The objective of this study is to examine the effect of the geometrical modification of the land on the overall film cooling effectiveness on the cutback region of a turbine blade model. A room-temperature experiment was conducted, in which nitrogen serves as the cooling stream, and the mainstream flow is air. The adiabatic film cooling effectiveness was mapped employing the pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique. Data was acquired at five different blowing ratios (from 0.45 to 1.65) for both the baseline and the modified model. Detailed film cooling effectiveness from PSP measurements in correlation with the flow map in streamwise and spanwise planes from particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements was performed, characterizing the effect of rounding the edges of the lands. The results show that the rounded edges enable the coolant flow to reach the top surface of the land area more readily, especially at low blowing ratios. Superior coolant coverage on the land surface observed in the PSP measurements are well correlated with the PIV measurements. At the high blowing ratio of 1.65, the round edge of the lands helps regulate the mixing between the coolant and mainstream flows, therefore the film cooling effectiveness in the slot region is also improved.

The effect of film cooling on a transonic squealer tip has been examined in a high speed linear cascade, which operates at engine-realistic Mach and Reynolds numbers. Tests have been performed on two uncooled tip geometries with differing pressure side rim edge radii, and a cooled tip matching one of the uncooled cases. The pressure sensitive paint technique has been used to measure adiabatic film cooling effectiveness on the blade tip at a range of tip gaps and coolant mass flow rates. Complementary tip heat transfer coefficients have been measured using transient infrared thermography, and the effects of the coolant film on the tip heat transfer and engine heat flux were examined. The uncooled data show that the tip heat transfer coefficient distribution is governed by the nature of flow reattachments and impingements. The squealer tip can be broken down into three regions, each exhibiting a distinct response to a change in the tip gap, depending on the local behavior of the overtip leakage flow. Complementary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) shows that the addition of casing motion causes no change in the flow over the pressure side rim. Injected coolant interacts with the overtip leakage flow, which can locally enhance the tip heat transfer coefficient. The film effectiveness is dependent on both the coolant mass flow rate and tip clearance. At increased coolant mass flow, areas of high film effectiveness on the pressure side rim coincide strongly with a net heat flux reduction and in the subsonic tip region with low heat transfer coefficient.

Recent advances in gas turbine film cooling technology such as round film cooling holes embedded in craters or trenches, and shaped film cooling holes are of interest due to a marked improvement in the effectiveness of film cooling jets. Typically, shaped film cooling holes have higher manufacturing cost, while film cooling holes embedded in craters/trenches etched in thermal barrier coatings (TBC) are seen as a cost-effective alternative. In a recent numerical study Kalghatgi and Acharya (2015, “Improved Film Cooling Effectiveness With a Round Film Cooling Hole Embedded in Contoured Crater,” ASME J. Turbomach., 137(10), p. 101006) reported a novel crater shape to generate anti-counter rotating vortex pair (CRVP) beneath the film cooling jet and showed a significant improvement in film cooling performance. In the present paper, a comprehensive study of flow dynamics is presented to gain insight into the unsteady flow physics of film cooling jet issued from a round hole embedded in the contoured crater. As a baseline case, a round film cooling hole with a 35 deg inclined short delivery tube (l/D = 1.75) is used as from a previous study with freestream Reynolds number based on jet diameter set to Re D = 16,000 and density ratio of coolant to freestream fluid of ρ j /ρ o = 2.0. These flow conditions are used for the cases of film cooling jet embedded in contoured crater. The results are presented for two crater depths: (i) shallow crater with 0.2D depth and (ii) deep crater with 0.75D depth. First- and second-order flow statistics are presented for all the cases, including the experimental data for baseline case from the literature. Time-averaged and instantaneous flow structures are visualized to reveal the mechanisms of anti-CRVP and attenuating CRVP. The dynamics of flow structures studied using single-point spectral analysis in the shear layer and modal analysis of three-dimensional flow field shows a loss of coherency and increased time scales of shear layer structures as the crater depth is increased, primarily due to attenuating of CRVP in the downstream vicinity of the crater. The modal analysis confirmed reduced magnitude of temperature fluctuations (hot spots) on the cooling wall compared with baseline round film cooling hole. Finally, a 2–5% additional pressure loss due to the crater is reported over the existing ≈7% loss in pressure for baseline case.

