Inverse Heat Transfer Engineering Design for Internally Cooled Gas Turbine Airfoils

In the design and development of modern gas turbine machines for efficient power generation in combined cycle applications, nozzle segments with airfoils and sidewalls need to be effectively cooled to operate in gas temperature environments in the excess of the melting point of the material of construction. Particular attention is given to the thermal evaluation as it affects component design life and performance. In this context, an optimization methodology is prescribed for inverse determination of required coolant heat transfer as a function of hot gas conditions and subjected to constraints associated with allowable metal temperature. A general boundary element method is used in the optimization process to provide a relatively fast and economically feasible design procedure. The optimized set of heat transfer results are converged when the external metal temperatures fall within acceptable limits. Once the magnitude and distribution of required coolant heat transfer coefficients are obtained, the cooling technique can be devised using available or referenced correlations for impingement jets through insert plates, banks of pin fins, turbulators, or just simply forced convection through internal passages. An illustrative example is presented with a Joukowski airfoil using a finite element method as an alternative method of solution for comparison and verification.