CFD Investigation of the test facility for forced blade flutter research

Abstract

With the increasing share of renewable power resources turbomachines need to be operated under a wider range of operating conditions including highly off-design regimes. Under such regimes an undesirable phenomenon of blade flutter might occur and possibly destroy the machine. To prevent this, intensive research is conducted by research teams worldwide. Blade flutter research program at the Institute of Thermomechanics of the Czech academy of sciences (IT CAS) mainly aims to advance experimental techniques for investigation of sonic and transonic blade flutter. For this purpose, the new sophisticated test facility was designed and manufactured. As part of the design process, the CFD computations were conducted in order to investigate the flow field in the test facility. This paper presents results of these computations with detailed analysis of flow structures occurring during the air flow through the stationary blade cascade.