In search of improved cooling of gas turbine blades, the thermal performances of two different film cooling hole geometries (horn-shaped and cylindrical) are investigated in this numerical study. The horn-shaped hole is designed from a cylindrical hole by expanding the hole in the transverse direction to double the hole size at the exit. The two hole shapes are evaluated singly and in tandem. The tandem geometry assumes three configurations made by locating the cylindrical hole at three different positions relative to the horn-shaped hole such that their two axes remain parallel to one another. One has the cylindrical hole downstream from the center of the horn-shaped hole, a second has the cylindrical hole to the left of (as seen by the flow emerging from the horn-shaped hole) and at the same streamwise location as the horn-shaped hole (θ = 90°) and the third has an intermediate geometry between those two geometries (downstream and to the left of the horn-shaped hole - θ = 45°). It is shown from the simulation results that the cooling effectiveness values for the θ = 45° and 90° cases are much better than that for θ = 0° (the first case), and the configuration with θ = 45° exhibits the best cooling performance of the three tandem arrangements. These improvements are attributed to the interaction of vortices from the two different holes, which weakens the counter-rotating vortex pairs inherent to film cooling jet to freestream interaction, counteracts with the lift forces, enhances transverse tensile forces and, thus, enlarges the film coverage zone by widening the flow attachment region. Overall, this research reveals that integration of horn-shaped and cylindrical holes provides much better film cooling effectiveness than cases where two cylindrical film cooling holes are applied with the same tandem configuration.

A new advanced film cooling scheme, named high-aspect-ratio holes has been proposed. Four configurations were designed, and numerically simulated under density ratio of 2 and different blowing ratios. All configurations demonstrate extremely high film cooling effectiveness values, some are as high as the so-called perfect performance, while their mechanical strength are similar to the conventional schemes. The new scheme exhibits two traits distinctive from the conventional geometries: Its film cooling effectiveness is much higher than the coverage ratio ( t/P ), and the high film cooling effectiveness is obtained under strong counter-rotating vortex pair (CRVP). It has been found that, in the new scheme, along with the aspect ratio value increase, the CRVP move away from the coolant-mainstream interface, and the coolant laterally expands in the vicinity of the exit. Consequently, a continuous coolant film would occur near the trailing edge position if aspect ratio is high enough. The approach of high-aspect-ratio holes could be used to design the highest film cooling performance geometries.

The thermal efficiency of a gas turbine is largely dependent on the turbine inlet temperature (TIT). Modern gas turbines may operate at temperatures as high as 2000K, which is higher than the melting point of the material in use. Hence, thermal protection of gas turbine hot components is a big challenge. Film cooling is the most common cooling technique adopted in this application. In film cooling, coolant is injected at discrete locations along the metal surface, which forms a layer of cool air immediately over the hot surface, thus, protecting it from direct contact with hot mainstream air. The cooling is strong along the centerline of the hole in the downstream region and rapidly decreases over the span-wise direction. The distributed cooling can result in large thermal gradients, inducing thermal stresses in the material. The region with least cooling may lead to a cascade failure of the blade. Film cooling with backward injection holes has been proved to reduce this effect. In the current work, backward coolant injection scheme is explored under fan-shaped holes numerically. Fluent, a commercial CFD software, is used in the current work for numerical simulations. Effects of blowing ratio, injection angle, and turbulence are considered. Numerical results show that fan-shaped holes are better than simple cylindrical holes in terms of both cooling effectiveness and its uniformity. Numerical results are validated with experimental results. The image of temperature fields on cooling surface is captured with an Infrared camera.

