The Effects of a Parametric

Variation of the Rim Seal

Ivan Popovic
e-mail: ivan.popovic@cantab.net
Howard P. Hodson
Whittle Laboratory,
University of Cambridge,
Cambridge CB3 0DY, UK
Geometry on the Interaction
Between Hub Leakage and
Mainstream Flows in High
Pressure Turbines
The objective of this work was to assess and understand the effects of a parametric varia-
tion performed on a typical overlapping rim seal geometry. The datum geometry has been
the focus of a detailed experimental investigation employing a large-scale linear cascade
subjected to a range of the mass flow rates and swirl velocities of the leakage air. The
parametric variations described in this paper were examined using validated computa-
tional fluid dynamics (CFD). As a part of the parametric studies, both the axial and the ra-
dial seal clearance between the rotor fin (angel wing) and stator platform were varied as
well as the length of the overlap between stator and rotor platforms. In addition, the
effects of forward and backward facing annulus steps were also investigated. It has been
found that a backward-facing annulus step was detrimental for all conditions considered,
while a forward-facing step offered improvements for smaller step heights and/or lower
leakage fractions. Tightening of the seal clearances closer to the annulus line improved
the sealing effectiveness but often at the expense of increased losses. On the other hand,
increasing the overlap length led to improvements in the sealing effectiveness with very
small effects on the overall losses. Moving the rim seal away from the blade-leading edges
reduced the pressure asymmetry at the rim seal and increased the flow uniformity of the
leakage air. However, this led to an increased cross-passage flow (more negative skew)
and higher losses at all but lowest leakage fractions. The results presented in this paper
highlight the fact that there may not be an optimum rim seal solution that would offer an
improvement for the full range of leakage fractions and that, for different rim sealing
flows, there may be a different optimum geometry. In addition, rotor disk movements in ra-
dial and axial directions at various off-design conditions should be considered as a part of
the design process. Based on the presented results, it may be of a benefit to the turbine de-
signer to consider rotor disk designs that would be more biased towards the upstream and
outward disk movements, which would result in tightening of the seal clearances and
avoidance of a backward-facing annulus step. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4024867]

Introduction Wang et al. [4] reported computational results for three differ-
ent axial seal locations. The ingestion for a widely spaced stage
The rim seal flows and their interaction with the mainstream
was approximately half of that for the closely spaced stage, where
flow have been the subject of a number of studies in the past dec-
the vane-to-blade distance was reduced by half. However, no
ade due to their potential to cause significant penalties in terms of
details with respect to its effects on efficiency were reported.
efficiency. McLean et al. [1] demonstrated that shallower angles
The effect of axial proximity of seals to the blade potential field
of injection lead to lower losses associated with the leakage injec-
was investigated in compressors by Demargne and Longley [5],
tion. Most of the investigators used simple axial seals to simulate
who considered two different positions: 10% and 45% of the axial
leakage injection or very rudimentary overlapping seal configura-
chord upstream of the compressor leading edge. They found that,
tions. In general, it has been recognized that overlapping seals
at higher leakage fractions, the losses for both cases were compa-
offer better loss performance compared to the simple axial seals,
rable. However, at lower leakage fractions, the closely positioned
due to the fact that the flow exits the seal more axially and with a
slot resulted in higher total pressure losses. They attributed this
lower radial momentum [2].
difference in losses, in part, due to the vortex forming in the slot.
More recently, Schuler et al. [3] confirmed the advantages of
For both slot positions, the vortex disappeared with increasing
overlapping seals in terms of reduced hot gas ingestion and loss
leakage fraction, and they observed an outflow across the whole
generation. In addition, they have also observed attenuation of the
outlet area of the cavity.
passage vortex by increasing the distance between the seal and
The effects of backward and forward facing annulus steps with
blade-leading edges.
a radial leakage injection were the topic of investigation by de la
Rosa Blanco et al. [6]. Their results showed that, with the
Contributed by the Structures and Dynamics Committee of ASME for publication
in the JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript received
forward-facing step, there is a strong interaction between the sec-
December 16, 2012; final manuscript received June 1, 2013; published online ondary flows and the separation bubble on the pressure side of
September 17, 2013. Editor: David Wisler. the blade, resulting in higher losses. On the other hand, for the

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 backward-facing step without leakage injection, the losses were
lower than for the case with the flat endwall. This observation was
attributed to the weaker interaction of secondary flows with the
pressure side separation bubble, which is probably a phenomenon
that is unique to designs with large pressure side separation bub-
bles on the blades.
Rehder and Dannhauer [7] investigated radial and axial leakage
injections downstream of a backward-facing annulus step. They
found that the backward-facing step forces the inlet boundary layer
to separate and to roll up into a horseshoe vortex system. The radial
injection of the leakage flow seemed to strengthen this vortex sys-
tem. In contrast, the axial injection partially filled up the inlet bound-
ary layer and resulted in visible weakening of the passage vortex.
