Calculation of the Energy Loss for Tip Leakage Flow in Turbines

A commercial N-S solver has been employed for simulation and investigation of the unsteady flow field inside the tip clearance of a turbine rotor. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a new method of energy loss calculation for the flow field in tip clearance region of a turbine rotor blade This method can be easily used in all kinds of flow fields. Regions of high viscous effects have been found to be located near the shroud rather than the blade tip. It is shown that the time-averaged loss of energy in tip leakage flow is dissimilar for different rotor blades. This result is a helpful hint that can be taken by blade designers to design non uniform rotor blades with different geometric and aerodynamic loads to minimize the energy loss.