Film cooling has been successfully used in cooling gas turbine components that are exposed to very high temperature environments. One main disadvantage of using film cooling is the aerodynamic losses associated. To address to the needs of obtaining uniform cooling in the downstream regions, backward injection of coolant has proved to be effective. However, there is a need to understand the aerodynamic behaviors of jet and mainstream flows in order to design effective configurations with this scheme of injecting coolant. In this work, the underlying aerodynamic principles of backward injection are studied numerically. All simulations are conducted with Fluent, a commercial CFD software. Results show that the classical counter rotating vortex found in simple cylindrical holes are not seen in the case of backward injections. Backward injection results in reduced coolant requirements and elimination of complex hole designs to avoid jet lift-off.

In this study the effect of randomness of blowing ratio on film cooling performance is investigated by combining direct numerical simulations with a stochastic collocation approach. The geometry includes a 35-degree inclined jet with a plenum attached to it. The blowing ratio variations are assumed to have a truncated Gaussian distribution with mean of 0.3 and the standard variation of approximately 0.1. The parametric space is discretized using Multi-Element general Polynomial Chaos (ME-gPC) with five elements where general polynomial chaos of order 3 is used in each element. A fast convergence of the polynomial expansion in the random space was observed. Direct numerical simulations were carried out using spectral element method to sample the governing equations in space and time. The probability density function of the film cooling effectiveness was obtained and the standard deviation of the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness on the blade surface was calculated. A maximum standard deviation of 15% was observed in the region within a four-jet-diameter distance downstream of the exit hole. The spatially-averaged adiabatic film cooling effectiveness was 0.23 ± 0.02 . The calculation of all the statistical properties were carried out as off-line post-processing. Overall the computational strategy is shown to be very effective with the total computational cost being equivalent to solving twenty independent direct numerical simulations that are performed concurrently.

An advanced, high-effectiveness film-cooling design, the anti-vortex hole (AVH) has been investigated by several research groups and shown to mitigate or counter the vorticity generated by conventional holes and increase film effectiveness at high blowing ratios and low freestream turbulence levels. [1, 2] The effects of increased turbulence on the AVH geometry were previously investigated and presented by researchers at West Virginia University (WVU), in collaboration with NASA, in a preliminary CFD study [3] on the film effectiveness and net heat flux reduction (NHFR) at high blowing ratio and elevated freestream turbulence levels for the adjacent AVH. The current paper presents the results of an extended numerical parametric study, which attempts to separate the effects of turbulence intensity and length-scale on film cooling effectiveness of the AVH. In the extended study, higher freestream turbulence intensity and larger scale cases were investigated with turbulence intensities of 5, 10 and 20% and length scales based on cooling hole diameter of Λ x /d m = 1, 3 and 6. Increasing turbulence intensity was shown to increase the centerline, span-averaged and area-averaged adiabatic film cooling effectiveness. Larger turbulent length scales were shown to have little to no effect on the centerline, span-averaged and area-averaged adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness at lower turbulence levels, but slightly increased effect at the highest turbulence levels investigated.

Improved film cooling hole geometries and effect of coolant density on film cooling have been a focus since the 1970s. One of the first studies on modifying hole exit to improve film cooling effectiveness and quantifying coolant density effect was from Prof. Goldstein’s group [1]. This paper traces the development and implementation of hole exit geometries as well as coolant density study from this landmark paper and its impact on future studies of advanced hole geometries under realistic engine-like coolant to mainstream density ratio conditions. This work is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the literature. It is aimed at providing an overview of the influence of ref. [1] over the past 4 decades.

Tripod hole film cooling designs can provide improved cooling with reduced coolant usage. It is essential to determine the impact of strong cooling near hole locations due to increased thermal gradients around the hole region. In this paper, efforts have been made to predict the same using a numerical analysis. Local temperature distribution on the blade surface causes different rates of expansion, resulting in a differential strain, furthering the impact of the numerical study and creating a need to understand the thermo-mechanical behavior of blade design. The thermal stresses that are generated near the film cooling holes are compared for different cooling hole shapes and eventually weigh the thermal advantage of a tripod hole over the cylindrical standard design. Standard k-ε was used to validate the CFD results, ensuring by a fine mesh of 5 million tetrahedrons. Validation includes comparison of the experimental results, with a numerical one where similar blade material and working temperatures are used. Upon validation, CFD was run again at engine temperature conditions with Haynes230 alloy as the blade material. Surface temperature contour enabled structural analysis using a finite element approach. Equivalent stresses (Von-Mises stresses) on the blade emerging from the analysis provided more information about stress dependency on blowing ratio.

