The facility has been created with a vision to keep pace with advanced technological development in flow and turbulence measurement techniques using optical means. The main objective is to analyze unsteady flow and turbulent quantities through flow visualizations. The research activities initiated so far are:

A cascade tunnel with a sweeping row of wake-generating bar upstream of cascade (to mimic rotor-stator interactions) has been fabricated. The unsteady flow field through the blade passage are being resolved by hot-wire anemometer, LDA and PIV. Apart from this, transition of a separated layer, aerodynamics of jets injected from the leading edge and the flow past a vibrating cylinders have been investigated. The general purpose URANS and LES/DNS flow solvers developed over the last two decades are being successfully applied to resolve the flow physics for complex geometries. We are confident that we can produce novel results (experimental results in conjunction with numerical studies) that would contribute positively to the existing knowledge base in the field and directly or indirectly toward advancement of gas turbine technology in the country. The research planned is not limited to the unsteady turbomachinery flows, but also very general in turbulence research and flow visualization.

                                  Schematic representation of the model mounted in the tunnel.

Instantaneous spanwise vorticity from PIV illustrating KH rolls in the second half of bubble at ReD = 25000.

             Averaged bubble structure from LDA measurements.

Smoke flow visualization of the separated shear layer over the leading edge of a model aerofoil, (a) for an angle of attack α =30 and (b) for α =70 with a flap angle of -300; S – Separation; T – Transition.