• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.353-361
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• 2002

The tip leakage flow passing through the clearance between rotor blade tip and casing shroud has been known to occupy an important portion of the rotor overall loss. In this study, flow characteristics in axial flow rotors with different tip clearances is investigated by experimental and numerical methods. The experimental study was carried out to measure static pressure and velocity profiles at the real rotating test rig. The axial flow rotors used for the experiments have ten blades and three different rotor diameter. The tip clearance heights are 1mm, 3mm, and 4.5mm. Measurements were done using spherical type five-hole probe by non-nulling method. The numerical study was carried out to calculate pressure distributions and velocity vectors at the same condition as the experiments in the flow fields of axial flow rotors using Phoenics code.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.39-45
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• 2009

Leakage flow through turbine blade tip gap causes strong leakage vortex near the blade suction side and induces large aerodynamic losses. In this study, the conventional plane tip and various squealer tip blades were tested in a linear cascade in order to measure the effect of the tip shape on the total pressure loss. Three tip gap clearances of 0.6%, 1.3%, and 2.0% of blade span were tested. Flow measurement was conducted at one chord downstream from the trailing edge with a five-hole probe. Results showed that the leakage vortex was stronger than passage vortex and the mass averaged overall total pressure loss through the cascade was the lowest for suction side blade tip case. For all tested cases, the area averaged overall total pressure loss was increased as the tip clearance increased.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.08a
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• pp.171-175
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• 2003

Numerical analysis of three-dimensional viscous flow-fields in the turbine rotor passages is carried out to investigate flow physics including the interaction between secondary vortices, tip leakage vortex, and the rotor wake. The blade tip geometry is accurately modeled adopting the embedded H grid topology. An explicit four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme is used for the time integration of both the mean flow and turbulence equations. The computational results for the entire turbine rotor flows, particularly the tip clearance flow and the secondary flows, are interpreted and compared with the experimental data from the Penn State turbine stage. Good agreement between the experimental data and the numerical prediction was achieved in the sense of the major features of the flow fields.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.84-94
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• 2003

It is known that tip clearance flows reduce the pressure rise, flow range and efficiency of the turbomachinery. So, the clear understanding about flow fields in the tip region is needed to efficiently design the turbomachinery. The Navier-Stokes code with the proper treatment of the boundary conditions has been developed to analyze the three-dimensional steady viscous flow fields in the transonic rotating blades and a numerical study has been conducted to investigate the detail flow physics in the tip region of transonic rotor, NASA Rotor 67. The computational results in the tip region of transonic rotors show the leakage vortices, leakage flow from pressure side to suction side and their interaction with a shock. Depen ding on the operating conditions, toad distributions and the position of shock-wave on the blade surface are very different close to the blade tip of the transonic compressor rotor. The load distribution and the shock-wave position close to the blade tip had the close relationship with the starting position of leakage vortex and the direction of leakage flow.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.131-136
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• 2002

A computational analysis using Reynolds stress model in FLUENT is conducted to give a clear understanding of the effect of blade loading on the structure of tip leakage flow in a forward-swept axial-flow fan at design condition ($\phi$=0.25) and off-design condition ($\phi$=0.21 and 0.30). The roll-up of tip leakage flow starts near the minimum static wall pressure position, and the tip leakage vortex developes along the centerline of the pressure trough within the blade passages. Near tip region, a reverse flow induced by tip leakage vortex has a blockage effect on the through-flow. As a result, high momentum region is observed below the tip leakage vortex. As the blade loading increases, the reverse flow region is more inclined toward circumferential direction and the onset position of the rolling-up of tip leakage flow moves upstream. Because the casing boundary layer becomes thicker, and the mixing between the through-flow and the leakage jet with the different flow direction is enforced, the streamwise vorticity decays more fast with blade loading increasing. The computational results show that a distinct tip leakage vortex is observed downstream of the blade trailing edge at $\phi$=0.30, but it is not observed at $\phi$=0.21 and 0.25.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.294-304
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• 2003

