ITURB

Optimal High-Lift Turbine Blade Aero-Mechanical Design

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The need for high speed low pressure turbine modules to be used with innovative aircraft engine concept establishes critical mechanical constraints with very high hub stresses for the rotor blades, thus representing a real challenge for the design. In order to assist the designer with reliable tools it is mandatory to assess the performance of turbine rotor blades of innovative concept with both numerical and experimental investigations. Starting from a baseline configuration, representative of the state-of-the-art of LPT high-lift rotor blades, an aerodynamic optimization will be performed exploiting modern optimization techniques. These techniques are based on the coupling between fast and flexible parametric handling of the geometries, CFD computations and meta-models like Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) or Radial Basis Functions (RBF). Such an approach will accomplish a multi-objective design aimed at enhancing the aerodynamic performance while meeting mechanical and geometrical constraints. Tests will be performed on both baseline and optimized rotors within a cold-flow, large-scale laboratory turbine. Tests on turbine configuration will ensure the reproduction of the correct radial equilibrium effects as well as of the rotor-stator aerodynamic interaction. The Reynolds number will be investigated in the range between 50000 and 300000, which represents the operative range of the LP rotor blades of the engine. The large scale of the facility will allow detailed aerodynamic investigations, and an accurate performance analysis. The numerical and experimental frameworks will allow one to validate and verify the optimized solution and to highlight the key features of the new design with respect to the baseline. The validation of the design and optimization procedures will be accomplished with the availability of detailed experimental data obtained for the innovative rotor blade row in a realistic environment.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Increasing aerodynamic lift in a turbine rotor blade design that simultaneously decreases weight and maintenance costs could have major benefits when it comes to performance, fuel consumption and emissions. Scientists are optimising the design.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

High-lift low-pressure turbine (LPT) blades enable a reduction in the number of turbine blades in modern gas turbine engines, which can reduce maintenance costs along with weight and associated emissions. However, maintaining stability, performance and safety with fewer blades and very high hub stresses requires careful optimisation of parameters.

In order to meet the challenging design constraints imposed by the unique aerodynamic profile of high-lift LPT rotor blades, an Italian consortium launched the EU-funded project 'Optimal high-lift turbine blade aero-mechanical design' (ITURB). The team is exploiting advanced optimisation techniques based on geometries, computational fluid dynamics and other paradigms such as artificial neural networks.

The combined strengths of the optimisation procedures will lead to aerodynamically sound configurations within mechanical and geometrical constraints. The baseline and optimised rotor configurations will be tested in a cold-flow large-scale laboratory turbine.

During the first 18 months, the advanced aerodynamic optimisation techniques were applied to representative state-of-the-art high-lift LPT rotor blades. In parallel, the laboratory turbine was installed and updated to enhance measurement accuracy and make it possible to investigate additional parameters. In particular, the external radius was enlarged and the hub modified to accommodate larger blade aspect ratios (span versus mean chord of the aerofoil). Several modifications were designed to change flow or facilitate its measurement and to enable measurement of blade loading on the rotor.

The high-lift LPT rotor blade configuration promises lower weight, fuel consumption and emissions, and forms an important part of the Clean Sky initiative to reduce the environmental impact of air travel. The ITURB theoretical and experimental design and testing tools will enable optimisation of the blades and comparison to baseline performance in support of that effort.