We study the impact of H 2 enrichment on the unsteady flow dynamics and thermoacoustic instability in the single nozzle PRECCINSTA swirl combustor. We analyze data from two operating modes, premixed (PM) and technically premixed (TPM). The experiments were performed at atmospheric conditions with H 2 /CH 4 fuel mixtures at a global equivalence ratio of 0.65 while maintaining a constant thermal power of 20 kW. We examine the effect of H 2 addition on the flow dynamics by analyzing cases with three fuel compositions: 0% H 2 , 20% H 2 and 50% H 2 in both operating modes. A new multi resolution modal decomposition method, using a combination of wavelet transforms and proper orthogonal decomposition (WPOD) of the experimental time resolved high speed flow velocity and OH-PLIF measurements is performed. Thermoacoustic oscillations are observed in the TPM operating mode alone. WPOD results for the 0% H 2 TPM operating mode case reveals intermittent helical PVC oscillations along with axi-symmetric hydrodynamic flow oscillations due to the thermoacoustic oscillation. These oscillations cause local flame extinction near the nozzle centrebody resulting in liftoff. A precessing vortex core (PVC) oscillation develops in the flow that enables intermittent flame reattachment and results in intermittent thermoacoustic oscillations in this case. In the 0% H 2 PM case, the flame remains lifted off of the centrebody despite the presence of PVC oscillations in this case as well. H 2 enrichment results in the suppression of flame lift-off and the PVC in both operating modes. We show from flow strain rate statistics and extinction strain rate calculations that the increase of the latter with H 2 addition, allows the flame to stabilize in the region near the centrebody where the pure CH 4 cases show lift off. The lack of thermoacoustic oscillations in the PM operating mode shows that the primary heat release driving mechanism is due to fuel-air ratio oscillation that the thermoacoustic oscillation generates. The time averaged flow fields and the emergence of the PVC when the flame is lifted off, together suggest that PVC oscillations are caused by the separation between the vortex breakdown bubble and the wake behind the centrebody, as suggested by prior computational studies.

The precessing vortex core (PVC) is a self-excited flow oscillation state occurring in swirl nozzles. This is caused by the presence of a marginally unstable hydrodynamic helical mode that induces precession of the vortex breakdown bubble (VBB) around the flow axis. The PVC can impact emissions and thermoacoustic stability characteristics of combustors in various ways, as several prior studies have shown. In this paper, we examine the impact of centrebody diameter (D c ) on the PVC in a non-reacting flow in a single nozzle swirl combustor. Time resolved high speed stereoscopic PIV (sPIV) measurements are performed for combinations of two swirl numbers, S = 0.67 and 1.17 and D c = 9.5 mm, 4.73 mm and 0 (i.e. no centrebody). The bulk flow velocity at the nozzle exit plane is kept constant as U b = 8 m/s for all cases (Re ∼ 20,000). The centrebody end face lies in the nozzle exit plane. A new modal decomposition technique based on wavelet filtering and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) provides insight into flow dynamics in terms of global modes extracted from the data. The results show that without a centrebody, a coherent PVC is present in the flow as expected. The introduction of a centrebody makes the PVC oscillations intermittent. These results suggest two routes to intermittency as follows. For S = 0.67, the vortex breakdown bubble (VBB) and centrebody wake recirculation zone (CWRZ) regions are nominally distinct. Intermittent separation and merger due to turbulence result in PVC oscillations due to the de-stabilization of the hydrodynamic VBB precession mode of the flow. In the S = 1.17 case, the time averaged VBB position causes it to engulf the centrebody. In this case, the emergence of intermittent PVC oscillations is a result of the response of the flow to broadband stochastic forcing imposed on the time averaged vorticity field due to turbulence.