An experimental analysis using three-dimensional laser Doppler velocimetry(LDV) measurement and computational analysis using the Reynolds stress model in FLUENT are conducted to give a clear understanding of the effect of blade loading on the structure of tip leakage flow in a forward-swept axial-flow fan operating at the maximum efficiency condition ($\Phi$=0.25) and two off-design conditions ($\Phi$=0.21 and 0.30). As the blade loading increases, the onset position of the rolling-up of tip leakage flow moves upstream and the trajectory of tip leakage vortex center is more inclined toward the circumferential direction. Because the casing boundary layer becomes thicker and the mixing between the through-flow and the leakage jet with the different flow direction is enforced, the streamwise vorticity decays more fast with the blade loading increasing. A distinct tip leakage vortex is observed downstream of the blade trailing edge at $\Phi$=0.30, but it is not observed at $\Phi$=0.21 and 0.25.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.686-695
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• 2009

Flow characteristics in linear axial cascade have been studied using large eddy simulation(LES) based on finite element method(FEM) to investigate details of the leakage flow in the tip clearance of axial flow rotor. STAR-CD(FVM) and PAT-Flow(FEM) have been adopted to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for the simulation of the unsteady turbulent flow. Numerical results from the present study have been compared with the existing experimental results to investigate a tip clearance effect on velocity profile and static pressure distribution on blade surface at various spanwise positions. Both simulation results agree well with the experimental data. However, it has been shown that the results of finite-element large-eddy simulation agree better with experimental data than $k-{\varepsilon}$ turbulent model based on finite volume method regarding the tip vortex geometry and static pressure distribution at the center of the tip vortex core. As a result of this study, it is shown that finite-element large-eddy simulation method can predict more exactly on the tip leakage vortex flow and behind flow field.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.58-63
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• 2012

Three dimensional unsteady numerical calculations were performed to investigate unsteadiness of the tip leakage flow in an axial compressor. The first stage of the four-stage low-speed research axial compressor was examined. Since this compressor has a relatively large tip clearance, the unsteadiness of the tip leakage flow is induced. Through the results from the unsteady calculations, the process of the induced unsteady tip leakage flow was investigated. It was shown that the leakage flow that occurred at a rotor blade tip clearance affected the pressure distribution on the pressure side near the tip of the adjacent blade, thus caused the fluctuation of the pressure difference between the pressure side and suction side. Consequently, the unsteady tip leakage flow was induced at the adjacent rotor blade. The unsteady feature of the tip leakage flow was changed as the operating point was moved. The interface between the tip leakage flow and the main flow only affected the trailing edge region at the design point whereas the interface influenced up to the leading edge at the low flow rate point. As the flow rate decreased, additionally, it was seen that the vortex size of the tip leakage flow increased and the relatively large length scale disturbance occurred. On the other hand, using frequency analysis, it was shown that the unsteadiness was not associated with the rotor speed and was about 40% of the blade passing frequency. This feature was explained in the rotor relative frame of reference, and the frequency decreased as the flow rate decreased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.173-179
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• 2012

Steady and unsteady three-dimensional RANS simulations have been performed on partial admission supersonic axial turbine having backward/forward sweep angles(${\pm}15^{\circ}$) and the results are compared with each other. The objective of this paper is to study the effect of unsteadiness on turbine flow characteristics and performances. The all results indicated that the losses of unsteady simulations were greater than those of steady cases. It was also shown that BSW model give the effect on the reducing of mass flow rates of tip leakage. In unsteady simulation, the increase of t-to-s efficiency at Rotor Out plane was observed more clearly.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.03b
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• pp.159-162
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• 2008

In this paper, a numerical simulation of three-dimensional flow field and heat transfer coefficient distribution are conducted for two types of gas turbine blade with plane and squealer tips. The numerical results show that gas turbine blade with squealer tip considerably changes the flow structures near the tip regions of pressure and suction sides, so the overall heat transfer coefficients on the tip and shroud with squealer tip are lower than those with the plane tip blade. Finally, the effect of tip gap clearance on the flow field and heat transfer characteristics are investigated.