Shock wave configuration in a transonic flow through a mid-section of a last stage turbine blade cascade equipped with a part-span connector

This paper deals with the study of a flow field and namely the configuration of shock waves in a blade cascade equipped with a part-span connector called tie-boss. The cascade consists of prismatic blades formed from the mid-section of a very long last-stage blade of a steam turbine. The study is based on numerical simulations of the flow through a cascade that was previously tested in a wind tunnel. Commercial software Ansys CFX was used for the simulations and Ansys ICEM for the mesh generation. The computational domain contains non-homogenous mesh interfaces. The simulations showed that the presence of the tie-boss has a profound effect on the configuration of the shock waves. The blade exit shock waves are disturbed and new lateral shock waves are introduced into the flow.