This paper presents a systematic study of flow and heat transfer mechanisms in a compressor disc cavity with an axial throughflow under centrifugal buoyancy-driven convection, comparing with previously published experimental data. Wall-modelled large-eddy simulations are conducted for six operating conditions, covering a range of rotational Reynolds number (3.2 × 10 5 – 2.2 × 10 6 ), buoyancy parameter (0.11 – 0.26) and Rossby number (0.4 – 0.8). Numerical accuracy and computational efficiency of the simulations are considered. Wall heat transfer predictions are compared with measured data with a good level of agreement. A constant rothalpy core occurs at high Eckert number, appearing to reduce the driving buoyancy force. The flow in the cavity is turbulent with unsteady laminar Ekman layers observed on both discs except in the bore flow affected region on the downstream disc cob. The shroud heat transfer Nusselt number-Rayleigh number scaling agrees with that of natural convection under gravity for high Rayleigh numbers. Disc heat transfer is dominated by conduction across unsteady Ekman layers, except on the downstream disc cob. The disc bore heat transfer is close to a pipe flow forced convection correlation. The unsteady flow structure is investigated showing strong unsteadiness in the cavity that extends into the axial throughflow.

Hot gas ingestion into the turbine rim seal cavity is an important concern for engine designers. To prevent ingestion, rim seals use high pressure purge flow but excessive use of the purge flow decreases engine thermal efficiency. A single stage test turbine operating at engine-relevant conditions with real engine hardware was used to study time-resolved pressures in the rim seal cavity across a range of sealing purge flow rates. Vane trailing edge (VTE) flow, shown previously to be ingested into the rim seal cavity, was also included to understand its effect on the unsteady flow field. Measurements from high-frequency response pressure sensors in the rim seal and vane platform were used to determine rotational speed and quantity of large-scale structures (cells). In a parallel effort, a computational model using Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) was applied to determine swirl ratio in the rim seal cavity and time-resolved rim sealing effectiveness. The experimental results confirm that at low purge flow rates, the VTE flow influences the unsteady flow field by decreasing pressure unsteadiness in the rim seal cavity. Results show an increase in purge flow increases the number of unsteady large-scale structures in the rim seal and decreases their rotational speed. However, VTE flow was shown to not significantly change the cell speed and count in the rim seal. Simulations point to the importance of the large-scale cell structures in influencing rim sealing unsteadiness, which is not captured in current rim sealing predictive models.

Unsteady flow structures have been observed and reported in a number of recent rim-sealing investigations. These unsteady flow structures will influence the cavity pressure distribution, therefore influence the sealing efficiency. As a result, it is important to determine the mechanisms of these unsteady flow structures and how they influence the hot gas ingestion and sealing efficiency. A two-sector axial rim seal model is used to carry out the numerical investigation. The simulation is performed using the URANS method by the commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX, in which the SST turbulent model is applied. The mechanism and influence of the unsteady flow structures are analyzed. It was found that two different types of unsteadiness are observed inside the wheel space cavity: radial large flow structures dominated by the mainstream pressure distribution and inertia wave, and circumferential Kelvin-Helmholtz vortexes induced by circumferential velocity discontinuous distribution. The number and rotating speed of the radial and circumferential flow structures can be calculated using a cross-correlation method, and it was found that they can lead to a deeper ingress. By increasing the sealing flow rate, the pressure fluctuation inside the wheel space cavity is suppressed and the rotating speed of the flow structures is deaccelerated; thus, the sealing flow stabilizes the flow inside the wheel space cavity. Meanwhile, the K-H vortices’ position is lifted by the increased sealing flow rate, and the strength of the K-H vortices is suppressed, thus the sealing efficiency inside the wheel space cavity is also improved.

A full scale-resolving simulation of cascades flutter is time consuming because of computational inefficiency owing to its low nondimensional frequencies. To improve the efficiency and reliability of the numerical analyses for such flows, we propose an efficient scale-resolving simulation method dedicated to time-periodic flows by extending the harmonic balance approach to a large-eddy simulation. This method combines convergence calculations of the steady-state problem based on the harmonic balance method for periodic components, and the nonlinear time-marching method for small scale turbulent fluctuations. Using the proposed method, deterministic periodic components and stochastic turbulent fluctuations are calculated simultaneously, and the effect of turbulent fluctuations on deterministic periodic components is directly calculated without using turbulence models. In this paper, we present the algorithm of the simulation technique and the progress of validation calculations for channel flow excited in the streamwise direction.

