Film cooling is widely used to protect modern gas turbine blades and vanes from the ever increasing inlet temperatures. Film cooling involves a very complex turbulent flow-field, the characterization of which is necessary for reliable and economical design. Several experimental studies have focused on gas turbine blade, vane and end-wall film cooling over the past few decades. Measurements of heat transfer coefficients, film cooling effectiveness values and heat flux ratios using several different experimental methods have been reported. The emphasis of this current review is on the Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) mass transfer analogy to determine the film cooling effectiveness. The theoretical basis of the method is presented in detail. Important results in the open literature obtained using the PSP method are presented, discussing parametric effects of blowing ratio, momentum ratio, density ratio, hole shape, surface geometry, free-stream turbulence on flat plates, turbine blades, vanes and end-walls. The PSP method provides very high resolution contours of film cooling effectiveness, without being subject to the conduction error in high thermal gradient regions near the hole.

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Turbine blade film cooling using psp technique

Fundamental Gas Turbine Heat Transfer

Local and spatially averaged magnitudes of the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness, the iso-energetic Stanton number ratio, and film cooling performance parameter are measured downstream of (i) cylindrical round, simple angle (CYSA) holes, (ii) laterally diffused, simple angle (LDSA) holes, (iii) laterally diffused, compound angle (LDCA) holes, (iv) forward diffused, simple angle (FDSA) holes, and (v) forward diffused, compound angle (FDCA) holes. Data are presented for length-to-inlet metering diameter ratio of 3, blowing ratios from 0.4 to 1.8, momentum flux ratios from 0.17 to 3.5, and density ratios from 0.9 to 1.4. The LDCA and FDCA arrangements produce higher effectiveness magnitudes over much wider ranges of blowing ratio and momentum flux ratio compared to the three simple angle configurations tested

Film Cooling From Shaped Holes

We present an experimental study focusing on the effects of diffusion hole-geometry on overall film cooling performance. The study consists of three different but closely related hole shapes: (1) Shape A: straight circular hole with a 30 deg inclined injection, (2) Shape B: same as Shape A but with a 10 deg forward diffusion, and (3) Shape C: same as Shape B with an additional 10 deg lateral diffusion. The blowing ratios tested are 0.5 and 1.0. The density ratio is nominally equal to one. Measurements of the experiment use a transient liquid crystal technique that reveals local distributions of both film effectiveness (η) and heat transfer coefficient (h). The data obtained indicate that Shape C with a combined forward and lateral diffusion produces a significant increase in η and decrease in h as compared to Shape A, the baseline case. These improvements combined yield an about 20 percent to 30 percent reduction in heat transfer or thermal load on the film protected surface. Shape B, with forward diffusion only, shows a much less significant change in both film effectiveness and overall heat transfer reduction than Shape C

Film Cooling Effectiveness and Heat Transfer Coefficient Distributions Around Diffusion Shaped Holes

Detailed analyses of computational simulations with comparisons to experimental data were performed to identify and explain the dominant flow mechanisms responsible for film cooling performance with compound angle injection, {Phi}, of 45, 60, and 90 deg. A novel vorticity and momentum based approach was implemented to document how the symmetric, counterrotating vortex structure typically found in the crossflow region in streamwise injection cases, becomes asymmetric with increasing {Phi}. This asymmetry eventually leads to a large, single vortex system at {Phi} = 90 deg and fundamentally alters the interaction of the coolant jet and hot crossflow. The vortex structure dominates the film cooling performance in compound angle injection cases by enhancing the mixing of the coolant and crossflow in the near wall region, and also by enhancing the lateral spreading of the coolant. The simulations consist of fully elliptic and fully coupled solutions for field results in the supply plenum, film hole, and crossflow regions and includes surface results for adiabatic effectiveness {eta} and heat transfer coefficient h. Realistic geometries with length-to-diameter ratio of 4.0 and pitch-to-diameter ratio of 3.0 allowed for accurate capturing of the strong three-way coupling of flow in this multiregion flowfield. The cooling configurations implemented in thismore » study exactly matched experimental work used for validation purposes and were represented by high-quality computational grid meshes using a multiblock, unstructured grid topology. Blowing ratios of 1.25 and 1.88, and density ratio of 1.6 were used to simulate realistic operating conditions and to match the experiments used for validation. Predicted results for {eta} and h show good agreement with experimental data.« less

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A Detailed Analysis of Film Cooling Physics: Part II — Compound–Angle Injection With Cylindrical Holes

Experimental results are presented that describe the development and structure of flow downstream of two staggered rows of film-cooling holes with compound angle orientations. With this configuration, holes are spaced 3d apart in the spanwise direction, inclined at 35 deg with respect to the test surface when projected into the streamwise/normal plane, and inclined at 30 deg with respect to the test surface when projected into the spanwise/normal plane. Results are presented for an injectant to free-stream density ratio near 1.0, and injection blowing ratios from 0.5 to 1.50

J. M. Wigle

Papers

Film-Cooling From Holes With Compound Angle Orientations: Part 1—Results Downstream of Two Staggered Rows of Holes With 3d Spanwise Spacing