Leakage flow between the rotating turbine blade tip and the fixed casing causes high heat loads and thermal stress on the tip and near the tip region. For this study, new squealer tips called partial cavity tips, which combine the advantages of plane and squealer tips, were suggested, and the effects of the cavity shape on the tip heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness were investigated experimentally in a low-speed linear cascade. The suggested blade tips had a flat surface near the leading edge and a squealer cavity from the mid-chord to trailing edge region to achieve the advantages of both blade tip types. The heat transfer coefficient was measured via the 1-D transient heat transfer technique using an IR camera, and the film cooling effectiveness was obtained via the pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique. Results showed that the heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness on the partial cavity tips strongly depended on the cavity shape. Near the leading edge, the heat transfer coefficients for the partial cavity tip cases were lower than that for the squealer tip case. However, the heat transfer coefficient on the cavity surface was higher for the partial cavity tip cases. The D10 tip showed a similar distribution of film cooling effectiveness to that of the plane (PLN) tip near the leading edge and the double side squealer (DSS) tip near the mid-chord region. However, the overall average film cooling effectiveness of the DSS tip was higher than that of the D10 tip.

The film cooling effectiveness distribution and its uniformity downstream of a row of film cooling holes on a flat plate are investigated by pressure sensitive paint (PSP) under different density ratios. Several hole geometries are studied, including streamwise cylindrical holes, compound-angled cylindrical holes, streamwise fan-shape holes, compound-angled fan-shape holes, and double-jet film-cooling (DJFC) holes. All of them have an inclination angle ( θ ) of 35 deg. The compound angle ( β ) is 45 deg. The fan-shape holes have a 10 deg expansion in the spanwise direction. For a fair comparison, the pitch is kept as 4d for the cylindrical and the fan-shape holes, and 8d for the DJFC holes. The uniformity of effectiveness distribution is described by a new parameter (Lateral-Uniformity, LU) defined in this paper. The effects of density ratios (DR = 1.0, 1.5 and 2.5) on the film-cooling effectiveness and its uniformity are focused. Differences among geometries and effects of blowing ratios (M = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0) are also considered. The results show that at higher density ratios, the lateral spread of the discrete-hole geometries (i.e., the cylindrical and the fan-shape holes) is enhanced, while the DJFC holes is more advantageous in film-cooling effectiveness. Mostly, a higher lateral-uniformity is obtained at DR = 2.5 due to better coolant coverage and enhanced lateral spread, but the effects of the density ratio on the lateral-uniformity are not monotonic in some cases. Utilizing the compound angle configuration leads to an increased lateral-uniformity due to a stronger spanwise motion of the jet. Generally, with a higher blowing ratio, the lateral-uniformity of the discrete-hole geometries decreases due to narrower traces, while that of the DJFC holes increases due to a stronger spanwise movement.

Internal coolant passages of gas turbine vanes and blades have various orientations relative to the external hot gas flow. As a consequence, the inflow of film cooling holes varies as well. To further identify the influencing parameters of film cooling under varying inflow conditions, the present paper provides detailed experimental data. The generic study is performed in a novel test rig, which enables compliance with all relevant similarity parameters including density ratio. Film cooling effectiveness as well as heat transfer of a 10–10–10 deg laidback fan-shaped cooling hole is discussed. Data are processed and presented over 50 hole diameters downstream of the cooling hole exit. First, the parallel coolant flow setup is discussed. Subsequently, it is compared to a perpendicular coolant flow setup at a moderate coolant channel Reynolds number. For the perpendicular coolant flow, asymmetric flow separation in the diffuser occurs and leads to a reduction of film cooling effectiveness. For a higher coolant channel Reynolds number and perpendicular coolant flow, asymmetry increases and cooling effectiveness is further decreased. An increase in blowing ratio does not lead to a significant increase in cooling effectiveness. For all cases investigated, heat transfer augmentation due to film cooling is observed. Heat transfer is highest in the near-hole region and decreases further downstream. Results prove that coolant flow orientation has a severe impact on both parameters.

