Multi-Pass Serpentine Cooling Designs for Negating Coriolis Force Effect on Heat Transfer: Smooth Channels

Gas turbine blades feature serpentine internal cooling passages connected by 180-degree bends, through which coolant bled off from the compressor is routed to cool the internal walls. Under the influence of Coriolis force and centrifugal buoyancy force induced by rotation, the heat transfer for radially outward flow enhances on the trailing side (pressure side) and reduces on the leading side (suction side). A reverse trend in heat transfer is observed for radially inward flow. Rotation induced forces result in non-uniform heat transfer coefficient distribution which results in non-uniform metal temperatures under steady state condition. Present study addresses the problem of non-uniform heat transfer distribution due to rotation effect, by experimental investigation of two configurations where Coriolis effect was negated by aligning the coolant flow vector and rotation vector such that their cross product was effectively a null vector. This paper presents a novel design for serpentine cooling passages which are arranged along the chord of the blade which has similar heat transfer coefficient distribution on both leading and trailing walls. The two configurations were four-passage and six-passage serpentine smooth channels. Detailed heat transfer coefficients were measured using transient liquid crystal thermography under stationary and rotating conditions. Heat transfer experiments were carried out for Reynolds numbers ranging from 12294 to 85000 under stationary conditions. Rotation experiments were carried out at Rotation numbers of 0.05 and 0.11. Heat transfer enhancement levels of approximately two times the Dittus-Boelter correlation (for developed flow in smooth tubes) were obtained under stationary conditions. Under rotating conditions, we found that the four-passage configuration had slightly lower heat transfer compared to stationary case, and the six-passage configuration had higher heat transfer on both leading and trailing sides compared to stationary case. The leading and trailing side heat transfer characteristics were near-similar to each other, for both the configurations and the rotating heat transfer was near-similar to the stationary condition heat transfer.