Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2022

Turbomachinery Technical Conference and Exposition

GT2022
June 13-17, 2022, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

GT2022-83509

RECONSTRUCTING TURBINE NON-UNIFORM FLOW INCLUDING HOT STREAKS

USING SPATIALLY UNDER-SAMPLED MEASUREMENTS

Xu ZHU Fangyuan LOU* Kai ZHOU Xinqian ZHENG

Institute for Aero Engine
Tsinghua University
100084 Beijing,
China
Institute for Aero Engine Institute for Aero Engine Institute for Aero Engine &
Tsinghua University Tsinghua University State Key Laboratory of
100084 Beijing, 100084 Beijing, Automotive Safety and Energy
China China Tsinghua University
100084 Beijing, China

ABSTRACT turbine (HPT), hot streaks.

The demand for higher thermal efficiency of gas turbines
has been pushing the limit of turbine inlet temperature. Modern NOMENCLATURE
high-pressure turbine (HPT) blades are cooled with a A Magnitude
combination of film cooling, impingement cooling, and passage 𝑨 Design matrix
cooling. However, for a given material and cooling strategy, the a Maximum variation to the mean
turbine inlet temperatures are limited by the performance penalty value of inlet total temperature
caused by the required cooling air typically extracted from the CN Condition number
high-pressure compressor. Although it is well recognized that the e Input error
HPT inflow is highly unsteady and non-uniform, it is still 𝑭 Vector of unknown coefficients
generally the case that turbines are designed for uniform inlet φ Circumferential coordinates
temperature—often the predicted peak gas temperature due to h Nominal grid spacing
the vacancy of a reliable methodology for estimating the non-  Efficiency
uniform temperature field at HPT inlet. This paper introduces a N Number of wavelets
new approach to predicting the turbine inlet temperature, r Pearson’s coefficient
including the magnitude of non-uniformity, based on a few S Entropy
temperature measurements at the HPT exit to shed light on this T Temperature
topic. The technique includes three steps. First, investigate the Wn Wavenumber
hot streaks migration across the HPT and establish a projection 𝒙 Vector of measurements
of hot-streaks-related magnitude from HPT inlet to exit. Second, 𝜽 Circumferential positions of the
resolve the hot-streaks-related extent at HPT exit using a multi- measurements
wavelet approximation method based on a few discrete
measurements. Lastly, estimate the HPT inlet mean temperature Subscripts
and magnitude of hot streaks. The method’s effectiveness is 0 Specified property at certain
examined using the two-stage high-pressure turbine from Energy position
Efficiency Engine (E3). An engine representative HPT inlet ave Mass-averaged property
temperature distribution available in the open literature is cav Specified circumferentially-
applied at the HPT inlet. The true temperature distribution at averaged property
HPT exit is obtained from full-annulus unsteady simulations. pred Predicted property
The estimated HPT inlet temperature distribution using the new in/out Inlet/outlet
approach agrees with the true values, with an error of less than m Error related to measurement
0.3% in the mean temperature and uncertainty on the order of p Error related to probe position
20% in the magnitude of hot streaks. t Stagnation properties
Keywords: circumferentially non-uniform flow, flow wall Circumferentially-averaged
reconstruction, multi-wavelet approximation, high-pressure value connecting to the end walls