Discrete hole film cooling is widely employed to protect turbine blades and vanes from hot combustion gases entering the high-pressure turbine stage. Accurate prediction of the heat transfer near film cooling holes is critical, and high-fidelity experimental data sets are needed for validation of new computational models. Relatively few studies have examined the effects of periodic main flow unsteadiness resulting from the interaction of turbine blades and vanes, with a particular lack of data for shaped hole configurations. Periodic unsteadiness was generated in the main flow over a laidback, fan-shaped cooling hole at a Strouhal number (St = fD/U) of 0.014 by an airfoil oscillating in pitch. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with water as the working fluid was used to obtain full-field, phase-resolved velocity and scalar concentration data. Operating conditions consisted of a hole Reynolds number of 2900, channel Reynolds number of 25, 000, and blowing ratio of unity. Both mean and phase-resolved data are compared to the previous measurements for the same hole geometry with steady main flow. Under unsteady freestream conditions, the flow separation pattern inside the hole was observed to change from an asymmetric separation bubble to two symmetric bubbles. The periodic unsteadiness was characterized by alternating periods of slow main flow, which allowed the coolant to penetrate into the freestream along the centerplane, and fast, hole-impinging main flow, which deflected coolant toward the laidback wall and caused ejection of coolant from the hole away from the centerplane. Mean adiabatic surface effectiveness was reduced up to 23% inside the hole, while mean laterally averaged effectiveness outside the hole fell 28–36% over the entire measurement domain. A brief comparison to a round jet with and without unsteadiness is included; for the round jet, no disturbance was observed inside the hole, and some fluctuations directed coolant toward the wall, which increased mean film cooling effectiveness. The combined velocity and concentration data for both cases are suitable for quantitative validation of computational fluid dynamics predictions for film cooling flows with periodic freestream unsteadiness.

The present study provides new effusion cooling data for both the surfaces of the full-coverage effusion cooling plate. For the effusion-cooled surface, presented are spatially resolved distributions of surface adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and surface heat transfer coefficients (measured using transient techniques and infrared thermography). For the impingement-cooled surface, presented are spatially resolved distributions of surface Nusselt numbers (measured using steady-state liquid crystal thermography). To produce this cool-side augmentation, impingement jet arrays at different jet Reynolds numbers, from 2720 to 11,100, are employed. Experimental data are given for a sparse effusion hole array, with spanwise and streamwise impingement hole spacing such that coolant jet hole centerlines are located midway between individual effusion hole entrances. Considered are the initial effusion blowing ratios from 3.3 to 7.5, with subsonic, incompressible flow. The velocity of the freestream flow which is adjacent to the effusion-cooled boundary layer is increasing with streamwise distance, due to a favorable streamwise pressure gradient. Such variations are provided by a main flow passage contraction ratio CR of 4. Of particular interest are effects of impingement jet Reynolds number, effusion blowing ratio, and streamwise development. Also, included are comparisons of impingement jet array cooling results with: (i) results associated with crossflow supply cooling with CR = 1 and CR = 4 and (ii) results associated with impingement supply cooling with CR = 1, when the mainstream pressure gradient is near zero. Overall, the present results show that, for the same main flow Reynolds number, approximate initial blowing ratio, and streamwise location, significantly increased thermal protection is generally provided when the effusion coolant is provided by an array of impingement cooling jets, compared to a crossflow coolant supply.