Pressure gain combustion (PGC) should substantially improve the thermodynamic efficiency of gas turbines by increasing the fluid total pressure as it traverses the combustion chamber. However, PGC introduces additional unsteadiness to the intrinsically complex turbomachinery flow. A high pressure compressor, located right upstream of the PGC section, is therefore constantly exposed to flow fluctuations, experiencing drop in efficiency, increase in pressure loss as well as higher stalling and structural failure risks. This numerical work analyzes how one stage of a well-established engine, namely the NASA EEE core compressor, reacts to the disturbances induced by the potential implementation of PGC. Unsteady computational fluid dynamics are employed with boundary conditions simulating the combustion unsteadiness. The main focus of the current paper is the application of data-driven methods, including the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), when comparing the high pressure compressor baseline operation with the PGC-disturbed case. Representative flow features and their frequency content, not identifiable with typical methods such as phase-averaging, are easily extracted from snapshots sequences. The results not only allow the identification of the most relevant coherent structures present in the unsteady flow, but also show how they change in the presence of PGC. This contribution sheds light on how novel PGC technology can be integrated with turbomachinery components, identifying modifications in the main flow features with the use of advanced decomposition techniques.

Under the action of an asymmetric volute structure, a non-uniform flow field is formed in the circumferential direction of the centrifugal compressor. During the throttling process of the compressor at different rotational speeds, the static pressure presents a double-peak distribution of two high static pressure strips, one of which is induced by the volute tongue. However, the formation mechanism of the other high static pressure strip remains unclear. In this regard, computations of the steady and unsteady flows in a centrifugal compressor with and without a volute are performed. The purpose of removing the volute is to simplify the boundary conditions at the diffuser exit, eliminate the circumferential pressure gradient distribution in the volute, and retain the circumferential local high static pressure region induced by the VT; thereafter, the circumferential static pressure distributions in the diffuser and impeller are observed. The results indicate that after eliminating the pressure gradient at the diffuser exit along the rotation direction, only local high static pressure boundary conditions can result in the formation of two high static pressure strips in the diffuser and impeller. The local high static pressure at the exit redistributes the mass flow rate at the impeller outlet, forming two regions with high airflow velocity in the diffuser; this leads to the appearance of two high static pressure strips in the circumferential direction. With the increase in the pressure amplitude of the high static pressure at the diffuser exit, the oscillation amplitude of the circumferential pressure is intensified, and the pressure peaks of the two high static pressure strips increase. However, the circumferential positions of the two static pressure peaks practically remain constant. At large mass flow rates, the pressure reduction along the circumferential direction at the diffuser exit preclude the formation of two circumferential high static pressure strips in the diffuser and impeller.

In this paper, the transient pressure field in a centrifugal compressor is predicted by the Nonlinear Harmonic (NLH) method, as well as the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations and validated by transient pressure measurements. The accurate prediction of these pressure fluctuations is crucial, because they have a significant influence on the High-Cycle-Fatigue (HCF) behavior in turbomachinery applications. As the first step, excited and non-excited rotational speeds, caused by rotor-stator interactions, are identified by modal analysis performed on a single segment impeller assembly. In order to eliminate any additional pressure fluctuations caused by blade vibrations, three non-excited operating points at different rotational speed levels are selected for the transient flow simulations. The transient pressure fields predicted by these methods are validated by transient pressure measurements at three circumferentially different locations on the impeller shroud. A study of the modeling of these fast-response pressure probes in numerical calculations also falls within the scope of this work in order to identify its effect on the transient pressure amplitudes. The results of the numerical calculations and measurements are compared in the frequency domain by performing Fast-Fourier Transformations (FFT) and Short-Time Fourier Transformations (STFT) on the numerical and experimental data respectively. It is shown that the transient pressure field in a single staged centrifugal compressor is calculated accurately by both of the numerical methods in comparison to the transient flow measurements. This paper demonstrates that the numerical modeling of the fast-response pressure sensors has a significant impact on the unsteady pressure amplitudes, which needs to be taken into account for a reliable experimental validation process.