*
Corresponding author: loufy@tsinghua.edu.cn

1 © 2022 by ASME
 2% variation in the measured turbine efficiency. Hot streaks can
Abbreviations
also enhance the blade heat transfer, resulting in severe cooling
E3 Energy efficient engine
issues. Povey et al. [5] and Qureshi et al. [6] performed detailed
FT Fourier Transform
investigations regarding the influences of hot streaks on turbine
GA Genetic Algorithm
heat transfer using both numerical and experimental approaches.
HPT High-pressure turbine
Results showed that the introduction of hot streaks resulted in a
HS Hot-streak
substantial increase in the heat transfer on the suction surface at
R1, R2 Rotor blades of 1st/2nd stages
mid-span compared to a uniform inlet temperature case. In
RANS Reynolds Averaged Navier-
addition, hot streaks can also affect film cooling efficiency. In
stokes equations
the work conducted by Krishnamoorthy et al. [7], results show
S1/S2 Stator blades of 1st/2nd stages
that the combustor exit temperature nonuniformities result in a
URANS Unsteady Reynolds Averaged
21% reduction in the overall cooling efficiency of the HPT vane.
Navier-Stokes equations
The study conducted by He et al. [8] revealed a significant
influence of combustor exit temperature nonuniformities on the
1. INTRODUCTION
heat load of the HPT turbine rotor with changes in the
The demand for higher thermal efficiency for gas turbines
circumferential length scale. These studies suggest an important
has been continuously pushing the limit of the turbine inlet
role of combustor exit temperature nonuniformities in turbine
temperature. However, the turbine inlet or combustor exit
heat transfer and aero-thermal performance and lead to further
temperature field is inherently non-uniform due to the discrete
research in the propagation mechanism of hot streaks.
nature of fuel injectors and cooling jets, placing significant
In the research area of hot streaks migration, Adamczuk and
challenges for turbine materials and cooling technology. For
Seume [9] conducted a full-annulus URANS study of a 5-stage
instance, a slight surface temperature overshoot of the HPT
turbine and tracked the travel of the cold-streaks. The signature
vanes or rotor blades can cause severe damage or significantly
of inlet cold-streaks was still detectable in the exhaust jet of the
reduce the component life. To date, the size of cooling for HPT
engine. Recently, Chi et al. [10] conducted a numerical study
vanes/rotors is typically designed for the worst scenario, often
focusing on the hot streaks migration using a full-annulus
the predicted peak temperature, due to the absence of direct
URANS simulation of a 4-stage turbine. Results show that the
temperature measurements at the combustor exit. However, this
hot streaks could travel through the entire turbine and result in
results in a heavy cooling budget which can account for 30% of
non-uniformity turbine exhaust temperature. The footprint of hot
the high-pressure compressor flow and, thus, imposes a
streaks is conceived by conducting Fourier Transform (FT)
significant performance penalty to the engine. Recently, an
analysis. Observation of footprint of combustor exit hot streaks
attractive concept [1], the so-called "active turbine cooling," was
at HPT exit is encouraging. Therefore, it is desirable and feasible
introduced to address this challenge. Compared to the traditional
to infer the inhomogeneity of the HPT inlet flow field by
fixed cooling strategy, the new concept aims to perform adaptive
extracting the related flow features at the HPT exit, which
cooling flow rates with changes in engine operating conditions.
motivates the work presented in this paper.
By doing so, the health of the turbine blades can be guaranteed
Scope of the paper: This paper aims to establish a roadmap
with the most economical cooling flow rates. In the meantime, a
for predicting the combustor exit non-uniformity using spatially
significant gain in engine performance can be harvested from the
under-sampled measurements at the HPT exit. Below are the
turbine cooling flow rate reductions. However, on the path
steps to achieve this objective:
towards active control of HPT cooling flows for improved cycle
1. Investigate the migration of hot streaks from the HPT
performance, a real-time and robust method of approximating
inlet to exit and establish the projection of the
combustor exit temperature nonuniformities is a prerequisite. So,
magnitude of hot streaks from exit to inlet.
it is of great value to investigate the propagation mechanism of
2. Resolve the hot-streaks-related features at the HPT exit
hot streaks and predict the HPT inlet temperature non-uniformity
based on much under-sampled measurements. To date,
based on the information at the exit.
experimental measurement of the circumferential flow
The non-uniform distribution of turbine inlet temperature
variation is achieved by circumferentially traversing the
has drawn research attention since the 1980s. Butler et al. [2]
flow, either utilizing a probe traverse mechanism or
simulated the inlet distortion conditions of the turbine by
circumferentially actuating the stator rows, which
injecting 𝐶𝑂 into the turbine inlet. Schwab et al. [3] applied a
involves the design of complex traverse mechanisms
radial temperature distribution at the inlet of a single-stage
that are challenging to seal and can be costly. Therefore,
turbine, and it was found that the inlet temperature profile was
a novel method is required.
not mixed out until the rotor exit survey plane, which is 2.3 axial
3. Evaluate the confidence interval in the predicted
chords downstream of the rotor trailing edge.
magnitude of hot streaks at both HPT exit and inlet.
The effects of hot streaks on turbine vane/blade aerothermal
A representative two-stage high-pressure turbine is chosen
performance and heat transfer have been investigated in several
for the current study, and this turbine is designed for moderate
studies. Cattafesta [4] investigated the impact of different radial
loading from the General Electric Energy Efficient Engine(E3).
profiles with similar corrected flow conditions and observed a
The open blade profiles and cooling structures are available in

2 © 2022 by ASME
 FIGURE 1: SCHEMATIC OF THE TWO-STAGE HIGH-
PRESSURE TURBINE FROM ENERGY EFFICIENT ENGINE
the NASA design report NASA-CR-167955 [11], and the (a)
schematic of the HPT is shown in Fig.1.