The research presented in this paper strives to exploit the benefits of near-wall measurement capabilities using hotwire anemometry and flowfield measurement capabilities using particle image velocimetry (PIV) for analysis of the injection of a staggered array of film cooling jets into a turbulent cross-flow. It also serves to give insight into the turbulence generation, jet structure, and flow physics pertaining to film cooling for various flow conditions. Such information and analysis will be applied to both cylindrical and diffuser shaped holes, to further understand the impacts manifesting from hole geometry. Spatially resolved PIV measurements were taken at the array centerline of the holes and detailed temporally resolved hotwire velocity and turbulence measurements were taken at the trailing edge of each row of jets in the array centerline corresponding to the PIV measurement plane. Flowfields of jets emanating from eight staggered rows, of both cylindrical and diffuser shaped holes inclined at 20 deg to the main-flow, are studied over blowing ratios in the range of 0.3–1.5. To allow for deeper interpretation, companion local adiabatic film cooling effectiveness results will also be presented for the geometric test specimen from related in-house work. Results show “rising” shear layers for lower blowing ratios, inferring boundary layer growth for low blowing ratio cases. Detachment of film cooling jets is seen from a concavity shift in the u ′ rms line plots at the trailing edge of film cooling holes. Former rows of jets are observed to disrupt the approaching boundary layer and enhance the spreading and propagation of subsequent downstream jets. Behavior of the film boundary layer in the near-field region directly following the first row of injection, as compared to the near-field behavior after the final row of injection (recovery region), is also measured and discussed. The impact of the hole geometry on the resulting film boundary layer, as in this case of cylindrical verses diffuser shaped holes, is ascertained in the form of mean axial velocity, turbulence level ( u ′ rms ), and length scales profiles.

Shaped film cooling holes are a well-established cooling technique used in gas turbines to keep component metal temperatures in an acceptable range. One of the goals of film cooling is to reduce the driving temperature for convection at the wall, the success of which is generally represented by the film cooling adiabatic effectiveness. However, the introduction of a film cooling jet-in-crossflow, especially if it is oriented at a compound angle, can augment the convective heat transfer coefficient and dominate the flowfield. This work aims to understand the effect that a compound angle has on the flowfield and adiabatic effectiveness of a shaped film cooling hole. Five orientations of the public 7–7–7 shaped film cooling hole were tested, from a streamwise-oriented hole (0 deg compound angle) to a 60 deg compound angle hole, in increments of 15 deg. Additionally, two pitchwise spacings of P/D = 3 and 6 were tested to examine the effect of hole-to-hole interaction. All cases were tested at a density ratio of 1.2 and blowing ratios ranging from 1.0 to 4.0. The experimental results show that increasing compound angle leads to increased lateral spread of coolant and enables higher laterally averaged effectiveness at high-blowing ratios. A smaller pitchwise spacing leads to more complete coverage of the endwall and has higher laterally averaged effectiveness even when normalized by coverage ratio, suggesting that hole to hole interaction is important for compound angled holes. Steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was not able to capture the exact effectiveness levels, but did predict many of the observed trends. The lateral motion of the coolant jet was also quantified, both from the experimental data and the CFD prediction, and as expected, holes with a higher compound angle and higher blowing ratio have greater lateral motion, which generally also promotes hole-to-hole interaction.

Most studies of turbine airfoil film cooling in laboratory test facilities have used relatively large plenums to feed flow into the coolant holes. However, a more realistic inlet condition for the film cooling holes is a relatively small channel. Previous studies have shown that the film cooling performance is significantly degraded when fed by perpendicular internal crossflow in a smooth channel. In this study, angled rib turbulators were installed in two geometric configurations inside the internal crossflow channel, at 45 deg and 135 deg, to assess the impact on film cooling effectiveness. Film cooling hole inlets were positioned in both prerib and postrib locations to test the effect of hole inlet position on film cooling performance. A test was performed independently varying channel velocity ratio and jet to mainstream velocity ratio. These results were compared to the film cooling performance of previously measured shaped holes fed by a smooth internal channel. The film cooling hole discharge coefficients and channel friction factors were also measured for both rib configurations with varying channel and inlet velocity ratios. Spatially averaged film cooling effectiveness is largely similar to the holes fed by the smooth internal crossflow channel, but hole-to-hole variation due to inlet position was observed.