The unsteady flow in the compressor at small mass flow rate has an important impact on the safety and efficiency of the compressor. Rotating instability was found in the experiment at near stall condition. Through URANS simulation, the origin of unsteady flow in an isolated subsonic rotor is studied. And the relationship between unsteadiness of tip leakage flow and rotating instability is revealed. With the deepening of the throttle, the flow field in the rotor changes from steady to unsteady. The intermittent spiral type breakdown of tip leakage vortex is considered to be the origin of the unsteady flow. Quantitative analysis of the tip leakage vortex shows the breakdown cycle caused by the interaction of the tip leaked vortex with the adjacent blade. When the tangential velocity and axial velocity of the leakage vortex reach a critical value, the tip leakage vortex will break. A radial vortex called back flow vortex will appear periodically after breakdown happens, which plays an important in rotating instability. The back flow vortex at upstream causes an overflow at adjacent blade leading edge, which results the next breakdown happens at downstream. Due to such feedback, the tip leakage vortex breakdown at two location alternately. A possible cause of RI was proposed: The spiral breakdown of the tip leakage vortex at different positions resulted in a cross-passage structure, which propagates into circumferential direction.

Rotating instability (RI) in steam turbines is a phenomenon occurring during operation at very low volume flow conditions. Whereas RI is well-known in compressors, it is rather uncommon in turbines, where it is limited to the last stages of low-pressure steam turbines. The phenomenon has been studied numerically by means of viscous 3D CFD simulations employing mainly URANS equations. Given the possible difficulties to accurately predict heavily separated flows using such methods, this paper deals with the question whether the more sophisticated Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (iDDES) model is applicable in an industrial environment and whether it is capable of capturing the complex unsteady flow physics in a more realistic manner. For this purpose, the commercial CFD solver STAR-CCM+ is employed. A three-stage low-pressure model steam turbine featuring a non-axisymmetric inlet and an axial-radial diffuser is used as a test object. In order to capture the asymmetry, the model spans the full annulus and comprises the inlet section, all three stages, the diffuser as well as the exhaust hood. URANS and iDDES simulations have been performed at various low-volume flow part-load operating points and compared to test data. Unsteady pressure fluctuations at the casing as well as time-resolved probe traverse data have been used to validate the simulations. It is found that both models capture the overall flow physics well and that the iDDES model is superior at the most extreme part-load operating condition. In addition to the model accuracy and applicability of the CFD tool used, the paper discusses the challenges encountered during simulation setup as well as during initialization.

The accurate prediction of high cycle fatigue (HCF) is becoming one of the key technologies in the design process of state-of-the-art axial compressors. If they are not properly designed, both rotor blades and stator vanes can be damaged. There are two main factors to cause HCF. One is low engine order (LEO) and the other is high engine order (HEO) excitation by fluid force associated with adjacent rotor-stator interaction. For the front stages of axial compressors for power generations and aero engines, the inlet Mach number of a rotor tip typically exceeds the speed of sound and strong shock waves tend to be induced. This can be the source of HEO excitation fluid force, and adjacent stator vanes are sometimes severely damaged. Thus, the aim of this study is to establish an efficient method for predicting the vibration response in this type of problem with high accuracy. To achieve this, numerical investigations are carried out by one-way fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulation. To validate the accuracy of FSI simulation, experiments are also conducted using a gas turbine engine for power generation. In the experiment, the vibration level is measured with strain gauges mounted on the surface of stator vanes and the data are compared with the predicted results. In the first part of the study, efficient prediction methods of excitation fluid force on the stator vane are investigated by time transformation (TT) and harmonic balance (HB) methods. Their accuracies are evaluated by comparing the results with those calculated by transient rotor stator (TRS) simulation whose pitch ratio is one between rotor and stator computational domains. It is found that the TT method can accurately predict the excitation fluid force with lower computation load even when there are pitch differences between rotor and stator regions. In the second part of the study, forced response analyses are carried out using the excitation fluid force obtained in the unsteady flow simulation. To obtain the total damping of the system, both hammering test and flutter simulations are carried out. Computed results are validated with experimental data and it is found that the predicted vibration level is in good agreement with experimental results. Through this study, the effectiveness of one-way FSI simulation is confirmed for this type of forced response prediction. By utilizing the combination of efficient unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods and harmonic response analysis, vibration amplitude can be predicted accurately and efficiently.