Thermal and hydrodynamic flow field over a flat surface cooled with a single round inclined film cooling jet and fed by a plenum chamber is numerically investigated using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and validated with published measurements. The calculations are done for a free stream Reynolds number Re = 16000, density ratio of coolant to free stream fluid ρ j /ρ∞ = 2.0 and blowing ratio BR = ρ j V/ρ ∞ V = 1.0. A short delivery tube with aspect ratio l/D = 1.75 and 35° inclination is considered. The evolution of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H), hairpin and Counter-Rotating Vortex Pair (CVP) vortical structures are discussed to identify their origins. Modal analysis of the complete 3D flow and temperature field is carried out using a Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) technique. The modal frequencies are identified, and the specific modal contribution towards the cooling wall temperature fluctuation is estimated on the film cooling wall. The low and intermediate frequency modes associated with streamwise and hairpin flow structures are found to have largest contribution (in-excess of 28%) towards wall temperature (or cooling effectiveness) fluctuations. The high frequency Kelvin-Helmholtz mode contributes towards initial mixing in the region of film cooling hole away from the wall. The individual modal temperature fluctuations on the wall and their corresponding hydrodynamic flow structures are presented and discussed.

Film cooling is crucial in the field of gas turbines to protect the blade surfaces from the hot combustion gases. Several hole geometries have been studied in the past in an effort to optimize the cooling effectiveness of the holes while maintaining the structural integrity of the blade and low manufacturing costs. To understand the cooling effectiveness of the various hole geometries, the flow structures that develop as the coolant jet interacts with the hot mainstream must be understood. The present paper compares the results obtained from 2D Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements with CFD predictions using standard Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) models with a commercially available code. The study is conducted for flat plate film cooling via conventional cylindrical holes, shaped holes (10° flare/laidback), and a tripod anti-vortex hole (AV) design. A constant blowing ratio (BR) of 0.5 was used for all the experiments, except for an additional measurement for the AV design at a BR of 1.0. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) calculations were made with a standard k-epsilon model and compared to PIV results. The results show the counter-rotating vortices developing for cylindrical and shaped holes up to 5D and 3D respectively from the hole exit. AV holes showed no vortex formation, further supporting its higher cooling performance. Moreover, the present results indicate no separation of the coolant jet for AV or shaped holes as expected, while cylindrical holes displayed a small separation with a vertical extent of ∼0.1D. The CFD model was able to capture the main structures of the flow, but further efforts will concentrate in improving the representation of the flow normal to the flat plate surface.

This paper presents experimental flow field investigations of a film cooling scheme, referred to as nozzle scheme, on a flat plate using stereo PIV. The nozzle scheme has a cylindrical hole and internal obstacles to change the velocity distribution near the hole exit and hence the jet-mainstream interaction. Counter-rotating vortex pair (CRVP) is known to be one of the detrimental effects that affect the film cooling effectiveness. Previous CFD simulations demonstrated nozzle hole’s capability of reducing CRVP strength and enhancing film cooling effectiveness in comparison with a normal cylindrical hole. The present study examines the nozzle hole flow filed experimentally at blowing ratio ranged from 0.5 to 2.0 and compares with cylindrical hole. The experiments were conducted in a low-speed wind tunnel with a mainstream Reynolds number of 115,000 and the density ratio was 1.0 during all the investigations. The experimental results show that nozzle hole reduces streamwise vorticity of CRVP by an average of 55% at low blowing ratio, and 34%–40% at high blowing ratios. The velocity field and vorticity field of nozzle jet are compared with cylindrical jet. The result reveals that the nozzle jet forms a round bulk in contrast to the kidney shape jet core in cylindrical hole case. In addition, it is found that CRVP strength may not be a primary contributor to the jet lift-off.