2. MIGRATION OF HOT STREAKS IN HPT

The migration of hot streaks through the flow path of the
two-stage high-pressure turbine is investigated by conducting
half annulus URANS simulations with an engine representative
combustor exit RTDF at the HPT inlet. The magnitudes of the
circumferential temperature non-uniformity are varied to study
their influences on the migration of hot streaks. In all cases,
migration of the hot streaks across the HPT is tracked using
spectral analysis, and a projection of the magnitude of hot streaks
from HPT exit to inlet is established. (b)
FIGURE 2: NUMERICAL MESH OF THE TWO-STAGE
2.1 Numerical Setup TURBINE: OVERVIEW(A) AND BLADE TO BLADE VIEW(B)
The numerical simulations presented in the present section
are performed using the commercial solver ANSYS CFX [12].
The standard k- model with scalable wall functions is employed
for turbulence closure. A high-resolution advection scheme was
used with second-order discretization. The fluid domains of the
turbine are discretized by a structured mesh using commercial
software ANSYS TurboGrid. A y+ value in the range from 10 to
50 is achieved on all end wall/blade surfaces. Fig. 2 shows a
schematic overview of the computational domain. It includes
four blade rows. Modeling of the tip clearance for R1 and R2 is
also included using nine-layer grids in the 1% and 0.6% tip gap
relative to the blade height. Because all the blade row counts
share a common divisor of 2, half-annulus model instead of a FIGURE 3: LOCATIONS OF COOLANT INJECTION
full-annulus model is selected to reduce the computational cost. exhaust temperature are 92.8% and 477.9K, respectively. After
The cooling holes are modeled as source terms, where the balancing the computational cost and accuracy, the fine grid
positions of coolant injection are extracted from the NASA configuration with 22.3 million elements is chosen. This results
design report NASA-CR-167955 [11] and test report NASA-CR- in an approximate 0.7% uncertainty in isentropic efficiency and
168289 [13], as shown in Fig. 3. Settings of the mass flow, 1.7K uncertainty in the mass-average exhaust temperature, one
direction vector, and temperature for the source terms follow the or two orders smaller than the magnitudes of circumferential
procedure reported in Refs. [13] and [14]. temperature non-uniformity at combustor exit.
A mesh independence study is carried out based on steady
TABLE 1: STATISTIC OF HPT MESH ELEMENTS FOR
RANS simulation following the procedure suggested in Ref. [15]
URANS STUDY (Unit: million)
over a broad range of grid sizes from 2.3 million to 64.6 million,
Ultra- Mediu Ultra-
as shown in Table 1. Fig. 4 shows the efficiency and mass- Domain
Coarse
Coarse
m
Fine
Fine
average exhaust total temperature against the nominal grid S1 0.013 0.043 0.078 0.142 0.422
spacing, h=(1/N) (1/3), where N is the total number of elements. R1 0.017 0.051 0.100 0.159 0.476
The square symbols in the figure are the simulation results using Single-passage S2 0.019 0.053 0.116 0.198 0.577
the denoted grid-scale, and the dashed curve is the least-squares R2 0.026 0.086 0.166 0.236 0.657
All 0.075 0.233 0.460 0.735 2.132
fit of a parabola based on the simulation data. As shown in Fig. Half-annulus All 2.31 7.280 14.19 22.32 64.63
4, the numerical "true" values for efficiency and mass-average

3 © 2022 by ASME
 (a)

(b)
FIGURE 4: MESH CONVERGENCE OF HPT FROM E3:
EFFICIENCY (A) AND EXIT AVERAGE TOTAL TEMPERATURE(B) FIGURE 5: CONTOURS OF INLET HOT-STREAKS WITH
DIFFERENT CIRCUMFERENTIAL AMPLITUDES
As for the boundary condition, the design point condition is
applied to the study according to the GE-E3 turbine component
test performance report NASA-CR-168289 [13]. A uniform total
pressure field is applied at the HPT inlet and exit. The inlet total
pressure is 346.0 kPa, and the exit total pressure is 62.5 kPa,
which yields an expansion ratio of 4.96. The inlet total
temperature is 710K, and the simulations are conducted at the
design condition (8295rpm).
First, a baseline simulation is performed using an engine
representative combustor exit distribution from measurement,
the total temperature profile is constructed by expanding the 20-
degree detailed experimental data conducted by Rolls-Royce in
an engine test for a modern engine operating at an extreme point
[16] to the half-annulus profile, and the detailed temperature FIGURE 6: THE RADIAL PROFILE OF DIFFERENT CASES
distribution is shown in Fig. 5. The corresponding radial profile
is shown in Fig. 6. Furthermore, four additional hot-streak streaks, N is the number of hot streaks. 𝑇 is the shroud wall
distributions of different magnitude in the circumferential non- temperature. 𝜙 and 𝜙 are the circumferential coordinate and
uniformity are created to investigate the influence of the intensity phase shift, respectively.
of hot-streak circumferential non-uniformity. The method was Fig. 5b shows the four inlet total temperature distributions
proposed by Smith et al. [17]. It approximates the hot streaks by of different magnitudes in the circumferential non-uniformity.
a simple sinusoidal function described as: The parameter 𝑎 is normalized to the mean value of turbine inlet
total temperature and thus represents the intensity of the
wall circumferential non-uniformity. Four levels with magnitudes of
𝑇 𝑟, 𝜑 𝑇 𝑟 𝑎⋅ sin 𝑁𝜑 𝜑 ⋅𝑇
wall 2%, 5%, 10%, and 20% are chosen. The phases of all inlet
(1) temperature profiles are kept the same, as shown in Fig. 5. In
where 𝑇 𝑟 is the circumferential-averaged total temperature addition, the circumferential-averaged radial temperature
at radius 𝑟 , 𝑎 is a constant representing the intensity of hot profiles are set to match the baseline profile, and all the