Gas turbine components are protected through a combination of internal cooling and external film cooling. Efforts aimed at improving cooling are often focused on either the internal cooling or the film cooling; however, the common coolant flow means the internal and external cooling schemes are linked and the coolant holes themselves provide another convective path for heat transfer to the coolant. Measurements of overall cooling effectiveness, ϕ , using matched Biot number models allow evaluation of fully cooled components; however, the relative contributions of internal cooling, external cooling, and convection within the film cooling holes are not well understood. Matched Biot number experiments, complemented by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, were performed on a fully film cooled cylindrical leading edge model to quantify the effects of alterations in the cooling design. The relative influence of film cooling and cooling within the holes was evaluated by selectively disabling individual holes and quantifying how ϕ changed. Testing of several impingement cooling schemes revealed that impingement has a negligible influence on ϕ in the showerhead region. This indicates that the pressure drop penalties with impingement may not always be compensated by an increase in ϕ . Instead, internal cooling from convection within the holes and film cooling were shown to be the dominant contributors to ϕ . Indeed, the numerous holes within the showerhead region impede the ability of internal surface cooling schemes to influence the outside surface temperature. These results may allow improved focus of efforts on the forms of cooling with the greatest potential to improve performance.

In the present paper, the influence of inlet flow incidence on the aerodynamic and thermal performance of a film cooled linear nozzle vane cascade is fully assessed. Tests have been carried out on a solid and a cooled cascade. In the cooled cascade, coolant is ejected at the end wall through a slot located upstream of the leading edge plane. Moreover, a vane showerhead cooling system is also realized through four rows of cylindrical holes. The cascade was tested at a high inlet turbulence intensity level (Tu 1 = 9%) and at a constant inlet Mach number of 0.12 and nominal cooling condition, varying the inlet flow angle in the range ±20 deg. The aero-thermal characterization of vane platform was obtained through five-hole probe and end wall adiabatic film cooling effectiveness measurements. Vane load distributions and surface flow visualizations supported the discussion of the results. A relevant negative impact of positive inlet flow incidence on the cooled cascade aerodynamic and thermal performance was detected. A negligible influence was instead observed at negative incidence, even at the lowest tested value of −20 deg.

The last 50 years has witnessed significant improvement in film cooling technologies while transpiration cooling is still not implemented in turbine airfoil cooling. Although transpiration cooling could provide higher cooling efficiency with less coolant consumption compared to film cooling, the fine pore structure and high porosity in transpiration cooling metal media always raised difficulties in conventional manufacturing. Recently, the rapid development of additive manufacturing (AM) has provided a new perspective to address such challenge. With the capability of the innovative powder bed selective laser metal sintering (SLMS) AM technology, the complex geometries of transpiration cooling part could be precisely fabricated and endued with improved mechanical strength. This study utilized the SLMS AM technology to fabricate the transpiration cooling and film cooling structures with Inconel 718 superalloy. Five different types of porous media including two perforated plates with different hole pitches, metal sphere packing, metal wire mesh, and blood vessel shaped passages for transpiration cooling were fabricated by EOS M290 system. One laidback fan-shaped film cooling coupon was also fabricated with the same printing process as the control group. Heat transfer tests under three different coolant mass flow rates and four different mainstream temperatures were conducted to evaluate the cooling performance of the printed coupons. The effects of geometry parameters including porosity, surface outlet area ratio, and internal solid–fluid interface area ratio were investigated as well. The results showed that the transpiration cooling structures generally had higher cooling effectiveness than film cooling structure. The overall average cooling effectiveness of blood vessel-shaped transpiration cooling reached 0.35, 0.5, and 0.57, respectively, with low (1.2%), medium (2.4%), and high (3.6%) coolant injection ratios. The morphological parameters analysis showed the major factor that affected the cooling effectiveness most was the internal solid–fluid interface area ratio for transpiration cooling. This study showed that additive manufactured transpiration cooling could be a promising alternative method for turbine blade cooling and worthwhile for further investigations.