A number of studies have shown that the flow field exiting a combustor of a gas turbine cycle is highly non-uniform in pressure, velocity and, most importantly, temperature. Much research has been dedicated to the cooling of gas turbine blades using internal, film cooling, impingement jets, and pin/fin cooling technologies. Such designs allow for heated blades to be cooled from the inside out. While advancements in this type of blade cooling technology provide effective means to reduce the occurrence of blade failure due to material overheat conditions, the effect of externally reducing or eliminating the temperature non-uniformities in the exit flow from the combustor would assist in the solution. The goal of this study is to optimize the mixing of primary and dilution air in the dilution zone of the combustor using guide vanes. This improvement in mixing would lead to increase in the degree of temperature uniformity with respect to the radial position at the exit nozzle. To achieve this objective, both experimental and computational studies were performed to investigate the heat and flow behaviors with 45° spherically swept guide vanes attached to the dilution holes. These guide vanes were intended to direct the dilution jets into the primary flow and enhance mixing. A parameter was defined in terms of the temperatures of the dilution and primary flow streams at the inlet and the exit plane, called the mixture fraction. Based on the mixture fraction value, it was found that the guide vanes produce a more uniform exit temperature flow field as compared to the case when there were no guide vanes used. Also, the design was modified for different alignment orientations of the guide vanes — 0°, 30°, 60° and 90° with respect to the primary flow — with the 60° orientation fostering the best results.

Due to the unique role of gas turbine engines in power generation and aircraft propulsion, significant effort has been made to improve the gas turbine performance. As a result, the turbine inlet temperature is usually elevated to be higher than the metal melting point. Therefore, effective cooling of gas turbines is a critical task for engines’ efficiency as well as safety and lifetime. Film cooling has been used to cool the turbine blades for many years. The main issues related to film cooling are its poor coverage, aerodynamic loss, and increase of heat transfer coefficient due to strong mixing. To overcome these problems, film cooling with backward injection has been found to produce a more uniform cooling coverage under low pressure and temperature conditions and with simple cylindrical holes. Therefore, the focus of this paper is on the performance of film cooling with backward injection at gas turbine operating conditions. By applying numerical simulation, it is observed that along the centerline on both concave and convex surfaces, the film cooling effectiveness decreases with backward injection. However, cooling along the span is improved, resulting in more uniform cooling.

Heat transfer augmentation values are obtained experimentally with the use of temperature sensitive paint on constant flux heaters attached to full coverage film cooled surfaces as a function of blowing ratio. The effects of blowing ratio, surface angle and hole spacing are observed by testing four full coverage arrays of round staggered holes, all compounded at 45°, which parametrically vary the inclination angle, 30° and 45°, and the spacing of the holes, 14.5 and 19.8 diameters. Local heat transfer augmentation is obtained throughout these largely spaced arrays over 20 rows for the 19.8 spacing array and 30 rows for the 14.5 spacing array. The first five to six rows show low heat transfer enhancement between holes with peaks in augmentation occurring directly downstream of the hole. Heat transfer enhancement is seen to be close to unity at the leading edge of the arrays. Laterally averaged values of heat transfer augmentation increase every row, leveling out to values between 20 and 30% augmentation with peaks reaching the 40% mark.

