Secondary Flow in a Cascade of Airfoils

Author: Briceland, Richard Harald

Year: 1959

Degree: Dissertation (Ph.D.)

Advisor: Rannie, W. Duncan

Committee Member: Unknown, Unknown

Option: Mechanical Engineering

DOI: 10.7907/EYF1-2Y08

Abstract

Secondary flows were studied experimentally in a diffusing cascade. A family of screens were installed ahead of the blade row at the midspan position to produce a controlled distortion of the up-stream velocity profile. In this way it was possible to focus attention on those regions of the flow field which were distant from the tunnel walls and to thereby restrict the investigation to a study of small disturbance phenomena.

It was found that the general behavior of the flow at the cascade exit plane was satisfactorily described by a modified channel-theory analysis in which a simple iterative correction was included to account for the spanwise self-transport effects of the induced secondary flows.

Two methods are proposed for evaluating the spanwise distribution of blade loading when the approach velocity into the cascade is non-uniform; these methods were tested experimentally and were found to give results which were in good agreement with measured data.

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