Uncertainty quantification of leakages in a multistage simulation and comparison with experiments

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical study of the impact of tip gap uncertainties in a multistage turbine. It is well known that the rotor gap can change the gas turbine efficiency, but the impact of the random variation of the clearance height has not been investigated before. In this paper, the radial seals clearance of a datum shroud geometry, representative of steam turbine industrial practice, was systematically varied and numerically tested by means of unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD). By using a nonintrusive uncertainty quantification (UQ) simulation based on a sparse arbitrary moment-based approach, it is possible to predict the radial distribution of uncertainty in stagnation pressure and yaw angle at the exit of the turbine blades. This work shows that the impact of gap uncertainties propagates radially from the tip toward the hub of the turbine, and the complete span is affected by a variation of the rotor tip gap. This amplification of the uncertainty is mainly due to the low-aspect ratio of the turbine, and a similar behavior is expected in high pressure (HP) turbines.