• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.389-397
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• 2003

Effect of tip leakage flow on through flow and performance of a centrifugal compressor impeller was numerically studied using CFX-TASC flow. Seven different tip clearances were used to consider the influence of tip clearance on performance. Secondary flow and loss factor were evaluated to understand the loss mechanism inside the impeller due to tip leakage flow. The calculated results were circumferentially averaged along the passage and at the impeller exit for quantitative discussion. Tip clearance effect on Performance could be decomposed into inviscid and viscous components using one dimensional equation. The inviscid component is related with the specific work reduction and the viscous component is related with the additional entropy generation. Two components affected Performance equally. while efficiency drop was mainly influenced by viscous loss. Performance and efficiency drop due to tip clearance were proportional to the ratio of tip clearance to exit blade height. A simple model suggested in the present study predict performance and efficiency drop quite successfully.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.357-366
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• 2007

The present study investigated local heat/mass transfer characteristics on the surface of the rotating turbine blade with various incidence angles. The experiments are conducted in a low speed annular cascade with a single stage turbine. The blade has a flat tip with the mean tip clearance of 2.5% of the blade chord. A naphthalene sublimation method is used to measure detailed mass transfer coefficient on the blade. At design condition, the inlet Reynolds number is $Re_c=1.5{\times}10^5$ which results in the blade rotation speed of 255.8 rpm. Also, the effect of off-design condition is examined with various incidence angles between $-15^{\circ}$ and $+7{\circ}$. The results indicated that the incidence angle has significant effects on the blade surface heat transfer. In mid-span region, the laminar separation region on the pressure side is reduced and the laminar flow region on the suction side shrinks with increasing incidence angle. Near the tip, the effect of tip leakage flow increases in span wise and axial directions as the incidence angle decreases because the tip leakage flow is formed near the suction side surface. However, the effect of tip leakage flow is reduced with positive incidence angle.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2013

This paper presents a numerical investigation of the influences of various non-uniform tip clearances on the performance and flow field in a centrifugal compressor. Numerical simulations were conducted for three centrifugal compressor impellers in which the tip clearance height varied linearly from the leading edge to the trailing edge. The numerical result was compared with the experimental data for validation. Although the performance improved for low tip clearances, a smaller tip clearance at the trailing edge reduced the overall tip leakage flow more effectively than a smaller tip clearance at the leading edge. Therefore, a smaller tip clearance at the trailing edge lowered the mixing loss caused by interactions between the tip leakage flow and the main passage flow.

• 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.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.1986-1991
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• 2003

To research on change of blade row flow field with tip clearance caused by upstream periodic wake, an apparatus that generate periodic wake through traversing cylinders were installed. Then how movement of upstream wake affect cascade flow and tip leakage flow were measured. Cylinder was installed in front of 50% of chord length, and traversing velocity was calculated at approximately 11.7m/s regarding inlet velocity and chord length. To measure three-dimensional velocity of flow inside blade row, single slanted hot-wire was used. From the results, when the periodic wake is inserted, the flow inside of cascade is dominantly affected by vortex that is generated from cylinder. This periodic wake affects passage vortex and tip leakage vortex.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.85-91
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• 2012

Numerical simulations on a single stage transonic compressor which is developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute are carried out and their results are compared with experimental data for cross validations. Comparisons between experimental data and numerical simulation results show good agreements on a performance curve, static pressure and total pressure distributions. CFD results show that there is a clear interaction between tip leakage flow and normal shock in the rotor passage. Tip leakage flows are almost dissipated after the strong normal shock and it forms a strong recirculation near the blade tip. Also a large separation region grows on the suction surface just after the normal shock. As the pressure ratio and blade loading increase, the normal shock line moves upstream and it starts to deviate from the blade leading edge. Then the tip leakage flow does not overcome the strong adverse pressure gradient and flow blockage originated from the tip recirculation region. As a result, the tip leakage flow heads for the neighboring blade leading edge, which results in a compressor stall.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.9 s.252
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• pp.913-920
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• 2006

Three-dimensional flow and aerodynamic loss in the tip-leakage flow region of a high-turning first-stage turbine rotor blade with a squealer tip have been measured with a straight miniature five-hole probe for the tip gap-to-chord ratio, h/c, of 2.0%. This squealer tip has a indent-to-chord ratio, $h/{st}/c$, of 5.5%. The results are compared with those for a plane tip $(h_{st}/c=0.0%)$. The squealer tip tends to reduce the mass flow through the tip gap and to suppress the development of the tip-leakage vortex. Therefore, it delivers lower aerodynamic loss in the near-tip region than the plane tip does. At the mid-span, however, the aerodynamic loss has nearly the same value for the two different tips.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.336-345
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• 1998

The substantial loss behind axial flow rotor was generated by wake, various vortices in the hub region and the leakage vortex in the tip region. Particularly, the leakage vortex formed near blade tip was one of the main causes of the reduction of performance, the generation of noise and the aerodynamic vibration in rotor downstream. In this study, the three-dimensional flowfields in an axial flow rotor for various tip clearances were calculated, and the numerical results were compared with the experimental ones. The numerical technique was based on SIMPLE algorithm using standard k-.epsilon. model (WFM). Through calculations, the effects of the tip clearance on the overall performance of rotor and the loss distributions, and the increase in the displacement, momentum, and blade-force-deficit thickness of the casing wall boundary layer were investigated. The mass-averaged flow variables behind rotor agreed well with the experimental results. The presence of the tip leakage vortex behind rotor was described well. Although the loci of leakage vortex by calculation showed some differences compared with the experimental results, its behavior for various tip clearances was clarified by examining the loci of vortex center.