Gas Turbine Lab: Research

Research

GTL Researchers

The GTL has a wide array of unique experimental facilities complemented by extensive computational tools. 

In addition, the lab makes use of computational fluid dynamics codes such as FINE/Turbo, FINE/OPEN, STAR-CD, TURBO, the finite element tools ANSYS, LS-DYNA, and many other proprietary LabView and Matlab tools.

Aerodynamics and Heat Transfer Research

The Gas Turbine Laboratory has active research programs investigating the aerodynamics and heat transfer of a variety of different situations:

  • Full-stage Turbine. These experiments utilize actual engine hardware to investigate the flow physics for a turbine operating at conditions that match key non-dimensional parameters.  Improvements in film-cooling coverage and disk cavity cooling can enable higher turbine inlet temperatures and correspondingly higher efficiencies.
  • Internal Cooling Passages. A significant fraction of the heat removed from a high-pressure turbine blade is extracted through the coolant channels inside the blade.  These programs work to better understand the flow inside these channels for a rotating blade.
  • Flat Plate.  Transient flat plate experiments provide a simple case for computational comparison and for developing new experimental techniques that can be used in the other facilities.

Every research program performed at the Gas Turbine Laboratory also has a computational component to guide experimental design, aid in data interpretation, and examine new computational techniques.

Accordions

Aeromechanics and Structural Dynamics Research

The Gas Turbine Laboratory has active experimental and computational research programs investigating aeromechanics and structural dynamics focused on turbomachinery applications:

  • Tip Rubs
  • Blade Damping, Mistuning, and Excitation Studies
  • Foreign Object Ingestion
  • Mistuning and Multi-Stage Turbomachinery Modeling
  • Nonlinear Modeling in Turbomachinery
  • Miscellaneous Nonlinear Dynamics

The GTL has three spin facilities (CSPF, LSPF, LFST) used to experimentally investigate the effect of blade tip-rubs, blade damping, and a variety of other questions.  Each facility is highly configurable to accomodate a range of hardware (bladed disks up to 14 ft in diameter) and research interests. Additionally, new modeling techniques are being developed continuously and these techniques are being validated with experiments when possible.

Accordions