Session: 35-02 Turbine Transition Ducts

Paper Number: 126184

126184 - Experimental and Numerical Comparison of Two Turbine Vane Frame Designs 

This paper presents the experimental and numerical investigation of two turbine vane frames. A turbine vane frame (TVF) is a structural component that connects the last high-pressure turbine with the first low-pressure turbine and acts as a vane row for the latter. This leads to a required flow deflection in two directions. On the one hand, a radial bend to overcome the typical diameter offset of high-pressure and low-pressure turbines, and on the other hand, a tangential turning to provide swirl for the LPT. In addition to that, a TVF has the structural purpose of leading out loads from the high-pressure shaft bearing beneath and enabling engine-relevant supply lines. To achieve the structural and aerodynamic functions, a TVF contains multiple wide-chord vanes called struts. Further, one or two splitters are added to each passage to uniformize the outlet flow.

The experiments were conducted at the Transonic Test Turbine Facility (TTTF) at Graz University of Technology. The TTTF is a two-spool test rig that contains a fully purged HP stage, followed by the TVF and a hub forward purged LP stage. This setup allows to investigate the TVF under engine-representative conditions. The test vehicles share the same high-pressure stage followed by a different TVF and LPT, respectively. 

The different inflow conditions are achieved by varying the purge flow rate (PFR) or the residual swirl of the HP rotor. Consequently, the steady data set for this study contains four different purge flow conditions (no purge, 50%, nominal purge, and 200%) and two off-design swirl rates (low -and high-swirl) obtained by five-hole probe measurements. Static taps and pitot tube measurements are incorporated to round off the data set. For a better understanding of the experimental results, post-test steady RANS simulations will be presented. The domain involves the TVF and the LPT utilizing a 2D inlet boundary condition, which is based on the five-hole probe measurement.

Presenting Author: Nicolas Krajnc Graz University of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Born and raised in Graz, I studied mechanical engineering at Graz University of Technology (graduated Jul 2020). Since Sep. 2020, I have been working on my PhD at the Institute of Turbomachinery and Machine Dynamics (Graz University of Technology).

Authors:

Nicolas Krajnc Graz University of Technology
Asim Hafizovic Graz University of Technology
Lukas Wiesinger Graz University of Technology
Francesco Mangini Graz University of Technology
Patrick Zeno Sterzinger GE Aerospace
Marios Patinios GE Aerospace
Emil Goettlich Graz University of Technology