Computation of Flow and Heat Transfer of a Blade Internal Cooling Passage With Truncated V-Shaped Ribs on Opposite Walls

The inlet temperature of gas turbine engine is continuously increased to achieve higher thermal efficiency and power output. To prevent from the temperature exceeding the melting point of the blade material, ribs are commonly used in the mid-section of internal blade to augment the heat transfer from blade wall to the coolant. In this study, turbulent flow and heat transfer of a rectangular cooling passage with continuous or truncated 45-deg V-shaped ribs on opposite walls have been investigated numerically. The inlet Reynolds numbers are ranging from 12,000 to 60,000 and the low-Re k-ε model is selected for the turbulent computations. The complex three-dimensional fluid flow in the internal coolant passages and the corresponding heat transfer over the side-walls and rib-walls are presented and the thermal performances of the ribbed passages are compared as well. It is shown that the passage with truncated V-shaped ribs on opposite walls is very effective in improving the heat transfer performance with a low pressure loss, and thus could be suggested to be applied to gas turbine blade internal cooling.