Numerical Simulation of Unsteady Wake/Blade Interactions in Low-Pressure Turbine Flows Using an Intermittency Transport Equation

An extensive computational investigation of the effects of unsteady wake/blade interactions on transition and separation in low-pressure turbines has been performed by numerical simulations of two recent sets of experiments using an intermittency transport equation. The experiments considered have been performed by Kasieta and Simon and Stieger in order to investigate the effects of periodically passing wakes on laminar-to-turbulent transition and separation in low-pressure turbines, The test sections were designed to simulate unsteady wakes in turbine engines for studying their effects on boundary layers and separated flow regions over the suction surface. The numerical simulations of the unsteady wake/blade interaction experiments have been performed using an intermittency transport model. The intermittent behavior of the transitional flows is taken into account and incorporated into computations by modifying the eddy viscosity, with the intermittency factor. Turbulent quantities are predicted by using Menter's two-equation turbulence model (SST). The intermittency factor is obtained from the transport equation model, which can produce both the experimentally observed streamwise variation of intermittency and a realistic profile in the cross-stream direction. Computational results are compared to the experiments. Overall, general trends are captured and prediction capabilities of the intermittency transport model for simulations of unsteady wake/blade interaction flowfields are demonstrated.