The work focused on the shroud leakage flows has demon-
strated that the geometry of exit shroud cavity plays a crucial role
in their interaction with the mainstream (e.g., Pfau et al. [8] and
Gier et al. [9]). Schlienger et al. [10] compared a rectangular
cavity configuration with sharp edge corners and the one modified
by placing inserts to allow a shallower injection angle. They found
that the inserts reduced the strength of the passage vortex and con-
sequently the amount of under- and overturning in the outflow
near the hub. Rosic et al. [11,12] performed systematic variations
of shroud geometries and demonstrated that significant gains in
efficiency are possible by carefully designing the shroud cavities.
Popovic and Hodson [13] showed experimentally and numeri-
cally that the leakage slot vortex, which is typically nestled in the
outer part of the overlapping rim seals, is the key structure affect-
ing the leakage-mainstream interaction. The objective of this paper
is to investigate how a number of different parametric changes
affect the aerodynamic losses. The parametric studies presented in
this paper aim to quantify the effects of axial and radial seal clear-
ances in the outer part of the seal, the length of overlap between
rotor and stator platform, as well as annulus steps for a range of Fig. 1 Computational mesh
different mass flow fractions. The radial and axial disk movements
that occur at off-design conditions are also examined. central processing units, it was decided to use the mesh with the
highest number of cells. The maximum equivolume skewness was
about 0.82, and the maximum y value was slightly below 1.0.
Numerical Methods The Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes method was used, and the
The present investigation was performed on the low-speed flow field was solved using FLUENT version 6.1.
version of a high-lift rotor blade designated as T120. The blade The boundary conditions were set so that they reflect linear cas-
has a flow turning of 120 deg and a pitch-to-chord (s/C) ratio of cade operating conditions. The total pressure, temperature, and
1.002, while other geometric parameters and flow conditions are flow direction were imposed on the mainstream inlet, while the
provided in Table 1. total temperature and velocity components were specified at the
The extensive experimental validation of the datum configura- secondary inlet. Static pressure was used as a boundary condition
tion reported in Popovic and Hodson [13] demonstrated the ability at the exit plane.
of CFD to capture the trends and the physical mechanisms of the The results were obtained with the one-equation Spalart
leakage-mainstream interaction. Allmaras turbulence model. The reason for the choice in the pres-
The computational domain used in the present study is the ent study lays in the fact that the model was able to deliver a good
same that has been used in Popovic and Hodson [13] and is shown agreement with the experimental results and a good convergence
in Fig. 1. The mesh was generated in GAMBIT and then exported to rate compared to the other turbulence models.
FLUENT. The domain was divided into 37 blocks with the total The dimensions of the overlapping seal geometry are shown in
number of cells of 3.7  106. The mesh independence was ensured Fig. 2. The sealing effectiveness was calculated as follows:
by gradually increasing the number of cells from about 0.9 M to
3.7 M cells. The sensitivity of the loss coefficients to the mesh
density was monitored as well as influence on the overall flow fea-
tures. It was found that the loss coefficient remains practically
constant for the mesh size of more than 2.0 M cells. Since the
computational time for the densest mesh was less than 12 h on 4

Table 1 T120 low-speed airfoil details

Inlet flow angle, a1 48.6 deg

Outlet flow angle, a2 70.4 deg
Pitch-to-chord ratio, s/C 1.002
Velocity ratio, V2/V1 3.1
Span-to-axial chord ratio, h/C 1.5
Axial chord, Cx 130.3 mm
Pitch, s 207.3 mm
Reynolds number, Re 500,000
Fig. 2 Rim seal geometry

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 T1  Tseal
gs (1)
T1  TL
where Tseal is the temperature at the control plane (shown in
Fig. 2), while T1 and TL are the temperatures of the mainstream
and leakage air, respectively. The calculations were performed
with 20-K temperature difference.
The losses presented in this paper were expressed relative to the
baseline case with no cavity and no leakage flow as follows:
DYLeakage Y  YBaseline (2)
In each case, the loss coefficient is expressed in terms of
P01;EFF  P02;MIX
Y (3)
P01  P2
where P01 is the mass-averaged inlet total pressure at the main-
stream inlet located 2Cx upstream of the blade row, while P02,MIX
and P2 are the mixed-out total pressure and static pressure at the
plane located 0.5Cx downstream of the blade-trailing edges,
respectively. The total pressure loss coefficient was evaluated by
assuming that the exit flow is fully mixed-out in a constant area
duct as per Amecke [14]. The effective total pressure at the inlet
is given by
m_ 1  P01 m_ L  P0;CAV;REL
P01;EFF (4)
m_ 1 m_ L
which, for the case with no leakage, is reduced to P01,EFF P01,
while P0,CAV,REL is the mass-averaged total pressure in the cavity
beneath the seal. The quantities m_ L and m_ 1 are the mass flow rates
of the leakage and mainstream flows.
