INVESTIGATION OF UNSTEADY FLOW IN AXIAL TURBINE STAGE

Abstract: The never ending process to increase the efficiency of turbine stages introduced an idea to create an axial turbine stage test rig as part of closed loop transonic wind tunnel at Vyzkumny a zkusebni letecky ustav (VZLU). Studying of unsteady flow field behaviours in turbine stages is nowadays essential in the development process. Therefore, the test rig was designed with focusing on possibility of detailed studying of unsteady flow fields in turbine stages. New methodologies and new instrumentations were developed at VZLU and successfully integrated to gain valuable information from experiments with turbine stages. Two different turbine stages were tested during the facility introduction process. The measurement of these two models demonstrated how flexible the test rig is. One of them was an enlarged model of small gas turbine stage. The other was scaled-down model of stage of intermediate-pressure steam turbine. The external characteristics of both models were acquired during experiments as well as the detailed unsteady flow field measurement. Turbine stages were tested in various regimes in order to check the capabilities of the facility, methodology and instrumentation together. The paper presents results of unsteady flow field investigation in the enlarged turbine stage with unshrouded rotor. The interaction of structures developed in a stator with the rotor flow field is depicted and the influence of turbine load on evolution of secondary flows in rotor is analysed. 1