (CTs) is verified by test data and discussed.