For all cases, unless specified differently, the leakage flow was
preswirled to 50% of the blade speed at the hub.
Datum Configuration
The computed streamlines in the meridional (axial) plane are
shown in Fig. 3 for three different pitchwise locations and colored
using the normalized temperature (h). The three meridional planes
are: plane 1, which is located closer to the blade-pressure side; the
midpassage plane (plane 2); and plane 3, which is located closer
to the suction surface. The ingestion of the mainstream air can be
seen at plane 1 (closer to the pressure side), where there is no out-
flow at the seal outlet. The streamlines at planes 1 and 2 show the
formation of a vortical structure, from this point on referred to as
the leakage slot vortex. The vortex is in part fuelled by the
ingested mainstream flow (plane 1) and in part by the cooler leak-
Fig. 3 Rim seal aerothermodynamics in terms of streamlines
in meridional plane LF 5 1.0%
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age flow (plane 2) at leakage fraction of 1.0%. Therefore, at the
midpitch plane, the air exiting the seal has already been contami-
nated by the ingested mainstream flow. The cooler leakage air
exits the seal near plane 3, which is located close to the suction
side. No vortical structure corresponding to the leakage slot vortex
can be seen at this plane, implying that the vortex has entered the
blade passage between planes 2 and 3.
Figure 4 shows the effect of the leakage slot vortex on the hub
endwall with the help of computed limiting streamlines at the hub
endwall and flow visualization that was obtained using an oil-and-
dye technique on T120 linear cascade. The cascade consists of
six low-speed profiles of the T120 rotor blades (chord length
207.1 mm). This cascade is equipped with a secondary flow mech-
anism that is able to vary leakage fraction and swirl velocity
independently. The traverse mechanism allows for detailed down-
stream total pressure measurements. In addition, the cascade is
equipped with instrumentation that allows static pressure, cooling
effectiveness, as well as sealing effectiveness measurements to be
performed. More details about the experimental set up are avail-
able in Popovic and Hodson [13].
Flow Visualization. A clearing in the dye due to the leakage
slot vortex is marked using a yellow line. The intensity of this vor-
tex makes it much easier to visualize using oil-and-dye technique
than the horseshoe vortex. In both experiments and predictions,
the vortex seems to be entraining the fluid from the region
bounded by the leakage slot vortex and pressure side leg of the
horseshoe vortex.
The line contours of the total pressure coefficient superimposed
over flood contours of normalized streamwise vorticity are plotted
in Fig. 5 at the plane 50% Cx downstream of the blades. The nu-
merical results overpredict the spanwise extent of the secondary
flow structures. While the strength of the vortical structures and
the loss peak associated with the passage vortex are largely com-
parable, the numerical results show a more pronounced loss peak
closer to the midspan. This loss peak was found to partially origi-
nate from the inlet boundary layer and also contains some fluid
from the suction side boundary layer [13]. Since the numerical
results were done using a fully turbulent approach, while in the
experiments, a significant part of the blade suction surface is cov-
ered in a laminar boundary layer, it is believed that this is the
main reason for diskrepancy.
The measured and predicted overall seal performance is pre-
sented in Fig. 6. The overall seal performance was assessed in
terms of the sealing effectiveness and the change in aerodynamic
Fig. 4 Endwall aerodynamics at LF 5 1.0%
NOVEMBER 2013, Vol. 135 / 112501-3
 Fig. 5 Flood contours of streamwise vorticity (Cxs) superim-
posed over line contours of total pressure (CPO) at plane 50%
Cx downstream of rotor blades
losses of the blade row. A sealing effectiveness (gs) of 1.0 implies
that only the leakage air is present at the control plane (zero inges-
tion), while the values of less than 1.0 are indicative of ingestion
at the control plane. The loss coefficient (DYLeakage) is presented
relative to the baseline, no rim seal cavity case.
Although the rim seal flows are typically minimized to reduce
the penalties on the engine performance, in some situations, the
supplied flow may exceed the levels required to prevent ingestion
or maintain the rotor cavities at acceptable temperatures. For
instance, in aeroengines, the rim seals are supplied with extra mar-
gins to allow for internal seal deteriorations and various failure
cases. Therefore, the current study presented the parametric stud-
ies for a range of leakage fractions to allow designers a better
understanding of the leakage-mainstream interaction at various
conditions. The sealing effectiveness is presented to allow the
comparisons of different rim seal geometries, although it should
be taken with a certain reserve, as it does not reflect the effects of
rotor pumping and the pressure field of the upstream vanes.
