Full-coverage or effusion cooling is commonly used in the thermal management of gas turbine combustion systems. The combustor environment is characterised by highly turbulent free-stream conditions and relatively large turbulent length scales. This turbulent flow field is predominantly created by the upstream fuel injector for lean burn systems. In rich burn systems the turbulent flow field is augmented further by the addition of dilution ports. The available evidence suggests that large energetic eddies interact strongly with the injected coolant fluid and may have a significant impact on the film-cooling performance. The desire to create compact low-emission combustion systems with improved specific fuel consumption, has given rise to a desire to reduce the quantity of air used in wall cooling, and has led to the need for improved cooling correlations and validated computational methods. In order to establish a greater understanding of effusion cooling under conditions of very high free-stream turbulence, a new laboratory test facility has been created that is capable of simulating representative combustor flow conditions, and that allows for a systematic investigation of cooling performance over a range of free-stream turbulence conditions (up to 25% intensity, integral length scale-to-coolant hole diameter ratios of 26) and coolant to mainstream density ratios (??_c/??_??? ???2). This thesis describes this new test facility, including the method for generating combustor relevant flow conditions. The hot side film cooling performance of cylindrical and fanned hole effusion has been evaluated in terms of adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness and normalised heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and heat flux reduction (HFR). Infrared thermography was employed to produce spatial resolved surface temperature distributions of the effusion surface. The analysis of this data is supported by fluid temperature field measurements. The interpretation of the data has established the impact of turbulence intensity, integral length scale and density ratio on the mixing processes between free-stream and coolant flows. Elevated levels of free-stream turbulence increase the rate of mixing and degrade the cooling effectiveness at low blowing ratios whereas at high blowing ratios, where the coolant detaches from the surface, a modest increase has been observed under certain conditions; this is due to the turbulent transport of the detached coolant fluid back towards the wall. For angled cylindrical hole injection the impact of density ratio as an independent parameter was found to be relatively weak. Adiabatic effectiveness data gathered at DR's of 1 - 1.4 scaled reasonable well when plotted against momentum flux ratio. This suggests data collected at low DR's can be scaled to engine representative DR's. The investigation of shaped cooling holes found fanned effusion has the potential to dramatically improve film effectiveness. The diffusion of the flow through a fanned exit prevented jet detachment at blowing ratios up to 5, increasing spatially averaged effectiveness by 89%.

Internal crossflow is an important element to actual gas turbine blade cooling; however, there are very few studies in open literature that have documented its effects on turbine blade film cooling. Experiments measuring adiabatic effectiveness were conducted to investigate the effects of perpendicular crossflow on a row of 45 degree compound angle, cylindrical film cooling holes. Tests included a standard plenum condition, a baseline crossflow case consisting of a smooth-walled channel, and various crossflow configurations with ribs. The ribs were angled to the direction of prevailing internal crossflow at 45 and 135 degrees and were positioned at different locations. Experiments were conducted at a density ratio of DR=1.5 for a range of blowing ratios including M=0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. Results showed that internal crossflow can significantly influence adiabatic effectiveness when compared to the standard plenum condition. The implementation of ribs generally decreased the adiabatic effectiveness when compared to the smooth-walled crossflow case. The highest adiabatic effectiveness measurements were recorded for the smooth-walled case in which crossflow was directed against the spanwise hole orientation angle. Tests indicated that the direction of perpendicular crossflow in relation to the hole orientation can significantly influence the adiabatic effectiveness. Among the rib crossflow tests, rib configurations that directed the coolant forward in the direction of the mainstream resulted in higher adiabatic effectiveness measurements. However, no other parameters could consistently be identified correlating to increased film cooling performance. It is likely that a combination of factors are responsible for influencing performance, including internal local pressure caused by the ribs, the internal channel flow field, jet exit velocity profiles, and in-hole vortices. / text

