Identifier

etd-06292011-152332

Degree

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

A new wind tunnel has been designed and constructed at the LSU Mechanical Engineering Laboratories. The objective was to design a versatile test facility, suitable for a wide range of experimental measurements on turbine blades. The future study will investigate the impact of unsteady inflow conditions on film cooling performance. More specifically, it will study how the unsteady flow due to the upstream passing wakes coming from the front row vane affects the film cooling performances on the turbine blades. The test section consists of a four passage linear cascade composed of three full blades and two shaped wall blades. The 2D blade shape profile of the cascade was provided by the Air Force Research Laboratories (AFRL). It is a High Lift Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) blade, ‘L1A’ profile. A conveyor setup was designed and fabricated to simulate the passing wakes upstream of the testing blades. Wakes are generated with thick plates in translation on this conveyor. These moving plates simulate the wake passing of the front row vane. This facility has been designed to enable easy interchanges of different experimental setups. The new test facility was chosen to be a closed-circuit wind tunnel to ensure a controlled return flow and reach low levels of turbulence and unsteadiness in the test section. Preliminary characterization of the experimental apparatus was conducted using a Constant Temperature Anemometry technique coupled to pressure and temperature measurements. The velocity variation over the cascade inlet cross section is found to be less than 2% at a mean velocity of 50 m/s and the freestream turbulence intensity reaches values as low as 0.12% at the cascade inlet cross section.

Date

2011

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Secure the entire work for patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of one year. Student has submitted appropriate documentation which states: During this period the copyright owner also agrees not to exercise her/his ownership rights, including public use in works, without prior authorization from LSU. At the end of the one year period, either we or LSU may request an automatic extension for one additional year. At the end of the one year secure period (or its extension, if such is requested), the work will be released for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Guo, Shengmin M.

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.2773

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