4 © 2022 by ASME
circumferential-average radial profiles are in excellent
agreement, with a maximum variation of 1%, as shown in Fig. 6.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the influence of burner pitch-to-
pitch asymmetry is not included in the present study.
The URANS equations are solved in ANSYS CFX. The real
gas model is implemented, and the “Transient rotor-stator”
model is applied to all the rotor-stator interfaces. The physical
time step is 3.2 10-6 s, corresponding to 30 steps per blade
passage of Rotor 1 (R1) or 50 steps per blade passage of Stator 1
(S1). The inner time steps are 8 to guarantee that all residual
values drop by two orders of magnitude at the end of each
physical time step. Results from steady RANS simulation are
used as the initial solutions for the unsteady runs. It takes 1200
physical time steps for each URANS case to converge, and
another 1140 steps (corresponding to half-annulus rotation) are
carried out to obtain the average flow field. The simulation for
each case takes approximately 2.0 104 CPU hours. To examine FIGURE 7: COMPARISONS OF TOTAL TEMPERATURE
AND TOTAL PRESSURE AT TURBINE EXIT: TRAVERSE
the fidelity of the CFD analysis, the URANS CFD case with
EXPERIMENTS AND URANS CFD RESULTS.
uniform gas inlet is conducted according to the above settings,
the gas properties are compared with the experimental data inlet station ①, there is a magnitude of 61.5K temperature
acquired at the turbine exit rake plane, which is 2-inch variation along the circumferential direction, equivalent to 7.9%
downstream of the R2 trailing edge. Reasonable agreement on of the local mean total temperature at mid-span. There is little
both total temperature and total pressure are achieved, as shown decay of the hot streaks across the HPT vane, with only a slight
in Fig 7. phase shift, approximately 12.3 degrees. Compared to the vane
or stator rows, the hot streaks get attenuated more across rotors
2.2 Spatial Domain Analysis because of the work extraction. Overall, the hot streaks get
Considering the migration of hot streaks through the HPT, significantly attenuated as it approaches the HPT exit. The
the trajectory of peak temperature is of particular interest. As absolute value of the circumferential temperature variation drops
shown in Fig. 5, the turbine inlet peak temperature locates to 39.6K, accounting for 8.7% of the local mean total
approximately at mid-span. As a result, detailed analysis mainly temperature. Furthermore, the driving mechanism for
focuses on results at midspan. Fig. 8 shows a snapshot of the circumferential temperature non-uniformity evolves with the
instantaneous entropy at mid-span. The circumferential migration of hot streaks. At the HPT inlet (station①), the
temperature non-uniformity at the HPT inlet disturbs the entropy circumferential non-uniformity at midspan is mostly dominated
generation across the HPT, resulting in complicated entropy by the hot streaks with a wavenumber of 18, leading to an
patterns. In addition, the footprint of hot streaks is still excellent sinusoidal shape. However, more players contribute to
observable at the HPT exit, which agrees with findings reported the circumferential temperature non-uniformity at the HPT exit.
in Refs. [9] and [10]. Compared to the inlet distortion, the The driving mechanism for circumferential temperature
temperature distribution at HPT exit gets complicated due to the non-uniformity is further investigated by performing a spatial
stator wakes and their interactions. fast Fourier transform (FFT), shown in Fig. 9b. As expected, hot
Furthermore, Fig. 9a shows the mid-span time-averaged streaks (Wn=18) overwhelmingly dominate the HPT inlet
total temperature distributions at stations from ①~⑤. At HPT

