Numerical Study of a Rotating Blade Platform With Film Cooling From Cavity Purge Flow in a 1-1/2 Turbine Stage

Numerical simulations were performed to predict the effect of cavity purge flow on the rotating blade platform in a 1-1/2 turbine stage using a Reynolds stress turbulence model together with a non-equilibrium wall function. Simulations were carried out with a sliding mesh for the rotor under three rotating speeds (2000, 2550 and 3000 rpm) and three purge-to-mainstream mass flow ratios (0.5%, 1% and 1.5%) to investigate the effects of rotating speed and coolant purging rate on the rotating blade platform film cooling. The adiabatic film cooling effectiveness was evaluated using the adiabatic wall temperatures with and without coolant purging to examine the true effect of coolant protection. The film cooling effectiveness increases with increasing coolant purging flow ratio from 0.5% to 1.5% of mainstream. Higher rotating speed also enhances film cooling effectiveness for the range of rotating speed considered. The predicted laterally averaged adiabatic film cooling effectiveness is in good agreement with the corresponding experiment data except for the platform leading edge region. However, the detailed effectiveness distribution on the platform is not well predicted by this study. In addition, the detailed instantaneous film cooling effectiveness and the associated heat transfer coefficients for four different time phases are also reported.