In modern turbine rotors, tip-leakage flow is a common phenomenon that accounts for about 1/3 of the stage loss. Studies show that as the imposed load increases, a shock wave appears in the tip region, which causes a significant interference on the leakage vortex. In the present study, numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the influence of the shock wave on the loss and breakdown of the tip-leakage vortex. The obtained results indicate that with no effective control on the flow, the loss of the leakage vortex has an approximate exponential growth up to about 10 times as the outlet Mach number increases from 0.67 to 1.15 and the corresponding proportion in the total loss increases sharply to 30.2%. It is found that the stagnation position of the breakdown changes with the backpressure and the amplitude of variation along the axial direction is up to 0.13 C_x. It is inferred that the breakdown of the leakage vortex core may be affected by the periodical passing of downstream blade and the induced pressure fluctuation may result in additional vibration in this rotor blade. The leakage vortex is unstable in supersonic flow with a shock wave and it may transfer to a flow with a low-velocity bubble in its core region. It is concluded that the leakage vortex breakdown mainly originates from interferences of the shock wave, while the internal cause of such breakdown is the centrifugal instability of the vortex.

Among the several noise-generation mechanisms of airfoil self-noise, trailing-edge bluntness noise is an important noise source, which is caused by the vortex shedding at blunt trailing edges. A numerical study on airfoil trailing-edge bluntness noise control using the bio-inspired wavy leading edges is presented in this paper. The high-fidelity, improved, delayed, detached eddy simulation (IDDES) method was used to calculate the flow field, and the acoustic analogy method was used for noise prediction. For both the blunt-trailing-edge airfoils, a baseline airfoil with a straight leading edge and a bio-inspired airfoil with a wavy leading edge were used in this study. The chord-based Reynolds number was 400,000, and there was no angle of attack. The numerical results show that the trailing-edge bluntness noise of the baseline airfoil was significantly reduced by the wavy leading edges. The sound pressure level reduction was about 3.7 dB at the characteristic frequency, and the maximum sound pressure level reduction was as high as 35 dB. The trailing-edge bluntness noise was decreased at all directional angles. The maximum overall sound pressure level reduction was 6.3 dB at 0°. In addition, by analyzing the pressure fluctuations, wake characteristics, turbulent vortex structures and spanwise correlation and coherence of the flow field, the noise-reduction mechanisms of the bio-inspired airfoil are deeply revealed.

This paper presents numerical studies on airfoil leading-edge turbulence interaction noise reduction using poro-wavy leading edges. Three different bionic treatments including wavy leading edges, porous leading edges, and a novel combined poro-wavy leading edges are modeled. The turbulent flow field is solved using the improved delayed detached eddy simulation method. The aerodynamic noise is predicted using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy theory. The inflow Mach number is approximately 0.12 with an angle of attack of 0°, and the chord-based Reynolds number is 400 000. The present numerical method is first validated against experimental data and previous studies. Then the effects of the three bionic treatments on the aerodynamic performance and the aeroacoustic performance are analyzed. The results show that all the three bionic treatments will increase the mean drag of the airfoil, especially for the airfoils with porous treatment, while the lift and drag fluctuations are significantly reduced by the three bionic treatments. The wavy leading edges are found to be more effective for the reduction of broadband noise, while the porous leading edges are more effective for the reduction of the tonal noise. For the poro-wavy leading edges, both the tonal noise and broadband noise are significantly reduced, which means that the combined poro-wavy leading edges possess both the advantages of the wavy and porous treatments. The underlying flow mechanisms responsible for the noise reduction are finally analyzed in detail.

The influence of the bionic leading edge tubercles on the aerodynamic performance of a high-speed low-pressure turbine has been numerically studied. Nine different tubercle configurations were designed to reduce the loss of the cascade at high Mach and low Reynolds numbers. Firstly, the effect of the geometric parameters of the bionic leading edge tubercles on the total pressure loss of the turbine cascade is discussed. Then, the flow control mechanism of the bionic leading edge tubercles is discussed. The results indicate that the total pressure loss of the turbine cascade could be reduced effectively by the leading edge tubercles. A larger tubercle size and larger amplitude-to-wavelength ratio can achieve a better loss reduction effect. The streamwise vortex generated by the leading edge tubercles continuously promotes the momentum exchange of the boundary layer in the process of downstream development, which makes the boundary layer shape plumper, and the ability to resist separation is enhanced. At the same time, the disturbance introduced by the streamwise vortex enables the separated boundary layer to transition quickly.

This work presents numerical studies on the effect of wavy leading edges on airfoil instability tonal noise. Large eddy simulations are conducted for NACA0012 (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) airfoils with straight and wavy leading edges. The far-field aerodynamic noise is predicted using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy theory. The inflow Mach number is approximately 0.17 with an angle of attack of 4.3°, and the chord based Reynolds number is 600 000. The present numerical method is first validated by existing numerical results and a semi-empirical model for the straight baseline airfoil. Then, the effects of wavy leading edges on the aerodynamic performance, aeroacoustic performance, and noise reduction mechanisms are discussed in detail. The wavy leading edge is found to be detrimental to the mean aerodynamic performance with a decreased lift and increased drag. However, the lift fluctuations are significantly reduced. The instability tonal noise and its harmonic are totally removed by the wavy leading edges, while an extra broadband hump appears at the middle frequency. The low frequency and high frequency noise are also increased by the wavy airfoil. The laminar separation bubble is removed, and the flow separation is decreased by the wavy airfoil in the vicinity of the trailing edge. The pressure fluctuations around the trailing-edge are considerably diminished, and the spanwise coherence spectra are also significantly reduced by the wavy airfoil. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the coherence reduction spectrum at the source is almost consistent with the far-field noise reduction spectrum.