<div>Gas-turbine engines use film cooling to actively cool turbine components and keep thermal loads on the materials at acceptable levels for structural integrity and service life. The turbulent mixing between the film-cooling jet and the crossflow decreases the coolant temperature, which reduces the cooling performance. This turbulent mixing is sensitive to parameters such as density ratio (DR), blowing ratio (BR), velocity ratio (VR), and momentum-flux ratio (MR) and understanding the effects of these parameters on the turbulent mixing is critical for improving film cooling. </div><div><br></div><div>This research seeks to improve understanding by using large-eddy simulation (LES) as a tool to analyze the turbulence of film cooling. With this knowledge it is possible evaluate more fundamental turbulence modeling assumptions utilized by Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approaches as they apply to film cooling. This analysis can provide insight regarding how to improve turbulence models.</div><div><br></div><div>The film-cooling problem studied involves the cooling of a flat plate, where the cooling jets issued from a plenum through one row of circular holes of diameter $D$ and length 4.7$D$ that are inclined at 35$^\circ$ relative to the plate. Parameters studied include BR = 0.5 - 1.3, DR = 1.1 - 2.1, VR = 0.3 - 0.9, and MR = 0.16 - 0.9. For LES, two different boundary layers upstream of the film-cooling hole were investigated - one in which a laminar boundary layer was tripped to become turbulent from near the leading edge of the flat plate, and another in which a mean turbulent BL is prescribed directly without any superimposed turbulent fluctuations. For RANS, two different turbulence models were investigated - realizable $k$-$\epsilon$ and $k$-$\omega$ shear-stress-transport (SST). The wall-resolved LES solutions generated are extensively verified and validated using analytical, DNS, and experimental measurements to ensure high quality. </div><div><br></div><div>LES results obtained show that having an upstream boundary layer that does not have turbulent fluctuations enhances the cooling effectiveness significantly at low VRs when compared to an upstream boundary layer that resolved the turbulent fluctuations. However, these differences diminish at higher VRs. Instantaneous flow reveals a bifurcation in the jet vorticity as it exits the hole at low VRs, one branch forming the shear-layer vortex, while the other forms the counter-rotating vortex pair. At higher VRs, the shear layer vorticity is found to reverse direction, changing the nature of the turbulence and the heat transfer. Results obtained also show the strength and structure of the turbulence in the film-cooling jet to be strongly correlated to VR. </div><div><br></div><div>RANS results obtained show the turbulent and thermal structure of the jets predicted by the two RANS models to differ considerably. However, both models are consistent in underpredicting the spread of the film-cooling jet. The counter-rotating vortex pair dominates the interaction of the jet and crossflow in the near-wall region, and neither RANS model could predict the strength and structure of this interaction. The gradient-diffusion and Boussinesq hypotheses were evaluated by using the LES data. Comparing LES and RANS results shows that $k$-$\epsilon$ tends to overpredict eddy viscosity, while SST tends to underpredict the eddy viscosity. Additionally, both models predict very low values of eddy viscosity near the wall which leads to incorrect Reynolds stresses. While regions of counter-gradient diffusion and stress-strain misalignment were identified in the near-wall region, further above the wall, the jet behaved according to the hypotheses.</div><div><br></div><div>The turbulence scaling when VR is fixed at 0.46 and 0.63 was investigated. The LES results show that separation and spreading of the film-cooling jet increase as BR, DR, and MR increase while VR remains constant. For a given VR, the LES predicts an absolute difference between the minimum adiabatic effectiveness of the lowest and highest MRs to be 2 to 5 times greater than those predicted by RANS. This is because RANS with either model cannot respond appropriately to changes in MR. However, RANS can correctly predict that adiabatic effectiveness decreases as VR increases. The LES results show the turbulent kinetic energy and Reynolds stresses near the film-cooling hole to change considerably with MRs at a constant VR, while turbulent heat flux changes negligibly. This suggests that while improved turbulence models for heat flux can improve RANS’ prediction of spreading, capturing trends, however, requires improved modeling of the Reynolds stresses.</div>