FIGURE 8: THE ENTROPY FIELD OF THE HPT FOR THE BASELINE HOT STREAKS INLET CASE

5 © 2022 by ASME
 (a) (b)
FIGURE 9: TOTAL TEMPERATURE AT MID-SPAN: TIME AVERAGE OVER HALF A REVOLUTION: SPATIAL(A) AND FREQUENCY
temperature circumferential non-uniformity. At the exit of ratio of 5 to 1. Second, this decay rate is independent of the
S1(station ②), effects from S1 kick in, indicated by a small peak magnitude of inlet hot streaks. Lastly, good agreements are
with a wavenumber of 46. At the exit of R1 (station ③), the achieved between results obtained using the hot streaks created
potential field of S2 can also be observed, indicated by the small from a sinusoidal wave and the baseline temperature distribution
peak with Wn=48. Note that there is no wavelet related to the
rotor blade row in the spectrogram. This is because the flow field
is the time-mean result, so the existence of the wavelet number
of rotors is wiped out through averaging, which models the
scenario of using a steady-state probe to measure total
temperature.
Lastly, at the HPT exit, the footprint of inlet hot streaks
(Wn=18) is still quite prominent, with an approximate magnitude
of 6.17K. This motivates the idea of predicting the intensity of
the HPT inlet hot streaks by monitoring hot-streaks-related
signatures at the HPT exit. To achieve this objective, a projection
of the magnitude of hot streaks from exit to inlet is a prerequisite.
Fig. 10 shows the evolution of the normalized magnitude of hot-
streaks-related temperature non-uniformity (Wn=18) from HPT
inlet to exit. Three important takeaways can be drawn.
First, the magnitude of hot streaks related temperature non- FIGURE 10: EVOLUTION ALONG THE FLOW PATH OF
uniformity decays quickly from inlet to exit with an approximate NORMALIZED AWN=18 AT DIFFERENT SPANS

6 © 2022 by ASME
from the experiment, indicating a minor impact from burner Eqn.(4), a minimum of 2𝑁 + 1 data points measured at different
pitch-to-pitch asymmetry on the decay rate of hot streaks. circumferential locations, 𝜽 = (𝜃 , 𝜃 , 𝜃 ,⋯,𝜃 ), is required. The
Though not presented here, analysis of hot streaks Eqn.(4) can be cast into the matrix form as:
migrations near the end wall regions is also analyzed. Compared
to the midspan, those results in the end wall regions are inclusive. 𝑨𝑭 𝒙 (5)
Nevertheless, the above analysis conducted at midspan is still of
great value because combustion designer typically locates the where 𝑨 is a function of 𝑾𝒏 and 𝜽 with a dimension of m
hottest area near the mid-span, as reported by Povey et al. [5] and (2N+1), also known as the design matrix. The vector 𝑭 contains
Miki et al. [18]. all unknown coefficients with a dimension of 2N+1, and 𝒙 is the
In summary, the migration of hot streaks at mid-span across m-element measurement vector which contains all the
HPT has been investigated in detail. Overall, the hot streaks measurement values at different circumferential locations. The
decay significantly from the HPT inlet to exit. However, a spatial mathematical expressions for 𝑨, 𝑭, and 𝒙 are:
FFT of the temperature flow field indicates clear footprints of the
hot streaks at the HPT exit. Lastly, a projection of the magnitude 𝑨
of hot streaks (Wn=18) from exit to inlet is established. sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 ⋯ sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 1
sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 ⋯ sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 1
3. RESOLVING THE CIRCUMFERENTIAL FLOW ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
FIELD sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 ⋯ sin 𝑊 , 𝜃 cos 𝑊 , 𝜃 1
To resolve the hot streaks related component at the HPT exit, 𝑎
an immediate idea is to carry out a detailed traverse and perform 𝑏
a spatial FFT. However, this requires a complex traverse ⎛ ⋮ ⎞
mechanism or extensive instrumentations, typically expensive 𝑭 ⎜𝑎 ⎟
⎜ ⎟;
and time-consuming. To address this challenge, this section 𝑏
documents an effort to extract the hot-streaks-related signal at ⎝𝑐 ⎠
the HPT exit using a few spatially under-sampled measurements. 𝑥 𝜃
In the past few years, a few researchers have been making
𝑥 𝜃
progress in approximating the flow field in turbomachines using 𝒙 ,
⋮
discrete measurements. For instance, Chilla et al. [19,20]
𝑥 𝜃
explored the effectiveness of estimating compressor flow using
a single harmonic. Lou and Key developed a framework for
reconstructing compressor circumferential non-uniform flow the unknowns in 𝑭 could be solved from a direct inverse matrix
using a multi-wavelet approximation method [21] and further operation 𝑭 𝑨 𝟏 𝒙 when A is invertible or a least-square-
illustrated its application in experiments [22]. Seshadri et al. fitting method for an over-determined system. To evaluate the
reconstructed the 2D temperature spatial field using a confidence in the reconstructed signal, additional probes are
multivariate linear least-squares model with Tikhonov required. Therefore, a minimum of 2𝑁 + 2 measurements shall
regularization [23], including uncertainty assessment [24]. More be included for resolving N wavelets of interest.
recently, Seshadri et al. [25] introduced a transfer learning model Two considerations are important while using the multi-
suitable for temperature and pressure approximation in aero wavelet approximation method. The first is the condition number
engines based on the similarity of measurements at different of the linear system described in Eqn. 5, and the second is the
planes. confidence in the reconstructed signal. The condition number of
the design matrix 𝑨 measures how sensitive the reconstructed
3.1 Methodology signal 𝑭 responds to errors in the measurements 𝒙 with a smaller
In this section, the multiwavelet approximation method [21] number indicating a “well-conditioned” system. The condition
is utilized to extract the hot-streaks-related signal at the HPT exit number is calculated using the formula:
using much under-sampled measurements. For the self-
explanatory of the present paper, a brief introduction of the 𝒌 ||𝑨||||𝑨 || (6)
method is presented. In theory, the flow fields in multi-stage
compressors or turbines are typically dominated by several where 𝑨 is the inverse of matrix 𝑨 for a square matrix and the
wavelet numbers. Thus, it is possible to approximate the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse of matrix 𝑨 for a rectangular
circumferential variations of the flow field in turbomachines matrix. The symbol || ⋅ || is a 2-norm used for matrix norm
using a few (𝑁) dominant wavelets instead of an infinite number calculation. So, the circumferential locations 𝜽 is chosen in a
of wavelets: way that makes sure the condition number is small, and this is
achieved by utilizing the Genetic Algorithm (GA) from scikit-
𝑥 𝜃 𝑐 ∑ 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛 𝑊 , 𝜃 𝑏 𝑐𝑜𝑠 𝑊 , 𝜃 (4) opt1 on python (1 https://scikit-opt.github.io). With a selection of a
population size of 200 and an iteration number of 200, execution
To solve for the information for the 𝑁 dominant wavelets in of the optimization shall complete in a few seconds. It is worth

