Methodology for efficient and robust high pressure turbine design

According to the different subprojects, the following results have been achieved:

• Subproject 1- Improved aero-thermodynamic concepts: They were able to develop an overall aero-thermodynamic model of an aircraft turbine. The significant progress in terms of connection, simulation and optimization of complex structures will have an impact on further research and development activities.
• Subproject 2- “cyclone” cooling concept and model of the turbulent Prandtl number: Successful implementation of experiments on various test benches. A detailed description of the processes inside a “cyclone” cooling cell was created.
• Subproject 3- non-stationary impingement cooling concepts: the project focused on transferring the existing findings into an applicable configuration. Therefore, a special test bench was drafted, built and tested.
• Subproject 4- energy consumption: Overall performance of the high-pressure turbine: The key question was, whether an increased turbine power leads to higher heat losses? This could compensate the hoped-for positive effect of increased power. Therefore, a model was developed, validated and implemented.
• Subproject 5- draft: transonic turbine with 1.5 levels: Thanks to the configuration of the aerodynamic structure of the turbine and tests to find the best composition of the individual components inside the turbine, the efficiency could be increased.
• Subproject 6- multidisciplinary optimization: This subproject is based on previous findings from the project “HDT-Transsonisch: Single stage transonic high pressure turbine”. The interdisciplinary design tool SMART, which has already been implemented successfully, obtained further improvements: An interface between SMART and the Unigraphics (UG) CAD models was created. In a second work package, a new function was implemented in SMART which provides analysis regarding the robustness of a specific design. In the third work package, an automated parameterization was implemented, which contributes to a faster process.
• Subproject 7- Improved modelling of the contact points: aircraft turbines have a complex coupling of blades and rotating disk. At the contact surfaces, rubbing phenomena occur. For a better prognosis, a 3dimensional, rubbing-sensitive contact model was developed with mathematical methods.