Improvements made to the high cycle fatigue life of an industrial compressor rotor blade for tip active modes through aerodynamic design changes and aero-mechanical assessments are presented in this paper. Typical aero-mechanical computations involved utilising an in-house linear-harmonic solver to compute the aero damping. In parallel, a novel hybrid model with whole-anulus domain for the blade rows of interest followed by a single passage domain for the rest of the compressor was used to compute the modal forcing. In addition to the standard blade passing resonances, low engine order excitations due to vane number differences, were analysed. This was achieved within a time frame consistent with the product design cycle by using TurboStream, a GPU based non-linear time domain unsteady flow solver. The excitation due to low engine order resonance was found to be influenced by a harmonic of upstream blade passing frequency. When considering a design change targeting HCF life, the calculated reserve factors showed significant improvements for the tip modes of interest. The subsequent engine tests carried out with tip timing agreed closely with the predictions thus validating not only the design but also the forced response prediction process.

This paper describes the structural optimization of a high speed, 35mm tip diameter radial turbine wheel in a Variable Geometry Turbine (VGT) system, subjected to the wide range of aerodynamic loads experienced during the full operating cycle. VGTs exhibit a wide range of unsteady flow features, which vary as the nozzle vanes rotate through different positions during operation, as do the magnitudes and frequencies of the resulting pressure fluctuations experienced by the downstream turbine blades. The turbine wheel typically passes through a number of blade natural frequencies over their operating cycle, and there are a number of potential conditions where these unsteady aerodynamic loads can lead to resonant blade vibration. The focus of this work is on the development of a pragmatic design approach to improve the structural characteristics of a radial turbine blade with respect to High Cycle Fatigue (HCF), informed by detailed time-accurate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) prediction of the unsteady pressure loads, coupled with FE vibration analysis to quantify the resulting blade vibration magnitudes. Unsteady CFD simulations are performed to determine the time-accurate pressure loads on the blades, and the results are used as input to forced response analysis to determine the peak alternating stress amplitudes. The detailed analysis results are then used to guide a subsequent parametric study in order to investigate the influence of key geometric parameters on the structural performance of the blade, with the optimum design identified through the use of a Goodman Diagram. The results quantify the influence of both blade thickness distribution and hub fillet details on the vibration characteristics of radial turbines.