The sealing effectiveness presented in Fig. 6 shows that, as the
leakage fraction is increased, the leakage air purges the ingested
mainstream air more effectively. An improvement in the sealing
effectiveness can be also observed as the relative swirl velocity in
the rim seal cavity (VCAV,REL) is increased, due to the reduction in
the static pressure asymmetry in the rim seal, which results in a
more uniform flow. The minimum leakage fraction required to
purge the mainstream from the control plane in the rim seal is cor-
rectly predicted to be about 1.0% for relative cavity velocities of
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Fig. 6 Overall seal performance in terms of aerodynamic
losses and sealing effectiveness
30% and 50% U. A slightly lower mass flow rate of about 0.75%
is needed to purge the mainstream flow from the seal at the inges-
tion control plane for a relative cavity velocity of 70% U.
As both the experimental and the numerical results show some
nonlinearity in the variation of the losses with leakage fractions,
additional computations were performed. Figure 7(a) shows three
distinct regimes in the sensitivity of the loss to the leakage frac-
tion. In the first regime, an ingestion of the mainstream air can be
seen. As the leakage fraction is increased, the sealing effective-
ness approaches 1.0, which indicates that no ingestion is present
at the control plane. However, even at leakage fraction of 1.0%,
the mainstream air continues to be ingested into the outer part of
the seal. Figure 7(b) shows a region of high inward radial velocity
(colored red) into the seal over the downstream portion of the pres-
sure side half of the leakage slot, at leakage fractions up to 1.0%.
This mainstream ingestion partially removes the inlet boundary
layer. In addition, a partial mixing between the leakage and main-
stream flows occurs within the seal, reducing the detrimental effects
of the leakage injection, such as the accentuated cross-flow towards
the suction side of the blade. Consequently, the air that enters the
blade passage penetrates further before eventually being swept onto
the suction side and entrained into the passage vortex.
In the second regime, the amount of leakage air prevents any
significant ingestion into the outer part of the seal and very small
part, if any, of the inlet boundary layer is removed. In addition,
the leakage air with a negative tangential velocity in the relative
frame of reference interacts with this low-momentum mainstream
Transactions of the ASME

Fig. 7 Leakage-mainstream interaction VCAV,REL 5 50% U
air and is responsible for a development of the negative skew pro-
moting the cross-flow.
The third and final regime seems to be least sensitive to the
leakage fraction. In this regime, the leakage fraction is high
enough for the leakage air to penetrate out of the seal across the
full pitch. Higher mixing losses due to the increased leakage frac-
tion appear balanced out by suppression of the secondary flows.
The mechanism of secondary flow suppression seems to be related
to the increased axial momentum of the hub endwall boundary
layer that enters into the blade passage, which re-energizes the
inlet boundary layer, reducing the cross-flow and weakening the
secondary flows.
Parametric Studies
Effects of Axial Clearance and Overlapping Length. The
axial clearance between the rotor fin (also known as an angel
wing) and stator wall has been varied by reducing or extending
the length of the rotor fin.
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Fig. 8 Predicted effects of axial seal clearance on aerodynamic
losses and sealing effectiveness
In addition to the datum configuration, Fig. 8 shows the two
most extreme changes in the axial clearance that were considered
in this study. A nonlinearity of losses with leakage fraction is visi-
ble for all three cases presented. In the first regime, comparable
losses can be observed. The tighter axial seal clearance results in
a very slight increase in the losses due to more pronounced fric-
tional dissipation within the rim seal, but the effect appears to be
very small. More pronounced differences between different cases
can be seen at higher leakage fractions. A reduction in the axial
seal clearance appears to initiate the transition from the first to
second regime, which is characterized by the steeper loss curve at
a slightly lower leakage fraction.
Figure 9 shows the seal streamlines that correspond to the mid-
pitch location at the leakage fraction of 1.0%. It can be seen that,
for the case with extended fin (smaller axial clearance), the leak-
age slot vortex is considerably increased in size and ingested air is
expelled not only from the inner part of the seal around the control
plane but also from the outer part of the seal. This expulsion of
the ingested mainstream flow leads to an early transition from
regime I to II.
For all three cases, the losses tend to start leveling off at the
leakage fraction of about 1.5%. As seen previously, the third
regime was found to be least sensitive to the leakage fraction. The
losses for the smallest radial clearance remain highest up to the
highest leakage fraction considered.
By extending the rotor fin, the overlap between rotor and stator
platforms has also been increased. To decouple these two effects,
additional computations have been performed for the same rotor
side geometries, while the stator side has been modified to
Fig. 9 Rim seal aerothermodynamics midpitch meridional
plane at LF 5 1.0%
NOVEMBER 2013, Vol. 135 / 112501-5
 Fig. 10 Effects of overlapping length on aerodynamic losses
and sealing effectiveness
maintain the axial clearance at the datum value. Figure 10 com-
pares the performance of the cases with the minimum and maxi-
mum overlap length as well as the one corresponding to the datum
configuration. The results show largely comparable losses for all
three configurations, with the transition from regime I to II taking
place at nearly the same leakage fraction.
