After compressor discharge air has initially been used to cool the heat shields of the hot gas inlet casing, it can subsequently be employed for film cooling of the first-stage vane shrouds. Since the flow field near these shrouds is three-dimensional, the film cooling effectiveness cannot be predicted correctly by common two-dimensional codes. The secondary flow transports the film from the pressure side to the suction side where it can even climb up the airfoil to cool its trailing section.
Such film cooling effectiveness was first investigated experimentally in a linear vane cascade at atmospheric pressure. The temperatures and static pressure levels at the adiabatic shrouds, as well as the temperature measurements within the vane cascade, are reported for different cooling film blowing rates.
In addition, the secondary flow was analysed numerically using a partially-parabolic computer code for 3D viscous flows. It involves mutual interaction of the boundary layer with the mainstream. The secondary flow can also be modelled with this algorithm, which requires less numerical effort than solving the fully 3D elliptic flow equations. The numerical results of the experiment and numerical predictions are compared. In addition, the application of these results to a high-temperature gas turbine is presented.
