Low Pressure Turbine Flow Physics Program

As part of the collaborative NASA/industry/academia Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) Flow Physics program, smoke flow was visualized from a simulated low-pressure turbine experiment in NASA Lewis Research Center's CW-7 test facility. As shown in the photographs, a laminar separation bubble formed on the bottom flat surface. This is characteristic of the flows in a large-scale, low-pressure turbine operating under off-design conditions. A contoured upper wall was designed to generate a pressure distribution on a flat plate to match the suction surface pressure distribution from a generic low-pressure turbine blade.