Internal crossflow, or internal flow that is perpendicular to the overflowing mainstream, reduces film cooling effectiveness by disrupting the diffusion of coolant at the exit of axial shaped holes. Previous experimental investigations have shown that internal crossflow causes the coolant to bias toward one side of the diffuser and that the severity of the biasing scales with the inlet velocity ratio, VR i , or the ratio of crossflow velocity to the jet velocity in the metering section of the hole. It has been hypothesized and computationally predicted that internal crossflow produces an asymmetric swirling flow within the hole that causes the coolant to bias in the diffuser and that biasing contributes to ingestion of hot mainstream gas into the hole, which is undesirable. However, there are no experimental measurements as of yet to confirm these predictions. In the present study, in- and near-hole flow field and thermal field measurements were performed to investigate the flow structures and mainstream ingestion for a standard axial shaped hole fed by internal crossflow. Three different inlet velocity ratios of VR i = 0.24, 0.36, and 0.71 were tested at varying injection rates. Measurements were made in planes normal to the nominal direction of coolant flow at the outlet plane of the hole and at two downstream locations—x/d = 0 and 5. The predicted swirling structure was observed for the highest inlet velocity ratio and flow within the hole was shown to scale with VR i . Ingestion within the diffuser was significant and also scaled with VR i . Downstream flow and thermal fields showed that increased biasing contributed to more severe jet detachment and coolant dispersion away from the surface.

The cooling performance of sweeping jet film cooling was studied on a turbine vane suction surface in a low-speed linear cascade wind tunnel. The sweeping jet holes consist of fluidic oscillators with an aspect ratio (AR) of unity and a hole spacing of P d /D = 6. Infrared (IR) thermography was used to estimate the adiabatic film effectiveness at several blowing ratios and two different freestream turbulence levels (Tu = 0.3% and 6.1%). Convective heat transfer coefficient was measured by a transient IR technique, and the net heat flux benefit was calculated. The total pressure loss due to sweeping jet film cooling was characterized by traversing a total pressure probe at the exit plane of the cascade. Tests were performed with a baseline shaped hole (SH) (777-shaped hole) for comparison. The sweeping jet hole showed higher adiabatic film effectiveness than the 777-shaped hole in the near hole region. Although the unsteady sweeping action of the jet augments heat transfer, the net positive cooling benefit is higher for sweeping jet holes compared to 777 hole at particular flow conditions. The total pressure loss measurement showed a 12% increase in total pressure loss at a blowing ratio of M = 1.5 for sweeping jet hole, while 777-shaped hole showed a 8% total pressure loss increase at the corresponding blowing ratio.

Film cooling can have a significant effect on the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) between the overflowing freestream gas and the underlying surface. This study investigated the influence of approach flow characteristics, including the boundary layer thickness and character (laminar and turbulent), as well as the approach flow Reynolds number, on the HTC. The figure of merit for this study was the HTC augmentation, that is, the ratio of HTCs for a cooled versus uncooled surface. A heated foil surface provided a known heat flux, allowing direct measurement of HTC and augmentation. The foil was placed both upstream and downstream of the film cooling holes, in order to generate an approaching thermal boundary layer, as representative of actual engine conditions. High-resolution IR thermography provided spatially resolved HTC augmentation data. An open-literature shaped-hole design was used, known as the 7-7-7 hole, in order to compare with existing results in the literature. A variety of blowing conditions were tested from M = 0.5 to 3.0. Two elevated density ratios of DR = 1.20 and DR = 1.80 were used. The results indicated that turbulent boundary layer thickness had a modest effect on HTC augmentation, whereas a very high level of augmentation was observed for a laminar approach boundary layer. The presence of upstream heating greatly increased the HTC augmentation in the near-hole region, although these effects died out by 10–15 diameters from the holes.

