Experimental and Numerical Study of the Time-Dependent Pressure Response of a Shock Wave Oscillating in a Nozzle

Abstract

Investigations of flutter in transonic turbine cascades have shown that the movement of unsteady normal shocks has an important effect on the excitation of blades. In order to predict this phenomenon correctly, detailed studies concerning the response of unsteady blade pressures versus different parameters of an oscillating shock wave should be performed, if possible isolated from other flow effects in cascades. In the present investigation the correlation between an oscillating normal shock wave and the response of wall-mounted time-dependent pressure transducers was studied experimentally in a nozzle with fluctuating back pressure. Excitation frequencies between 0 Hz and 180 Hz were investigated. For the measurements, various measuring techniques were employed. The determination of the unsteady shock position was made by a line scan camera using the Schlieren flow visualization technique. This allowed the simultaneous use of unsteady pressure transducers to evaluate the behavior of the pressure under the moving shock. A numerical code, based on the fully unsteady Euler equations in conservative form, was developed to simulate the behavior of the shock and the pressures. The main results of this work were: (1) The boundary layer over an unsteady pressure transducer has a quasi-steady behavior with respect to the phase lag. The pressure amplitude depends on the frequency of the back pressure. (2) For the geometry investigated the shock amplitude decreased with increasing excitation frequency. (3) The pressure transducer sensed the arriving shock before the shock had reached the position of the pressure transducer. (4) The computed unsteady phenomena agree well with the results of the measurements.