With unsteady flow simulations of industrial turbomachinery configurations becoming more and more affordable there is a growing need for accurate inlet and outlet boundary conditions as numerical reflections alone can lead to incorrect trends in engine efficiency, noise and aeroelastic analysis parameters. This is the first of two papers on the formulation of unsteady boundary conditions which have been implemented for both time-domain and frequency-domain solvers. Giles’ original idea for steady solvers to formulate the boundary condition in terms of characteristics generalizes to frequency-domain solvers. The boundary condition drives the value of the incoming characteristics to ideal values that are computed using the modal decomposition of linearized 2D Euler flows. The present paper explains how to generalize 2D nonreflecting boundary conditions to real 3D annular domains by applying them in certain conical rotational surfaces. For a flow with zero radial component and an annular boundary that is perpendicular to the machine axis, these surfaces are the cylindrical streamsurfaces. For more general flows and geometries, however, there is no natural choice for the rotational surfaces. In this paper, two choices are discussed: the surfaces that are generated by the boundary normals and those that are defined by the circumferentially averaged meridional velocity. The impact of the boundary condition on the stability of the harmonic-balance solver is analyzed by studying the pseudo-time evolution of certain energy integrals. For a model problem which consists of a small disturbance of an inviscid flow, the increase or decrease of this energy integral is shown to be directly related to the normal characteristic variables along the boundary. This shows that the actual boundary condition should be formulated as a control problem for the normal characteristics. Moreover, the application of the harmonic balance solver to a simple duct configuration with prescribed disturbances demonstrates that using the characteristics based on the meridional velocity may prevent the solver from converging. In contrast, the 2D theory can be formulated in a different surface without impairing the robustness of the overall approach. These findings are illustrated by a simple test case. The impact of the choice of the rotational surface for the 2D theory is studied for various duct segments and a low-pressure turbine configuration in the second paper. There it is shown that applying the 2D theory to the meridional-velocity surfaces may be advantageous in that it leads to more accurate results.

Impeller rotation, vortex shedding, secondary flows or a combination of these phenomena can lead to the generation of acoustic waves in the compressor cascade causing dynamic pressure loading on the impeller. When the eigenfrequency and eigenmode shape of the acoustic mode match with the structural ones of the impeller, high fatigue stresses and vibrations occur, which can lead to structural failure. It is well known that cavities enclosing shrouded impellers may strongly amplify the acoustic excitation of the impeller by means of Tyler-Sofrin modes; however, little knowledge is available about the physics of flow-induced noise and resonance mechanisms. In this research, a Lattice Boltzmann Method based approach is employed to predict the origin and amplitude of pressure loading responsible for the strong impeller trailing edge vibrations measured in experiments. The results reveal that this is caused by the acoustic mode generated from the interaction of upstream vane wakes with the impeller that is reflected by the return channel vanes. This research highlights the importance of accounting for aeroacoustic mechanisms in the design of centrifugal compressor stages and paves the way towards the numerical assessment of unsteady flow and resonance phenomena.

Previous studies have indicated a potential for improving the performance of a Turbine Center Frame (TCF) duct by optimizing the clocking position between the high-pressure-turbine (HPT) vanes and TCF struts. To assess the impact of clocking on the performance, a new test vehicle with a clockable ratio of HPT vanes to TCF struts, consisting of an HPT stage (aero-dynamically representative of the second-stage HPT engine), a TCF duct with non-turning struts, and a first-stage low-pressure turbine vane, was designed and tested in the transonic test turbine facility (TTTF) at Graz University of Technology. This paper quantifies the performance impact of clocking and describes the mechanisms causing TCF flow field changes, leveraging both experimental and numerical data. Other areas in the TCF duct impacted by the choice of the HPT vane circumferential position including the strength of unsteady HPT-TCF interaction modes, TCF strut incidence changes, and carry-over effects to the first LPT vane are additionally highlighted. Five-hole-probe (5HP) area traverses and kielhead-rake traverses were used to asses the flow field at the TCF-exit and calculate the pressure loss. The flow field at the TCF exit shows significant differences depending on the circumferential position of the HPT vane. A relative performance benefit of 5% was achieved. A series of unsteady RANS simulations were performed to support the measured results, understand and characterize the relevant loss mechanisms. The observed performance improvement was related to interaction between the HPT secondary -flow structures and the TCF struts. The impact of the HPT vane clocking on the unsteady flow field downstream of the TCF was investigated using Fast-Response Aerodynamic Pressure Probe (FRAPP) area traverses, analyzed by means of modal decomposition. In this way the individual azimuthal modes were ranked by their amplitude and a dependency of the clocking position was observed and quantified.

