Variable geometry turbines are widely employed to improve the off-design performance of gas turbine engines; however, there is a performance penalty associated with the vane-end partial gap required for the movement of variable vanes. This paper is a continuation of the previous work and aims to understand the leakage flow and loss mechanisms under the influence of the pivoting axis. Experimental investigations with a variable geometry turbine linear cascade have been conducted for tip gap heights of 1.1% and 2.2% blade spans as well as setting angles of À6 , 0 , and 6 , so as to reveal the three-dimensional clearance flow characteristics associated with partial gaps. Besides, numerical predictions are also carried out to better understand the experimental results. Pressure measurements were performed on the tip endwall as well as on the vane surface, and three-dimensional clearance flow fields downstream of the variable cascade were measured with a five-hole probe. The results show that as the vane setting angle is changed from design to closed, the vane loading increases and tends to be more aft-loaded, thus increasing the tip leakage loss, and vice versa. There are strong interactions between the flow around the pivoting axis and the leakage flow in the vane tip rear part, which leads to a low-pressure region on the tip endwall. The leakage vortex core is made up of the leakage flow in the vane tip rear part at both two tip gap heights, and the leakage vortex core formation process is different from the one in the rotor blade. The present results can provide useful references for the vane-end clearance design of variable geometry turbines.

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The marine gas turbine exhaust volute is an important component that connects a power turbine and an exhaust system, and it is of great importance to the overall performance of the gas turbine. Gases exhausted from the power turbine are expanded and deflected 90 degrees in the exhaust volute, and then discharge radially into the exhaust system. The flows in the power turbine and the nonaxisymmetric exhaust volute are closely coupled and inherently unsteady. The flow interactions between the power turbine and the exhaust volute have a significant influence on the shrouded rotor blade aerodynamic forces. However, the interactions have not been taken into account properly in current power turbine design approaches. The present study aims to investigate the flow interactions between the last stage of a shrouded power turbine and the nonaxisymmetric exhaust volute with struts. Special attention is given to the coupled aerodynamics and pressure response studies. This work was carried out using coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with the computational domain including a stator vane, 76 shrouded rotor blades, 9 struts and an exhaust volute. Three-dimensional (3D) unsteady and steady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solutions in conjunction with a Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model are utilized to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of shrouded rotors and an exhaust volute using a commercial CFD software ANSYS Fluent 14.0. The asymmetric flow fields are analyzed in detail; as are the unsteady pressures on the shrouded rotor blade. In addition, the unsteady total pressures at the volute outlet is also analyzed without consideration of the upstream turbine effects. Results show that the flows in the nonaxisymmetric exhaust volute are inherently unsteady; for the studied turbine-exhaust configuration the nonaxisymmetric back-pressure induced by the downstream volute leads to the local flow varying for each shrouded blade and low frequency fluctuations in the blade force. Detailed results from this investigation are presented and discussed in this paper.

The large meridional expansion turbine stator leads to complex secondary flows and heat transfer characteristics in the blade endwall region, while the upstream tip clearance leakage flow of the rotor makes it more complex in flow and heat transfer. The influence of the upstream rotor tip clearance on the large meridian expansion stator is worth studying. The flow and heat transfer characteristics of the downstream large meridional expansion turbine stator were studied by comparing the tip leakage flow of 1.5-stage shrouded and unshrouded turbines using a three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver for viscous turbulent flows. Validation studies were performed to investigate the aerodynamics and heat transfer prediction ability of the shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model. The influence of different tip clearances of the rotor including unshrouded blade heights of 0%, 1% and 5% and a 1% shrouded blade height were investigated through numerical simulation. The results showed that the upper passage vortex separation was more serious and the separation, and attachment point of horseshoe vortex in the pressure side were significantly more advanced than that of non-expansion turbines. The tip leakage vortex obviously increased the negative incidence angle at the downstream inlet. Furthermore, the strength of the high heat transfer zone on the suction surface of the downstream stator was significantly increased, while that of the shrouded rotor decreased.

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