An increase in the overlap length offers an improvement in the
sealing effectiveness comparable to that seen for the reduced axial
clearance. It can be therefore concluded that the modifications
that increase the overlap length should be favored compared to
the one reducing the axial clearance, as they offer an improvement
in the sealing effectiveness while not having a detrimental effect
on losses and not restricting the axial movements of the rotor disk.
Effects of Radial Clearance. The radial clearance in the outer
part of the rim seal has been modified either by changing the
thickness of the angel wing or by adding small geometric features,
sometimes referred to as hooks or teeth.
The radial clearance has been first examined at the nominal
conditions by maintaining either leakage fraction or cavity pres-
sure constant. In practice, the flow supplied to the rim seal is
usually controlled (i.e., metered) and any parametric change in the
rim seal geometry will not change the rim seal mass flow rate
significantly. However, to quantify the resistance that various vor-
tical leakage structures impose on the leakage flow, selected cases
were also run at the constant cavity pressure.
Figure 11 shows that the losses decrease as the radial clearance
is decreased from 30% to 30% of the datum value. As the seal
clearance is further tightened, the losses start to rise sharply. By
examining the leakage fraction for the constant cavity pressure, it
can be seen that initially the leakage fraction increases as the gap
is tightened, which is the opposite from what is normally
expected. Figure 12 presents the seal streamlines at the midpitch
location. A reduction in the radial seal clearance reduces the size
of the leakage slot vortex and thus presents less blockage (resist-
ance) to the rim seal flow and allows for more leakage to pass
through the seal for the fixed cavity pressure. As the radial clear-
ance is further reduced by 60% compared to the datum, the leak-
age slot vortex is completely expelled from the overlapping
(throat) area. Any further reduction in this clearance directly
reduces the leakage mass flow rate for the fixed cavity pressure.
The overall seal performance for the largest datum and smallest
radial clearance is shown in Fig. 13 for a range of leakage frac-
tions. At low leakage fractions, a reduction in the radial clearance
is beneficial, as it reduces the size of the leakage vortex and its
impact on the secondary flows. However, as the leakage fraction
is increased, the axial momentum of the leakage flow expels the
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Fig. 11 Effects of radial clearance at nominal flow conditions
ingested mainstream air out of the seal, causing an earlier and
sharper increase in losses as consistent with the transition from
the regime I to regime II. The second regime exhibits the highest
sensitivity to the leakage fraction. As the leakage fraction is fur-
ther increased, the leakage air starts suppressing the secondary
flows. The onset of the suppression of the secondary flows that is
a major characteristic of regime III can be seen already at the
leakage fraction of about 1.25%. For the leakage fractions of
1.5% and higher, the losses begin to fall.
For the case with a large radial clearance, the enlarged leakage
slot vortex provides an offset in losses, increasing their values
compared to the datum configuration for the leakage fractions that
are lower than 1.0%. This is shown in Fig. 13. A transition from
regimes I to II and then to regime III is delayed, resulting in losses
that are comparable to those obtained for the datum configuration
at higher leakage fractions. The sealing effectiveness follows a
similar trend to that which has been previously seen when the
axial clearance was varied. A reduction in the clearances improves
the sealing effectiveness.
Two different tooth designs have been tested with each restrict-
ing the flow area by 60% relative to the radial clearance of the
datum geometry. The first tooth design, shown in Fig. 14, was
aimed at reinforcing the leakage slot vortex nestled in the outer
part of the seal by injecting the leakage air closer to the stator
outer rim. This serves two purposes: first, to prevent the hot main-
stream gas from penetrating deeper into the seal and, second, to
prevent the leakage slot vortex from entering the blade passage by
confining it to the outer part of the rim seal. The latter was
expected to reduce the interaction between the leakage and sec-
ondary flows at lower leakage fractions.
Fig. 12 Rim seal aerothermodynamics at midpitch meridional
plane at LF 5 1.0% for a variation in radial gap
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 13 Effects of radial clearance on aerodynamic losses and
sealing effectiveness
The investigated tooth design achieved the desired level of seal-
ing effectiveness but has failed to deliver any improvement in
terms of loss performance. The leakage slot vortex has not been
successfully confined to the outer part of the seal, and loss levels
were found to be, in fact, higher than for the datum configuration
for all leakage fractions less than 1.5%. It was only for very high
leakage mass flow rates that the leakage slot vortex was prevented
from entering and interacting with the mainstream air. However,
even at those conditions, there was no clear benefit in using
this feature compared to the maximum reduction in the radial
clearance.
The second tooth design was aimed at preventing the formation
of the leakage slot vortex by injecting the air in the direction that
is opposite to the sense of the vortex rotation. This design led to
convergence problems caused by possible unsteadiness in the
flow, especially at lower leakage fractions.