7 © 2022 by ASME
noting that, due to the random nature of the Genetic Algorithm,
each optimization run can lead to a different minimum. Though
not detailed here, the influence of condition number will be
discussed in this paper.
To evaluate the confidence in the reconstructed signal, the
Pearson correlation coefficient, or Pearson’s r is utilized, and it
is calculated:
∑ , ∑ ∑ , /
𝜌 (7)
∑ ∑ / ∑ , ∑ , /
where 𝒙(𝜽) is the true signal from measurements and 𝒙𝒇𝒊𝒕 𝜽
represents the reconstructed signal. The range for Pearson’s r is
between 0 and 1. For a well-reconstructed circumferential flow
field, the predicted flow properties should align with actual
values at all the measurement locations and yield a value of
nearly 1 for Pearson’s r, and vice versa.
3.2 Effectiveness of the method
The method’s effectiveness in resolving hot-streaks-related
signal (Wn=18) is examined. Prior to implementing the method,
an optimal set of eight measurement locations was selected using
the GA algorithm. The circumferential positions of those
measurements and the corresponding condition are listed in
Table 2.
First, the hot-streaks-related component at HPT exit,
A⑤Wn=18 is extracted using a single-wavelet approximation (Wn =
18). Fig. 11 shows the reconstructed temperature distribution at
(a)
FIGURE 11: COMPARISON OF THE TRUE SIGNAL AT TURBINE EXIT AT MID-SPAN AND FITTING DATA IN SPATIAL(A) AND
FREQUENCY DOMAIN(B) FROM THE BEST CASES USING SINGLE-, DOUBLE-, AND TRIPLE-WAVELET APPROXIMATION
TABLE 2: PROBE CONFIGURATION
Circumferential positions Wavelet(s) Condition
No.
[43.0deg, 120.0deg, 167.0deg, [18] 1.55
194.5deg,243.0deg, 270.0deg, [18,48] 1.97
291.0deg, 356deg]
[18,30,48] 3.14
midspan and the predicted magnitude for A⑤Wn=18. In addition,
the true measurements are also included in the figure for
comparison. As discussed in the previous section, multi-
mechanism drives the circumferential temperature non-
uniformity at HPT exit. As a result, there is a significant
deviation in the reconstructed signal using a single wavelet
approximation. In addition, a single-wavelet approximation
results in 25.9% overestimation in the magnitude A⑤Wn=18.
Furthermore, significant improvement in the reconstructed
circumferential temperature distribution is achieved by including
additional wavelets. For instance, reasonably well agreement in
both temperature distribution and hot-streaks-related magnitude
is achieved between measurements and the reconstructed signal
using a triple-wavelet approximation with wavenumbers of 18,
30, and 48. The errors in the predicted magnitudes related to hot
streaks (Wn=18), S2 wakes (Wn= 48), and hot streaks-S2 wake
interactions (Wn=30) are 7.3%, 32.6%, and -7.5%, respectively,
shown in Table 3.
Lastly, progress achieved in the reconstructed signal with
increasing wavenumbers can also be derived in terms of the
Pearson correlation coefficient. Fig. 12 shows the predicted and
sampled the HPT exit temperature at all the measurement
(b)
8 © 2022 by ASME
 TABLE 3: COMPARISON OF MAGNITUDE AT WAVE-
NUMBERS OF INTEREST FROM MULTI-WAVELET
APPROXIMATION WITH TRUE SIGNAL
Magnitude(K)
Wavelet No. True Fitting Error
18(HS) 6.17 6.62 7.3%
30(S2-HS) 3.34 4.43 32.6%
48(S2) 9.01 8.33 -7.5%
FIGURE 12: PEARSON CONFIDENCE BASED ON
DIFFERENT WAVELET NUMBERS
locations. There is an approximate 4.2% deviation from
measurements using a single-wavelet approximation. This value
drops to approximately 0.05% with a triple-wavelet
approximation. Similarly, the value Pearson correlation
coefficient for the single-wavelet approximation case is 0.678
and is 0.999 for the triple-wavelet approximation scenario,
