An Investigation of Heat Transfer in a Film Cooled Transonic Turbine Cascade: Part I — Steady Heat Transfer

Experiments were performed in a transonic cascade wind tunnel to investigate the film effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient on the suction side of a high-turning turbine rotor blade. The coolant scheme consisted of six rows of staggered, discrete cooling holes on and near the leading edge of the blade in a showerhead configuration. Air was cooled in order to match the density ratios found under engine conditions. Six high-frequency heat flux gauges were installed downstream of the cooling holes on the suction side of the blade. Experiments were performed with and without film and the coolant to freestream total pressure ratio was varied from 1.02 to 1.19. In order to simulate real engine flow conditions, the exit Mach number was set to 1.2 and the exit Reynolds number was set to 5×10⁶. The freestream turbulence was approximately 1%. The heat transfer coefficient was found to increase with the addition of film cooling an average of 14% overall and to a maximum of 26% at the first gauge location. The average film cooling effectiveness over the gauge locations was 25%. Both the heat transfer coefficient and the film cooling effectiveness were found to have only a weak dependence upon the coolant to freestream total pressure ratio at the gauge locations used in this study.