Reduction in endwall flow losses in turbine blade with the use of sweep in leading edge of the blade

Endwall flow losses are reduced by modifying the blade root and disc of a turbine rotor utilizing a novel sweep profile design in this paper. To reduce turbine blade endwall flow losses, various geometric characteristics of the proposed sweep profile are discovered and optimized using computational and experimental methodologies. Four distinct sweep profile shapes with similar boundary conditions were investigated, and an optimal sweep was achieved. Based on the blade chord and the input velocity, all flow and geometrical parameters were evaluated at a constant Reynolds number of 27,106. Various performance parameters, namely total pressure loss coefficient, vorticity magnitude, velocity vectors and turbulent kinetic energy, are obtained at different axial planes along the height of a turbine blade. A cubic Bezier curve is used to create a sweep profile at the junction of the turbine blade root and the rotor disc. The findings indicate that the horseshoe and corner vortex sizes are decreased, resulting in a reduction in the vortex-affected region at the blade leading edge. The secondary and tertiary vortices also disappeared as a consequence of the decrease in the vortex-affected region. Due to the optimal shape of the sweep profile, the overall pressure loss coefficient was reduced by 9%, and the magnitude of the vorticity was reduced by 33%.