Evidence of longitudinal vortices evolved from distorted wakes in a turbine passage

Two types of longitudinal vortices are found to arise from distorted, migra ting wakes convecting through a low-pressure turbine stator passage. The pr imary vortices emerge within the free stream as the wake is subjected to ir rotational strains. Their axes align approximately with the local mean wake velocity They are dragged over the surface and induce secondary vortices n ear the wall, which have the opposite sense of rotation to the primary vort ices. Although they form on the concave side, these secondary vortices are neither produced, nor sustained by Gortler instability: rather, they are a consequence of severely straining the passing wakes. Evidence is drawn from a numerical simulation of the unsteady, incompressib le flow through a turbine stator passage with and without upstream turbulen t wakes. The computations were performed with 2.5 and,5.7 x 10(7) grid poin ts on a parallel computer.