Figure 15 presents the cavity pressure versus leakage fraction
for this tooth design and the datum configuration. The datum con-
figuration exhibits a monotonic increase in leakage fraction with
increasing relative total pressure in the cavity. On the other hand,
the inverse tooth design shows that, for very low leakage frac-
tions, the cavity pressure required to push the leakage flow out
increases. This leads to a possibility that leakage fraction of 0.5%
and 1.1% may be established for the same cavity pressure. As the
two leakage fractions lead to two very different flow structures
Fig. 14 Effects of an upward tooth on aerodynamic losses and
sealing effectiveness
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Fig. 15 Cavity pressure versus leakage fraction for an inverse
tooth and the datum configuration
within the seal, this could be a possible explanation for conver-
gence difficulties for this seal design, especially at leakage frac-
tions of less than 1.25%.
Effects of Annulus Steps. Three different annulus step
designs were considered: a backward facing step, where the
rotor platform is recessed relative to the stator platform with
the step height equaling to 3.3% of the effective span, and
two forward facing steps measuring 3.3% and 6.6% of the
effective blade span. For all cases, the effective rotor blade
span (height) was kept constant.
Figure 16 shows that the leakage fraction decreases with
increasing step height for a constant relative cavity pressure. This
is due to the increased blockage seen by the leakage flow as the
rotor platform is raised. The mainstream air decelerates upstream
of the step, raising the static pressure and decreasing the pressure
difference driving the leakage air. The losses at a constant relative
cavity pressure follow a similar trend of monotonic decrease with
raising the step height. For the higher value of forward-facing
step, a converged solution could not be obtained, and the values
plotted correspond to an estimate based on a large number of still
oscillating iterations. A similar trend is seen when the leakage
fraction was maintained at its nominal value. The only exception
was encountered for the highest value of the forward-facing step,
where the losses begin to rise. As the flow is injected at a rela-
tively high angle and with a high leakage jet velocity into the
mainstream, a separation downstream of the seal takes place, lead-
ing to an increase in the strength of secondary flows and losses.
The reason for an improvement in loss performance of the
forward-facing step can be seen in Fig. 17, where the incidence is
plotted at the plane 10% Cx upstream of the blade-leading edge.
The incidence is defined as the deviation from the inlet flow angle
at the blade midspan. The inlet flow angle from about 10% to
50% of the effective blade height is uniform. Very close to the
hub endwall, however, a high negative incidence can be observed
that is due to the negative tangential velocity of the leakage air
relative to the rotor blades. The negative incidence is significantly
lower for the forward-facing step case than for the datum configu-
ration. The maximum value of the negative incidence for the da-
tum configuration at this location is in excess of 40 deg, while the
corresponding incidence with the forward-facing step is less than
20 deg. In the case of the backward-facing step, a recirculation
zone is formed just downstream of the step, resulting in a modified
incidence distribution. The nonuniformity in the incidence distri-
bution affects a larger fraction of the span, with the maximum
NOVEMBER 2013, Vol. 135 / 112501-7
 Fig. 16 Effects of annulus steps on aerodynamic losses for a fixed leakage frac-
tion or cavity pressure
value of negative incidence reaching close to 50 deg at the loca-
tion slightly away from the hub endwall (2% of the effective blade
span).
The performance plot for all four configurations is given in Fig.
18. The backward-facing step shows the lowest sealing effective-
ness as well as the worst loss performance over the full range of
the leakage fractions investigated. The loss curve is mainly linear
with a relatively shallow slope that is consistent with the first re-
gime for the leakage fractions of up to 1.5%. Due to the extension
of regime I into the higher leakage fractions, the difference
between different configurations is smaller at medium-to-high
leakage fractions (from about 1.0% to 1.5%).
Fig. 17 Incidence angle at inlet plane for various annulus
steps
112501-8 / Vol. 135, NOVEMBER 2013
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In contrast to the backward-facing step, the forward-facing step
sees an early transition from the first to the second regime, result-
ing in higher losses than those seen for the datum configurations
at leakage fraction of about 1.25%. This effect is even more
accentuated for the forward-facing step with the higher step
height, where the change in slope occurs very shortly above the
leakage fraction of 0.5%, resulting in the losses higher than any
other configuration. Nevertheless, both of the forward-facing steps
have an advantage performance at low leakage fractions.
Effects of Axial Position. The position of the rim seal relative
to the rotor leading edges was varied in order to assess the effects
of the rotor pressure field. Two positions upstream of the blade-
Fig. 18 Effects of upward tooth on aerodynamic losses and
sealing effectiveness
Transactions of the ASME
 leading edge were considered: the datum at 10% Cx and an
upstream location at 40% Cx upstream.
