Influence of Surface Roughness on the Profile and End-Wall Losses in Low Pressure Turbines

The influence of surface roughness on the profile and end-wall total pressure losses in Low Pressure Turbines was investigated experimentally in a turbine high-speed rig. The rig consisted of a rotor-stator configuration. Both rows of airfoils are high lift, high aspect ratio and high turning blades that are characteristic of state of the art Low Pressure Turbines. The stator airfoils (both vanes and platforms) were casted and afterwards they were barreled to improve their surface finish up to 1.73 μm Ra. Then they were assembled in the rig and tested. The stator was traversed upstream and downstream with miniature pneumatic probes to obtain total pressure, flow angle and static pressure flow fields. Once this test was completed the rig was disassembled and the stator airfoils were polished to achieve a roughness size of 0.72 μm Ra, characteristic of Low Pressure Turbine polished airfoils. Once again, the stators were assembled in the rig and tested to carry out a back-to-back comparison between the two different surface roughnesses. The total pressure profile and end-wall losses were measured for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, extending from 8×10⁴ to 2.4×10⁵, based on suction surface length (Re_s∼1.5 Re_Cx) and exit Mach number of 0.61. Experimental results are presented and compared in terms of area average, radial pitchwise average distributions and exit plane contours of total pressure losses, flow angles and helicity. The results agree with previous studies of roughness in Turbines, a beneficial effect of surface roughness was found at very low Reynolds numbers, in stagnation pressure losses.