Stereoscopic PIV measurements of the flow field in a turbine cascade

This paper presents experimental measurements of the flow field in a Low-speed Turbine Cascade using a stereoscopic particle-image velocimetry (SPIV). During the measurements, a pair of frame-straddling-based CCD cameras were configured at different sides of the laser light sheet, and appropriate tracing particles (DEHS) were employed. The measurements were conducted at the incidence angle of 0 degree and exit Reynolds number of 1.7 × 10⁵ with the tip clearance 1.18% of blade chord. The tip flow features, such as the evolution and breakdown of tip leakage vortex, the horseshoe vortex, turbulence characteristics of tip leakage flow, were studied for the flow field analysis. The results showed that the tip leakage flow/vortex mainly dominate flow fields in the tip region. The tip leakage vortex performs as a concentrated vortex before its breaking down and splitting into small vortices. The highest turbulence intensity mainly occurs in the tip region along with the trajectory of tip leakage vortex, and when the vortex breaks down, the turbulence intensity reduces rapidly. Additionally, the SPIV with this configuration also shows an advantage in investigating the flow structures and mechanism inside the turbine cascade.