As the seal is moved further upstream, the pressure field of the
rotor blades weakens. At an upstream location, the maximum am-
plitude of the pressure distribution is reduced by approximately a
factor of 3. The mainstream ingestion is strongly affected by the
pressure asymmetry. Therefore, a movement of the seal away
from the rotor blades reduces the amplitude of the pressure asym-
metry and improves the sealing effectiveness, as can be seen in
the performance plot shown in Fig. 19. The datum configuration
shows an ingestion of the mainstream flow for leakage fractions
that are lower than 1.0%, while the seal at the upstream locations
shows no ingestion down to the leakage fraction of 0.5%.
Apart from the low leakage fractions of up to about 0.8%, the
upstream location leads to higher loss levels. This is caused by an
earlier expulsion of the ingested mainstream air that promotes the
transition from regime I to II. Therefore, it can be concluded that
the presence of the strong potential field and associated ingestion
in the outer part of the seal promotes the mixing of the leakage
flow and the mainstream within the seal, which improves the per-
formance as long as the sealing effectiveness can be maintained at
acceptable levels.
The limiting streamlines on the hub endwall and a normalized ra-
dial velocity at the seal exit are shown in Fig. 20. The computations
were performed at the nominal flow conditions. For the datum case,
the region of negative radial velocity (colored red) corresponding to
the mainstream ingestion occurs over the downstream portion of the
pressure side half of the leakage slot. When the seal is located further
upstream, the flow appears to be more uniform with no ingress visi-
ble. The region which corresponds to the high radial velocity out of
the seal (colored blue) and which is found in the suction side half of
the leakage slot, is also smaller, confirming that the nonuniformity in
leakage injection is reduced by placing the seal further away from
the rotor blades. A more uniform distribution in the radial velocity
would be expected to reduce the mixing losses and to lessen adverse
effect of the leakage flows on the mainstream. This effect, however,
appears to dominate at the lower leakage fractions only, as seen in
the performance plot presented in Fig. 19. At leakage fractions higher
than about 0.8%, the losses are higher than for the datum case.
Figure 20 presents the hub endwall-limiting streamlines for
both cases. It is evident from the figure that the endwall flow is
skewed more towards the blade suction side for the upstream loca-
tion of the seal. In addition, the saddle point is also moved further
upstream and is located at a similar distance relative to the seal
for both configurations. As a result, the position of the pressure-
side leg of the horseshoe vortex (green dashed line) is visibly
modified compared to the datum configuration. Instead of pene-
trating about half of the axial chord into the blade passage before
Fig. 19 Effects of axial seal position on aerodynamic losses
and sealing effectiveness
Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power
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Fig. 20 Radial velocity normalized by the blade speed at the
seal exit plane and limiting streamlines on hub endwall for
LF 5 1.0%
joining with the leakage slot vortex (blue dashed line), for the
upstream location of the seal, the pressure leg of the horseshoe
vortex is quickly joined with the leakage vortex, as seen in
Fig. 20. The suction-side leg of the horseshoe vortex also appears
to be joining with the leakage vortex relatively early. By compar-
ing two cases, the penetration of the leakage slot vortex into the
blade passage before it hits the suction side of the blade does
not seem noticeably modified.
Effects of Uncertainty in Rotor Disk Position. The rotor disk
is subjected to the thermal expansion and strong pressure and
mechanical forces. As a result, the actual seal geometry during the
engine operation is subject to some uncertainty. The rotor disk
movement may be in the axial direction, which is caused primar-
ily due to the pressure forces or in the radial direction as a result
of thermal and mechanical expansion of the rotor disk. This is
more of a concern to the aeroengines that tend to operate at a
range of different conditions throughout the flight envelope than
to the stationary gas turbines used for power generation, which
are often running at the fixed design point. A relative movement
of the rotor side rim in both radial and axial directions has been
considered. Both inward and outward movement equal to 2% of
the effective blade span have been considered in the radial direc-
tion. Similarly, a 5% of the axial blade chord shift in the axial
direction (upstream and downstream relative to the stator wall)
has been also analyzed. The losses presented here account for the
change in endwall hub losses and do not include any impact on
the flow around the blade shroud or tip.
Fig. 21 Effects of radial disk movement on aerodynamic
losses and sealing effectiveness
NOVEMBER 2013, Vol. 135 / 112501-9
 leakage mass flow rates, a reduced radial clearance caused a sharp
rise in the losses compared to the datum.
The length of overlap between the stator and rotor rims caused
mainly negligible changes in the losses, while directly affecting
the sealing effectiveness (i.e., the longer the overlap, the better the
sealing effectiveness). A backward-facing annulus step was found
to be detrimental at all conditions, while a forward-facing step
provided improvement at low leakage fractions and/or step
heights.
