Migration of a turbulent patch through a high-pressure turbine cascade

We report two flow physics phenomena observed from direct numerical simulations on the migration and distortion of a turbulent patch inside a representative high-pressure turbine cascade. In the nonimpinging flow design, the upstream turbulent patch is on a trajectory offset from the blade leading edge, whereas in the impinging design the introduced turbulence impacts the stagnation. We found that in the nonimpinging flow, the original spanwisely continuous turbulent patch develops into long vortex tubes. They are quite persistent and are also nearly parallel to the blade pressure surface. In the impinging flow, slightly downstream of the leading edge, short vortex tubes form on the pressure side but not parallel to the local blade pressure surface, and they decay and fade away rapidly. Physical mechanisms responsible for these observed flow features are addressed. An additional simulation in which the turbulent patch migrates through a simple straight passage without the cascade is also reported.