Investigation of Combustor-Turbine-Interaction in a Rotating Cooled Transonic High-Pressure Turbine Test Rig Part 1: Experimental Results

Abstract

Within the scope of European Commission FP7 project FACTOR, dedicated to combustor-turbine-interaction research, a clean-sheet design of a rotating turbine test rig featuring a non-reacting combustor simulator was created and built among the partners. German Aerospace Center DLR provided the operational facility NG-Turb to which the rig was adapted and was responsible for global rig integration and operation, also including aerodynamic probe measurements of the flow field. The rig and experimental set-up is described and post-processed results from probe traverses in several measurement planes are presented and discussed. Special attention is paid to the comparison and influence of two combustor-NGV clocking positions on the periodic turbine flow field, made possible by rig adaptation during the campaign. The strongly distorted and nonuniform turbine inlet flow created by the combustor simulator proved challenging for the probe measurements, but at the same time set a realistic boundary condition enabling the analysis of CTI by flow structures migrating through the blade rows.