indicating a triple-wavelet approximation is sufficient to
reconstruct the turbine exit temperature field at high fidelity.
Lastly, Fig. 13 shows the input and predicted hot streaks at the
HPT inlet, where the predicted inlet variation is obtained by
multiplying the estimated A⑤Wn=18 by the projection ratio.
Overall, the results are promising. In all cases, the predicted HPT
inlet hot streaks agree with the baseline reasonably well.
Furthermore, the predicted HPT inlet hot streaks using a triple-
wavelet approximation are almost identical to the baseline.
3.3 Considerations
With promising results presented in the previous section,
one particular interest regarding the multi-wavelet
approximation method is how robust the method is? For
instance, to implement the multi-wavelet approximation method,
a few design choices have to be made by engineers, including:
1. How many measurements are required to yield good
accuracy in predicting the magnitude of hot streaks at
the HPT exit?
2. How many wavelets should be included for flow
reconstruction?
In this process, it is important to understand the influences
of these choices on the confidence interval in the predicted
magnitude of hot streaks at the HPT exit. For this purpose, the
FIGURE 13: PREDICTED INLET TOTAL TEMPERATURE
DISTRIBUTION AT MID-SPAN BASED ON DIFFERENT
WAVELET NUMBERS
effects of measurement locations, number of probes, and prior
information on the accuracy of the predicted A⑤Wn=18 are
investigated.
The influence of probe numbers. An ideal scenario is to
reconstruct the magnitude of a specific wavelet with very limited
information, i.e., using a single wavelet with a wavenumber
equal to combustor burner count. In this case, a single-wavelet
approximation is carried out using measurements of different
data sizes (measurement/probe count). The aim is to resolve the
magnitude of the hot-streak-related wavelet (Wn=18) at the HPT
exit (Station ⑤), A⑤Wn=18. For each selected probe count, a total
of 500 cases with different measurement locations were
performed. The error in the predicted A⑤Wn=18 is indicated by
symbols in Fig. 14. In addition, the mean and standard deviation
band are also included in the figure, indicated by the error bar.
Results show that on the premise of ensuring that only a single
wavelet (Wn=18) is resolved, increasing the number of probes
can slowly decrease both the average deviation and the error
band. For instance, the error in predicted A⑤Wn=18 using a ten-
probe configuration is about 18.3%, and the corresponding
standard deviation band is ± 46.0%.
The influence of wavelet numbers. Another strategy is to
increase the number of wavelets and the number of probes
simultaneously. For instance, increase two measurements per
each increase of wavelet. In the present study, the selection of
the dominant wavelets is based on information shown in Fig. 9b.
For instance, the wavelets for the single-, double-, and triple-
wavelet cases are [18], [18,48], and [18,48,30], respectively. The
same procedure, 500 cases with different measurement locations,
were performed. Fig. 15 shows the errors in the predicted
A⑤Wn=18, indicated by symbols, as well as the mean and standard
deviation, shown by error bars. Results show that both the
9 © 2022 by ASME
 condition number tends to yield a more significant error in
A⑤Wn=18. Therefore, a condition number less than two is
recommended to assure optimal results. Second, beyond a
certain threshold, there seems no correlation between the
Pearson coefficient and error in A⑤Wn=18, shown in Fig. 16b.
Second, the effects of input measurement errors are
evaluated. The actual measurement can be described:

