Tip-leakage flow loss reduction in a two-stage turbine using axisymmetric-casing contouring

In order to reduce the losses caused by tip-leakage flow, axisymmetric contouring is applied to the casing of a two-stage unshrouded high pressure turbine (HPT) of aero-engine in this paper. This investigation focuses on the effects of contoured axisymmetric-casing on the blade tip-leakage flow. While the size of tip clearance remains the same as the original design, the rotor casing and the blade tip are obtained with the same contoured arc shape. Numerical calculation results show that a promotion of 0.14% to the overall efficiency is achieved. Detailed analysis indicates that it reduces the entropy generation rate caused by the complex vortex structure in the rotor tip region, especially in the tip-leakage vortex. The low velocity region in the leading edge (LE) part of the tip gap is enlarged and the pressure side/tip junction separation bubble extends much further away from the leading edge in the clearance. So the blocking effect of pressure side/tip junction separation bubble on clearance flow prevents more flow on the tip pressure side from leaking to the suction side, which results in weaker leakage vortex and less associated losses.