During the last decades, many efforts have been invested by the scientific community in minimising exhaust emissions from aeronautical gas turbine engines. In this context, many advanced ultra-low NOx combustion concepts, such as the Lean Direct Injection treated in the present study, are being developed to abide by future regulations. Numerical simulations of these devices are usually computationally expensive since they imply a multi-scale problem. In this work, a non-reactive Large Eddy Simulation of a gaseous-fuelled, radial-swirled Lean-Direct Injection (LDI) combustor has been carried out through the OpenFOAM Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code by solving the complete inlet flow path through the swirl vanes and the combustor. The geometry considered is the gaseous configuration of the CORIA LDI combustor, for which detailed measurements are available. Macroscopical analysis of the main turbulent features related to the swirling flow and the generated Central Recirculation Zone (CRZ) are well established in the literature. Nevertheless, a more in-depth characterization is still required in this area of active research since theory and experimental data are not yet able to predict which unstable mode dominates the flow. This work aims at using Large Eddy Simulation for a complete characterisation of the unsteady flow structures generated within the combustion chamber of a gaseous methane injection immersed in a strong non-reactive swirling flow field. To do so, a spectral analysis of the flow field is performed to identify the frequency, intensity and instabilities associated to the phenomena occurring at the swirler outlet region. A coherent structure known as Precessing Vortex Core (PVC) is identified both at the inner and the outer shear layers, resulting in a periodic disturbance of the pressure and velocity fields. The pressure and velocity fluctuations predicted by the CFD code are used to compute the spectral signatures through the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) amplitude at multiple locations. This allows investigating both the complex behaviour of the PVC and its associated acoustic phenomena. The acoustic characteristics computed by the numerical model are first validated qualitatively by comparing the spectrum with available experimental data. In this way, the use of dimensionless numbers to characterise the most energetic structures is coherent with the experimental observations and the characteristics of the PVC. Then, the numerical identification of the main acoustic modes in the chamber through Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) allows overcoming the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) shortcomings and better understanding the propagation of the hydrodynamic instability perturbations. This investigation on the main non-reacting swirling flow structures inside the combustor provides a suitable background for further studies on combustion instability mechanisms.

Turbomachinery blades characterized by highly-loaded, slender profiles and operating under unsteady flow may suffer from aeroelastic shortcomings, like forced response and flutter. One of the ways to mitigate these aeroelastic effects is to redesign the blade profiles, so as to increase aero-damping and decrease aero-forcing. Design optimization based on high-fidelity aeroelastic analysis methods is a formidable task due to the inherent computational cost. This work presents an adjoint-based aeroelastic shape-optimization framework based on reduced order methods for flow analysis and forced response computation. The flow analysis is carried out through a multi-frequency fully-turbulent harmonic balance method, while the forced response is computed by means of the energy method. The capability of the design framework is demonstrated by optimizing two candidate cascades, namely, i) a transonic compressor cascade and, ii) a supersonic impulse turbine rotor operating with toluene as working fluid, initially designed by means of the method of waves. The outcomes of the optimization show significant improvements in terms of forced-response in both cases as a consequence of aero-damping enhancement.

This paper compares experimental and numerical data for a low-speed high-lift Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) cascade under unsteady flow conditions. Three Reynolds numbers representative of LPTs have been tested, namely, 5 × 10 4 , 10 5 , 2 × 10 5 ; at two reduced frequencies, f r = 0.5 and 1, also representative of LPTs. The experimental data was obtained at the low-speed linear cascade wind-tunnel at the Polytechnic University of Madrid using hot-wire, LDV and pressure tappings. The numerical solver employs a sixth order compact scheme based on the Flux Reconstruction method for spatial discretization and a fourth order Runge-Kutta method to march in time. The longest case ran 550 hours on 40 GPUs to reach a statistically periodic state. Pressure coefficients around the profile, boundary layer profiles and exit cross-section distributions of velocity, pressure loss defect, shear Reynolds stress and angle are compared against high-quality experimental data. Cascade loss and exit angle have also been compared against experimental data. Very good agreement between experimental and numerical data is seen. The results demonstrate the suitability of the present methodology to predict the aerodynamic properties unsteady flows around LPT linear cascades accurately.