A two pass stationary square duct with rib turbulators subjected to sand ingestion is studied using Large Eddy Simulations (LES). Each pass has ribs on two opposite walls and aligned normal to the main flow direction. The rib pitch to rib height ( P/e ) is 9.28, the rib height to channel hydraulic diameter ( e/D h ) is 0.0625 and calculations have been carried out for a bulk Reynolds number of 25,000. Particle sizes in the range 0.5–25 μm are considered, with the same size distribution as found in Arizona Road Dust (medium). Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with wall-model is used to model the flow and sand particles are modeled using a discrete Lagrangian framework. 220,000 particles are injected at the inlet and perfectly elastic collisions with the wall are considered. Results quantify the distribution of particle impingement density on all surfaces. Highest particle impingement density is found in the first quarter section of the second pass after the 180° turn, where the recorded impingement is more than twice that of any other region. It is also found that the average particle impingement per pitch is 28% higher in the second pass than the first pass. Results show lower particle tendency to hit the region immediately behind the rib in the first pass compared to the second pass where particle impingement is more uniform in the region between two ribs. The smooth walls do not show much particle impingement except the wall in second pass where the flow impinges after the turn. The rib face facing the flow is by far is the most susceptible to impingement and hence deposition and erosion. The results of this simulation were also compared with results obtained from experiments conducted on an identical two pass geometry with Arizona Road Dust particles. The particle impingement pattern is recorded by using a sticky tape on all surfaces to capture the particles. The numerical predictions showed good qualitative agreement with experimental measurements. These results help identifying the damage prone areas in the internal cooling passages of a turbine blade under the influence of sand ingestion. This information can help modify the geometry of the blade or location of film cooling holes to avoid hole blockage and degradation of heat transfer at the walls.

Adiabatic film cooling effectiveness contours are obtained experimentally with the use of temperature sensitive paint on low thermal conductivity full coverage film cooled surfaces. The effects of blowing ratio, surface angle and hole spacing are observed by testing four full coverage arrays composed of cylindrical staggered holes all compounded at 45°, which parametrically vary the inclination angle, 30° and 45°, and the spacing of the holes, 14.5 and 19.8 diameters. Local film cooling effectiveness is obtained throughout these largely spaced arrays over up to 23 rows for the 19.8 spacing array and 30 rows for the 14.5 spacing array. The coolant takes several rows to merge and begin to interact with lateral holes at these large spacings, however; at downstream rows the film builds and provides high effectiveness in the gaps between injection. At low blowing, each individual jet throughout the entire array can be seen in the effectiveness profiles. At higher blowing rates, the profile is far more uniform due to jets spreading as they reattach with the cooled wall. Laterally averaged values of effectiveness easily approach 0.3 in most cases with some, high blowing low spacing, even reaching 0.5.

Film cooling performance of a tripod hole anti-vortex geometry is evaluated on cascade vane pressure and suction surfaces with steady-state IR (infrared thermography) technique and compared to a baseline cylindrical hole geometry performance. The base geometry is a simple cylindrical hole design inclined at 30° from the surface with pitch-to-diameter ratio of 3.0. The tripod hole geometry, also called an anti-vortex design, is where two side holes, also of the same diameter, branch out from the root at 15° angle. The pitch-to-diameter ratio between the main holes for this design is 6.0. Two secondary fluids — air and carbon-dioxide — were used to study the effects of coolant-to-mainstream density ratio (DR = 0.95 and 1.45) on film cooling effectiveness. Several blowing ratios in the range 0.5 –4.0 were investigated independently at the two density ratios. Results show that the tripod hole design clearly provides higher film cooling effectiveness the baseline case with overall reduced coolant usage on both pressure and suction side of the airfoil. Additional testing was also conducted to measure the aerodynamic effects of injecting coolant through the cylindrical and tripod hole designs. Results show that the coolant issued from a tripod hole design has a significantly smaller effect on the overall aerodynamic performance of the vane.

Adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness is examined systematically on a typical high pressure turbine blade by varying three critical flow parameters: coolant blowing ratio, coolant-to-mainstream density ratio, and freestream turbulence intensity. Three average coolant blowing ratios 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0; three coolant density ratios 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0; two turbulence intensities 4.2% and 10.5%, are chosen for this study. Conduction-free pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique is used to measure film-cooling effectiveness. Three foreign gases — N 2 for low density, CO 2 for medium density, and a mixture of SF 6 and Argon for high density are selected to study the effect of coolant density. The test blade features axial shaped holes on the suction side and pressure side, and 3 rows of 30° radial-angle cylindrical holes around the leading edge region. The inlet and the exit Mach number are 0.27 and 0.44, respectively. Reynolds number based on the exit velocity and blade axial chord length is 750,000. Results reveal that the PSP is a powerful technique capable of producing clear and detailed film effectiveness contours with diverse foreign gases. As blowing ratio exceeds the optimum value, it induces more mixing of coolant and mainstream. Thus film-cooling effectiveness reduces. Greater coolant-to-mainstream density ratio results in lower coolant-to-mainstream momentum and prevents coolant to lift-off; as a result, film-cooling increases. Higher freestream turbulence causes effectiveness to drop everywhere except in the region downstream of suction side. Results are also correlated with momentum flux ratio and compared with previous studies. It shows that compound shaped hole has the greatest optimum momentum flux ratio, and then followed by axial shaped hole, compound cylindrical hole, and axial cylindrical hole.

Film cooling experiments were run at the High-Speed Cascade Wind-Tunnel of the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich. The investigations were carried out on a linear cascade of aerodynamically highly loaded turbine blades. The main targets of the tests were to assess the film cooling effectiveness and the heat transfer in zones with main flow separation. The cascade was designed to have a large zone with flow separation on the pressure side starting at the leading edge and reaching up to approximately half of the axial chord. Film cooling is provided on the pressure side at the front part of the blade in order to reduce flow separation and to provide effective film cooling inside the separation bubble and at the reattachment zone. The studies comprise the measurement of adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient for the different cascades under a set of different Mach and Reynolds numbers at engine relevant levels. Periodic wakes, generated by bars moving upstream of the cascade, simulate the rotor stator interaction. The results show that film cooling is detrimental for cooling the surface inside the flow separation zone, whereas after reattachment improved overall film cooling effectiveness is obtained with periodic unsteady inflow compared to the cases with homogeneous inflow.

End-wall film cooling technique is an advanced technology which has been employed in modern gas turbines to protect the surface of the end-wall. The sophistication of this technique has allowed an increase in the combustor outlet temperature, resulting in higher engine overall efficiency. Several criteria are used to judge the performance of film cooling; one of them is film cooling effectiveness (ETA) which has been adopted in most of the literature nowadays. In part I of the investigation, we aim to withdraw an overall correlation between film cooling effectiveness and flow conditions and geometric parameters. A lot independent parameters, that could play a role in film cooling performance, are: blowing ratio, cooling mass flow rate, pitch distance, geometry of the hole, injection angle, and inlet to exit hole-area ratio to name a few. But we need to screen some factors out that seem to be more potentially affect the output based on previous experiences (or available literature), or by conducting pilot runs. Due to nature of preliminary investigation in this part I, the authors found that blowing ratio (BR), density ratio (DR), jet inclination angle (α) and hole length-to-diameter ratio (L/D) are more important and are selected as investigated factors. A full design of experiment is then performed and it is worth to note here that typical values are assigned for those less important factors and they are kept constant in the sensitivity analysis. Regression equation is also extracted to predict the spatial average film cooling effectiveness (ETA aa ). This investigation is supported by numerical analysis where the solution of the computational domain is performed using FLUENT package [1]. Second order schemes are used to provide the highest accuracy available. The realizable k-ε model (RKE) is integrated in this work with enhanced wall treatment for all its runs. For the baseline case, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) result is compared against actual experimental data where the experimental baseline work was conducted for a row of cylindrical holes on a flat plate at the Center of Advanced Turbine and Energy Research (CATER). Temperature distribution is captured by using the temperature sensitive paint (TSP) technique and the output design parameter is then calculated.