Effect of Unsteady Wake on Detailed Heat Transfer Coefficient and Film Effectiveness Distributions for a Gas Turbine Blade

Unsteady wake effects on detailed heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness distributions from a gas turbine blade with film cooling are obtained using a transient liquid crystal technique. Tests were performed on a five-blade linear cascade at a axial chord Reynolds number of 5.3 × 10⁵ at cascade exit. Upstream unsteady wakes are simulated using a spoke-wheel type wake generator. The test blade has three rows of film holes on the leading edge and two rows each on the pressure and suction surfaces. Air and CO₂ were used as coolants to simulate different coolant-to-mainstream density ratio effect. Coolant blowing ratio for air injection is varied from 0.8 to 1.2 and is varied from 0.4 to 1.2 for CO₂. Results show that Nusselt numbers for a film-cooled blade are much higher compared to a blade without film injection. Particularly, film injection causes earlier boundary layer transition on the suction surface. Unsteady wakes slightly enhance Nusselt numbers but significantly reduce film cooling effectiveness on a film-cooled blade compared with a film-cooled blade without wakes. Nusselt numbers increase slightly but film cooling effectiveness increases significantly with an increase in blowing ratio for CO₂ injection. Higher density coolant (CO₂) provides higher effectiveness at higher blowing ratios (M = 1.2) whereas lower density coolant (Air) provides higher effectiveness at lower blowing ratios (M = 0.8).