Since 2011, planning, designing, and building have occupied those working in the START Lab, especially Dr. Michael Barringer, PhD candidate Ken Clark, and Dave Johnson. Alongside these individuals was the continued support and efforts by many engineers at United Technologies-Pratt & Whitney and at Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory.
In February 2016, after much anticipation, the START test turbine and all the laboratory subsystems were completed, commissioned, and ready to operate. During the next three months, the first official test campaign was enacted that included 22 test days operating the turbine between 8 to 12 hours per day without interruption. Over 150 flow conditions were simulated with over 1800 data points acquired.
The focus of this first test campaign was on the sealing effectiveness in the rim cavity area upstream of the first blade, which was rotating at nearly 10,000 rpm. The data acquired from this first campaign made use of CO2 as a flow tracer to distinguish the secondary flow supply from that of the main gas path flow supply. Pressure taps that were additively manufactured into the turbine components were used to sample the flow. Additive manufacturing was used to place taps in locations that would not have otherwise been possible. The experimental results that were acquired were the first of its kind given the use of engine relevant hardware in the most relevant turbine conditions, outside of an actual operating engine. Comparisons of the data are being made to well-accepted correlations given in the public literature.