The design of three-dimensional turbine
blades combined with profiled endwalls
Abstract: This paper describes a novel design for reducing secondary flow in turbines. The
design builds on previous work on non-axisymmetric profiled endwalls by combining them
with three-dimensional blade design. Profiled endwalls have been shown to effectively
reduce secondary flow but have often been used as a ‘retrofit’ application where the blade
design is left unchanged. In the current paper reverse compound lean is used to prepare the
blade row for the application of profiled endwalls. Computational fluid dynamic predictions
ofthe expected performance show benefits over and above those of applying profiled endwalls
to the blade row alone. The paper describes the design of the novel geometry for the so-called
‘Durham Cascade’ and gives predictions of the expected performance.
Keywords: secondary flow, profiled endwalls, turbomachinery, blade design, turbines, nonaxisymmetric