BOUNDARY LAYER TRANSITION IN LOW PRESSURE TURBINES

Low-pressure (LP) turbine blade can be roughened due to erosion and/or corrosion. Recent work by Montomoli et al., and Montis et al. show that LP turbine blade surface roughness significantly alters the behavior of boundary layer transition and blade profile loss, depending on the operating conditions (i.e. cruise and take-off) of turbo-fan engines.

This project aims to identify the mechanisms of boundary layer transition and profile loss change due to increases of surface roughness under LP turbine suction side pressure gradient. The high frequency response of the 2D hot-wire allows the identification of the dominant velocity fluctuations frequency of turbulence eddies and shed vortical structures and also quantifications of the turbulent kinetic energy generation due to development of boundary layers.

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