Flow Visualization in a Linear Turbine Cascade of High Performance Turbine Blades

Multiple smoke wires are used to investigate the secondary flow near the endwall of a plane cascade with blade shapes used in high-performance turbine stages. The wires are positioned parallel to the endwall and ahead of the cascade, within and outside the endwall boundary layer. The traces of the smoke generated by the wires are visualized with a laser light sheet illuminating various cross sections around the cascade. During the experiment, a periodically fluctuating horseshoe vortex system of varying number of vortices is observed near the leading edge of the cascade. A series of photographs and video tapes was taken in the cascade to trace these vortices. The development and evolution of the horseshoe vortex and the passage vortex are clearly resolved in the photographs. The interation between the suction side leg of the horseshoe vortex and the passage vortex is also observed in the experiment. A vortex induced by the passage vortex, starting about one-fourth of the curvilinear distance along the blade on the suction surface, is also found. This vortex stays close to the suction surface and above the passage vortex in the laminar flow region on the blade. From this flow visualization, a model describing the secondary flows in a cascade is proposed and compared with previous published models. Some naphthalene mass transfer results from a blade near an endwall are cited and compared with the current model. The flows inferred from the two techniques are in good agreement.