Convective transport phenomena on the suction surface of a turbine blade including the influence of secondary flows near the endwall

A naphthalene sublimation technique is employed to study the mass transfer distribution on the suction (convex) surface of a simulated turbine blade. Comparison with a heat transfer study shows good agreement in the general trends in the region of two-dimensional flow on the blade. Near the endwall, local convective coefficients on the suction surface are obtained at 4608 locations from two separate runs. The secondary flows in the passage significantly affect the mass transfer rate on the suction surface and their influence extends to a height of 75% of the chord length, from the endwall, in the trailing edge region. The mass transfer rate in the region near the endwall is extremely high due to small but intense vortices. Thus, a large variation in the mass transfer distribution occurs on the suction surface, from a mass transfer Stanton number of 0.0005 to a maximum of 0.01. In the two-dimensional flow region, the mass transfer distributions at two different Reynolds number are presented.