The present article investigates mixed out aerodynamic loss coefficient measurements for a high turning, contoured endwall passage under transonic operating conditions in presence of upstream purge slot and mateface gap. The upstream purge slot represents the gap between stator-rotor interface and the mateface gap simulates the assembly feature between adjacent airfoils in an actual high pressure turbine stage. While the performance of the mateface and upstream slot has been studied for lower Mach number, no studies exist in literature for transonic flow conditions. Experiments were performed at the Virginia Tech's linear, transonic blow down cascade facility. Measurements were carried out at design conditions (isentropic exit Mach number of 0.88, design incidence) without and with coolant blowing. Upstream leakage flow of 1.0% coolant to mainstream mass flow ratio (MFR) was considered with the presence of mateface gap. There was no coolant blowing through the mateface gap itself. Cascade exit pressure measurements were carried out using a 5-hole probe traverse at a plane 1.0-Cax downstream of the trailing edge. Spanwise measurements were performed to complete the entire 2D loss plane from endwall to midspan, which were used to plot pitchwise averaged losses for different span locations and loss contours for the passage. Results reveal significant reduction in aerodynamic losses using the contoured endwall due to the modification of flow physics compared to a non-contoured planar endwall. The heat transfer experiments, designed to find the heat transfer coefficient and the film cooling effectiveness are described in detail in a separate paper.
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