The interaction of flow and film-cooling effectiveness between jets of double-jet film-cooling (DJFC) holes on a flat plate is studied experimentally. The time-averaged flow field in several axial positions (X/d = −2.0, 1.0, and 5.0) is obtained through a seven-hole probe. The downstream film-cooling effectiveness on the flat plate is measured by pressure sensitive paint (PSP). The inclination angle ( θ ) of all the holes is 35 deg, and the compound angle ( β ) is ±45 deg. Effects of the spanwise distance (p = 0, 0.5d, 1.0d, 1.5d, and 2.0d) between the two interacting jets of DJFC holes are studied, while the streamwise distance (s) is kept as 3d. The blowing ratio (M) varies as 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. The density ratio (DR) is maintained at 1.0. Results show that the interaction between the two jets of DJFC holes has different effects at different spanwise distances. For a small spanwise distance (p/d = 0), the interaction between the jets presents a pressing effect. The downstream jet is pressed down and kept attached to the surface by the upstream one. The effectiveness is not sensitive to blowing ratios. For mid-spanwise distances (p/d = 0.5 and 1.0), the antikidney vortex pair dominates the interaction and pushes both of the jets down, thus leading to better coolant coverage and higher effectiveness. As the spanwise distance becomes larger (p/d ≥ 1.5), the pressing effect almost disappears, and the antikidney vortex pair effect is weaker. The jets separate from each other and the coolant coverage decreases. At a higher blowing ratio, the interaction between the jets of DJFC holes happens later.

In modern lean-burn aero-engine combustors, highly swirling flow structures are adopted to control the fuel-air mixing and to provide the correct flame stabilization mechanisms. Aggressive swirl fields and high turbulence intensities are hence expected in the combustor-turbine interface. Moreover, to maximize the engine cycle efficiency, an accurate design of the high-pressure nozzle cooling system must be pursued: in a film-cooled nozzle, the air taken from last compressor stages is ejected through discrete holes drilled on vane surfaces to provide a cold layer between hot gases and turbine components. In this context, the interactions between the swirling combustor outflow and the vane film cooling flows play a major role in the definition of a well-performing cooling scheme, demanding for experimental campaigns at representative flow conditions. An annular three-sector combustor simulator with fully cooled high-pressure vanes has been designed and installed at THT Lab of University of Florence. The test rig is equipped with three axial swirlers, effusion-cooled liners, and six film-cooled high-pressure vanes passages, for a vortex-to-vane count ratio of 1:2. The relative clocking position between swirlers and vanes has been chosen in order to have the leading edge of the central airfoil aligned with the central swirler. In this experimental work, adiabatic film effectiveness measurements have been carried out in the central sector vanes, in order to characterize the film-cooling performance under swirling inflow conditions. The pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique, based on heat and mass transfer analogy, has been exploited to catch highly detailed 2D distributions. Carbon dioxide has been used as coolant in order to reach a coolant-to-mainstream density ratio of 1.5. Turbulence and five-hole probe measurements at inlet/outlet of the cascade have been carried out as well, in order to highlight the characteristics of the flow field passing through the cascade and to provide precise boundary conditions. Results have shown a relevant effect of the swirling mainflow on the film cooling behavior. Differences have been found between the central airfoil and the adjacent ones, both in terms of leading edge stagnation point position and of pressure and suction side film coverage characteristics.

Recent advances in experimental methods have allowed researchers to study nozzle guide vane (NGV) film cooling in the presence of combustor dilution ports and endwall films. The dilution injection creates nonuniformities in temperature, velocity, and turbulence, and an understanding of the vane film cooling performance is complicated by competing influences. In this study, dilution port temperature profiles have been measured in the absence of vane film cooling and compared to film effectiveness measurements in the presence of both films and dilution, illustrating the effects of the dilution port turbulence on film cooling performance. It is found that dilution port injection can create significant effectiveness benefits at the difficult-to-cool vane stagnation region due to the more turbulent hot mainstream enhancing the mixing of film coolant jets that have left the airfoil surface. Also explored are the implications of endwall film cooling for infrared (IR) vane surface temperature measurements. The reduced endwall temperatures reduce the thermal emissions from this surface, so reducing the amount of extraneous radiation reflected from the vane surface where measurements are being made. The results of a detailed calibration show that the maximum local film effectiveness measurement error could be up to 0.05 if this effect were to go unaccounted for.