Flow and Heat Transfer Analysis of Turbine Blade Cooling Passages Using Network Method

Modern turbine blades are cooled by air flowing through internal cooling passages. Three-Dimensional numerical simulation of these blade cooling passages is too time-consuming because of their complex geometries. These geometrical complexities exist as a result of using various kinds of cooling technologies such as rib turbulators (inline, staggered, or inclined ribs), pin fin, 90 and 180 degree turns (both sharp and gradual turns, with and without turbulators), finned passage, by-pass flow and tip cap impingement. One possible solution to simulate such sophisticated passages is to use the one-dimensional network method, which is presented in the current work. Turbine blade cooling channels are flow passages having multiple inlets and exits. The present in-house developed solver uses a network method for analyzing such a complicated flow pattern. In this method, cooling system is represented by a network of elements connected together at different nodes. Using assumed wall temperature, internal flow and heat transfer is calculated. The final goal of this computation is a set of boundary conditions for conjugate blade heat transfer simulation (coolant side boundary conditions). For validation, it is required to use experimental data that include temperature distribution of blade coolant-side walls. Since there is no experimental work with such data in the open literature, numerical computation is validated using available analytical and published numerical data. Calculated results agree well with analytical and numerical data. In order to exhibit the potential capabilities of the developed code, flow and heat transfer in a complicated internal cooling passage of a typical vane are investigated using the network method.