Effect of Inlet Conditions on Endwall Secondary Flows

Exit combustor e ow and thermal e elds entering downstream stator vane passages in a gas turbine engine are highly nonuniform. These e ow and thermal e elds can signie cantly affect the development of the secondary e ows in the turbine passages attributing to high platform heat transfer and large aerodynamic losses. An analysis is presented of the effects of both the temperature and velocity proe les on the secondary e ows in the endwall region of a e rst-stage stator vane geometry. These effects were assessed using the predicted e owe eld results from computational e uid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Prior to using the predictions, these CFD simulations were benchmarked against e owe eld data measured in a large-scale, linear, turbine vane cascade. Good agreement occurred between the computational predictions and experimentally measured secondary e ows. Analyses of the results for several different cases indicate the stagnation pressure gradient is a key parameter in determining the character of the secondary e ows.