Predicting Skin Friction and Heat Transfer for Turbulent Flow Over Real Gas-Turbine Surface Roughness Using the Discrete-Element Method

The discrete-element method considers the total aerodynamic drag on a rough surface to be the sum of shear drag on the flat part of the surface and the form drag on the individual roughness elements. The total heat transfer from a rough surface is the sum of convection through the fluid on the flat part of the surface and the convection from each of the roughness elements. The discrete-element method has been widely used and validated for predicting heat transfer and skin friction for rough surfaces composed of sparse, ordered, and deterministic elements. Real gas-turbine surface roughness is different from surfaces with sparse, ordered, and deterministic roughness elements. Modifications made to the discrete-element roughness method to extend the validation to real gas-turbine surface roughness are detailed. Two rough surfaces found on high-hour gas-turbine blades were characterized using a Taylor-Hobson Form Talysurf Series 2 profilometer. Two rough surfaces and two elliptical-analog surfaces were generated for wind-tunnel testing using a three-dimensional printer. The printed surfaces were scaled to maintain similar boundary-layer thickness to roughness height ratio in the wind tunnel as found in gas-turbine operation. The results of the wind tunnel skin friction and Stanton number measurements and the discrete-element method predictions for each of the four surfaces are presented and discussed. The discrete-element predictions made considering the gas-turbine roughness modifications are within 7% of the experimentally-measured skin friction coefficients and are within 16% of the experimentally-measured Stanton numbers.