Among the different parts subjected to hot gas flow, endwall heat transfer evaluation is particularly challenging because the flow is strongly affected by secondary effects. Large three-dimensional flow structures introduce remarkable spatial variation of heat transfer, both along streamwise and spanwise directions, making the use of simplified modelling approaches questionable in terms of reliability, and at the same time increasing the challenge for high fidelity computational methods.
The aim of the present contribution is to describe the work done in the assessment of computational methods for the estimate of high pressure vane endwall heat transfer for industrial applications. Efforts were first devoted to the development and validation of an accurate computational procedure against a large set of aerodynamic and heat transfer data, available from literature, for both airfoil and endwall of a low-pressure linear cascade with low and high inlet turbulence levels.
The analysis, focused on steady state computations, is principally devoted to the turbulence modelling assessment, including non-linear turbulence closure as well as transition modelling.
Obtained results showed that the aerodynamics of both passage and endwall are well captured independently of the turbulence modelling while a large impact on both pattern and averaged value is verified for the heat transfer.