𝑥 𝑥 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒 (8)

where 𝑥 is the true value plus the error value, 𝑥 represents

the true measured value, 𝑒 is the instrument error (±0.4% full
scale) and 𝑒 is the measurement error associated with the
position (±0.1deg). The results performed with 1000 cases are
shown in Fig. 17. First, the multi-wavelet approximation method
FIGURE 14: INFLUENCE OF PROBE NUMBERS ON THE yields excellent accuracy in the mean or circumferential-
⑤
MAGNITUDE ERROR OF A WN=18

average deviation and the error band decrease quickly with

increase in wavenumber. For instance, when using a ten-probe
configuration, the error and standard deviation of the predicted
magnitude of hot streaks using a quadruple-wavelet
approximation are 3.1% and ±18.9%, respectively.
Sensitivity Analysis. Same as all other systems, the output is
prone to errors due to uncertainties related to the system or input.
This section considers both types of errors, including the
systematic error related to the multi-wavelet approximation and
the measurement error associated with the input. The former is
related to the number of measuring points and wavelet count.
The latter is related to the measurement uncertainty or error
related to instrumentation and data acquisition.
First, the influences of condition number and Pearson
coefficient on the errors in the predicted magnitude of hot streaks (a)
are examined. All analyses were conducted using a triple-
wavelet approximation ([18,48,30]) and a measurement count of
8. Two important takeaways can be drawn. First, the condition
number plays a critical role in the confidence interval of the
reconstructed signal, shown in Fig. 16a. An excessive value for

(b)

FIGURE 16: SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF: CONDITION

FIGURE 15: INFLUENCE OF WAVELET NUMBERS ON THE NUMBER(A) AND CORRESPONDING PEARSON’S R UNDER
MAGNITUDE ERROR OF A
⑤
WN=18
CONDITION NUMBER = 2 (B)

10 © 2022 by ASME

(a) (b)
FIGURE 17: SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF: MAGNITUDE OF
SPECIFIC WAVELET(A) AND AVERAGE TOTAL
TEMPERATURE(B)
averaged value, with less than 0.30% variations. This indicates
excellent robustness of the method in estimating mean flow
properties. For the magnitude of hot-streaks-related component,
A⑤Wn=18, the errors are much scattered, with most values in the
range of 25%. The standard deviation is ±10.1%. Though an
error interval of ±10.1% seems quite large, considering that the
peak-peak magnitude of the hot streaks at the HPT exit is only
6.2K, an accuracy range within 10.1% (0.63K) is entirely
satisfactory, considering both the magnitude of noise as
significant as 1.9K plus the position error of the probes.
4. CONCLUSION
The temperature non-uniformity at the HPT inlet can affect
the aerodynamics, heat transfer, and component life of the
downstream HPT vane/blade row. On the path towards active
control of HPT cooling flows for improved cycle performance, a
real-time and robust method of approximating combustor exit
temperature nonuniformities is a prerequisite. To date, because
of the harsh environment at the HPT inlet, direct temperature
measurements at the HPT inlet are typically not available, and
only temperature at the HPT exit is monitored using a few rakes
placed at fixed circumferential locations. As a result, a real-time
and robust method of approximating the HPT inlet temperature
nonuniformities based on discrete measurements at the HPT exit
is of great value. To shed light on this topic, this paper introduces
a new approach to predicting the turbine inlet temperature,
including the magnitude of non-uniformity, based on a few
temperature measurements at the HPT exit. The technique
includes three steps.
1. Investigate the migration of hot streaks from the HPT
inlet to exit and establish the projection of the
magnitude of hot streaks from exit to inlet.
2. Resolve the hot-streaks-related features at the HPT exit
using a multi-wavelet approximation method based on
much under-sampled measurements.
3. Estimate the HPT inlet mean temperature and
magnitude of hot streaks based on Steps 1 and 2.
The method’s effectiveness is examined using the two-stage
high-pressure turbine from Energy Efficiency Engine (E3). An
engine representative HPT inlet temperature distribution
available in the open literature is applied at the HPT inlet. The
true temperature distribution at HPT exit is obtained by solving
full-annulus unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes
(URANS) equations. The estimated HPT inlet temperature
distribution using the new approach agrees well with the input
profile. Below are a few takeaways:
1. For hot-streak with a single dominant wavelet, the
decay rate of the hot streaks is independent of its
circumferential intensity.
2. In the present study, the circumferential total
temperature field at the HPT exit can be reconstructed
by a triple-wavelet approximation using eight
measurements at high fidelity.
3. Confidence in the reconstructed signal can be improved
by increasing the number of wavelets.
4. The multi-wavelet approximation method is robust and
yields accurate mean temperature predictions
regardless of input. However, the method is quite
sensitive to the input errors when it comes to the
magnitude of the hot-streaks-related component.
To conclude, this paper introduces a new method for
predicting the HPT inlet temperature nonuniformities based on
discrete measurements at the HPT exit. Exercise on the two-stage
HPT from E3 shows promising results and sheds light on the path
toward turbine active cooling.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the support from
National Science and Technology Major Project (J2019-I-0007).
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