A rim seal located very close to the blade-leading edge pro-
moted mixing of the mainstream and leakage flows within the
outer part of the seal, reducing the effects of the negative relative
tangential velocity of the leakage air. Moving the rim seal away
from the blade-leading edges reduced the pressure asymmetry at
the rim seal and increased the outflow uniformity. However, this
led to an increased cross-passage flow (more negative skew) and
higher losses at all but lowest leakage fractions. Thus, the strong
potential field was found to be beneficial as long as it did not
result in excessive ingestion.
Fig. 22 Effects of axial disk movement on aerodynamic losses The results presented in this paper highlight the fact that there
and sealing effectiveness may not be an optimum rim seal solution that would offer an
improvement for the full range of leakage fractions and that any
The radial movement of the rotor side of the rim seal results in attempt in the optimization of the seal geometry should be
a larger sensitivity to the losses, as shown in Fig. 21. An inward performed for the required rim sealing flows. Furthermore, any
motion resulting in the backward-facing step results in the highest change in the rotor disk position was found to affect the loss gen-
losses for almost the full range of leakage fractions from eration and sealing effectiveness and should be considered as a
0.5%2.0%. Similar to the case with the backward-facing step, part of the design process. Based on presented results, it may be
the losses are offset compared to the datum but, in general, show a of benefit to the turbine designer to consider rotor disk designs
shallow slope in the loss curve for a wide range of leakage frac- that would be more biased towards the upstream and outward disk
tions. The outward motion exhibits stronger sensitivity to the leak- movements, which would result in tightening of the seal clearan-
age fraction but shows a more favorable performance in general. ces and avoidance of backward-facing annulus steps.
The forward-facing step combined with a reduced radial clearance
at the outer part of the seal results in very quick transitions from Acknowledgment
regime I to II and eventually to III. The losses peak at about the
leakage fractions of 1.25%1.50%, after which they start to The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge European
decline, due to the suppression of the secondary flows. research consortium AITEB-2 for the permission to publish this
The axial movement in the downstream direction (Fig. 22, red data and for funding realized through 6th Framework Program:
linesolid triangles) shows the least favorable performance, espe- AST4-CT-2005-516113.
cially at lower leakage fractions. A widening of all axial clearan-
ces promotes ingestion of the mainstream air and enlarges the Nomenclature
leakage slot vortex, resulting in lower sealing effectiveness and
higher losses. At higher leakage fractions, however, this configu- BFS backward-facing step
ration shows a better performance, due to a shallower slope. As a C true chord (mm)
result, for the leakage fraction of about 1.5%, the losses are lower Cx axial chord (mm)
compared to the datum case. A rotor disk movement in the oppo- FFS forward-facing step
site direction (towards the front of the engine, blue lineopen tri- h effective blade height equal to 1.5Cx
angles) shows an improvement in the sealing due to the tightening LF leakage (mass) fraction (%) m_ L =m_ 1  100%
of the internal clearances. An early transition from regime I to re- m_ L leakage mass flow rate (kg/s)
gime II is a result of higher leakage jet velocity. This effect is re- m_ 1 mainstream mass flow rate (kg/s)
sponsible for higher than datum losses that are seen at the leakage P pressure (static) (Pa)
fraction of about 1.25%. However, at all other leakage fractions, P0 total (stagnation) pressure (Pa)
the losses are comparable to those produced by the datum case. P01,EFF effective total pressure at inlet as per Eq. (3) (Pa)
Q1 dynamic pressure at cascade inlet (Pa)
Re Reynolds number qV2 C=l
Conclusions TL temperature of leakage air (K)
A number of parametric studies have been performed on the T1 temperature of mainstream (K)
datum-overlapping seal configuration. Even the smallest changes U blade speed (calculated to be 23 m/s based on
that affect the leakage slot vortex located in the outer part of the assumed zero swirl into the stage and degree
rim seal were found to have an effect on the losses. of reaction 0.57
In general, tightening of the seal clearances improved the seal- VCAV,REL relative cavity velocity (tangential velocity of
ing effectiveness but at the same time increased the sensitivity of leakage air relative to rotor blades) (m/s)
the losses to the leakage fraction. For all considered cases, a nonli- VZ spanwise (radial) velocity (m/s)
nearity of the losses with varying leakage fractions has been V2 exit flow velocity (m/s)
observed. The leakage fractions that caused a change in slope and Y loss coefficient P01;EFF  P02 =P01  P2
a transition from one regime of the leakage-mainstream interac- z spanwise direction
tion to another varied depending on the parametric changes. This a inlet flow angle
was most pronounced for the case where the radial seal clearance gs sealing effectiveness
has been varied. A reduced radial seal clearance was found to be Cseal =CL T1  Tseal =T1  TL
beneficial at both low- and high-end of the leakage fractions h nondimensional fluid
investigated (<0.75% and >1.5%). However, for the intermediate temperature T  TL =T1  TL

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