A Computational Visualization of Three Dimensional Flow: Finding Optimum Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics From Short Cross-Pin Arrays and Comparison With Two Dimensional Calculations

There are many heat transfer augmentation methods that are employed in turbine blade design, such as impingement cooling, film cooling, serpentine passages, trip strips, vortex chambers, and pin fins. The use of crosspins in the trailing edge section of turbine blades is commonly a viable option due to their ability to promote turbulence as well as supply structural integrity and stiffness to the blade itself. Numerous crosspin shapes and arrangements are possible, but only certain configurations offer high heat transfer capability while maintaining taw total pressure loss. This study preseots results from 3-D numerical simulations of airflow through a turbine blade internal cooling passage. The simulations model viscous flow and heat transfer over full crosspins of circular cross-section with fixed height-to-diameter ratio of 0.5, fixed transverse-to-diameter spacing ratio of 1.5, and varying streamwise spacing. Preliminary analysis indicates that endwall effects dominate the flow and heat transfer at lower Reynolds numbers. The flow dynamics involved with the relative dose proximity of the endwalls for such short crosspins have a definite influeoce on crosspin efficiency for downstream rows.