The hot gas temperature in gas turbine engines is far above the permissible metal temperatures. Advanced cooling technologies must be applied to cool the blades, so they can withstand the extreme conditions. Film cooling is widely used in modern high temperature and high pressure blades as an active cooling scheme. In this study, the film cooling effectiveness in different regions of gas turbine blades was investigated with various film hole/slot configurations and mainstream flow conditions. The study consisted of four parts: 1) effect of upstream wake on blade surface film cooling, 2) effect of upstream vortex on platform purge flow cooling, 3) influence of hole shape and angle on leading edge film cooling and 4) slot film cooling on trailing edge. Pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique was used to get the conduction-free film cooling effectiveness distribution. For the blade surface film cooling, the effectiveness from axial shaped holes and compound angle shaped holes were examined. Results showed that the compound angle shaped holes offer better film effectiveness than the axial shaped holes. The upstream stationary wakes have detrimental effect on film effectiveness in certain wake rod phase positions. For platform purge flow cooling, the stator-rotor gap was simulated by a typical labyrinth-like seal. Delta wings were used to generate vortex and modeled the passage vortex generated by the upstream vanes. Results showed that the upstream vortex reduces the film cooling effectiveness on the platform. For the leading edge film cooling, two film cooling designs, each with four film cooling hole configurations, were investigated. Results showed that the shaped holes provide higher film cooling effectiveness than the cylindrical holes at higher average blowing ratios. In the same range of average blowing ratio, the radial angle holes produce better effectiveness than the compound angle holes. The seven-row design results in much higher effectiveness than the three-row design. For the trailing edge slot cooling, the effect of slot lip thickness on film effectiveness under the two mainstream conditions was investigated. Results showed thinner lips offer higher effectiveness. The film effectiveness on the slots reduces when the incoming mainstream boundary layer thickness decreases.

The hot gas temperature in gas turbine engines is far above the permissible metal temperatures. Advanced cooling technologies must be applied to cool the blades, so they can withstand the extreme conditions. Film cooling is widely used in modern high temperature and high pressure blades as an active cooling scheme. In this study, the film cooling effectiveness in different regions of gas turbine blades was investigated with various film hole/slot configurations and mainstream flow conditions. The study consisted of four parts: 1) effect of upstream wake on blade surface film cooling, 2) effect of upstream vortex on platform purge flow cooling, 3) influence of hole shape and angle on leading edge film cooling and 4) slot film cooling on trailing edge. Pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique was used to get the conduction-free film cooling effectiveness distribution. For the blade surface film cooling, the effectiveness from axial shaped holes and compound angle shaped holes were examined. Results showed that the compound angle shaped holes offer better film effectiveness than the axial shaped holes. The upstream stationary wakes have detrimental effect on film effectiveness in certain wake rod phase positions. For platform purge flow cooling, the stator-rotor gap was simulated by a typical labyrinth-like seal. Delta wings were used to generate vortex and modeled the passage vortex generated by the upstream vanes. Results showed that the upstream vortex reduces the film cooling effectiveness on the platform. For the leading edge film cooling, two film cooling designs, each with four film cooling hole configurations, were investigated. Results showed that the shaped holes provide higher film cooling effectiveness than the cylindrical holes at higher average blowing ratios. In the same range of average blowing ratio, the radial angle holes produce better effectiveness than the compound angle holes. The seven-row design results in much higher effectiveness than the three-row design. For the trailing edge slot cooling, the effect of slot lip thickness on film effectiveness under the two mainstream conditions was investigated. Results showed thinner lips offer higher effectiveness. The film effectiveness on the slots reduces when the incoming mainstream boundary layer thickness decreases.

The existing 3-stage turbine research facility at the Turbomachinery Performance and Flow Research Laboratory (TPFL), Texas A and M University, is re-designed and newly installed to enable coolant gas injection on the first stage rotor platform to study the effects of rotation on film cooling and heat transfer. Pressure and temperature sensitive paint techniques are used to measure film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer on the rotor platform respectively. Experiments are conducted at three turbine rotational speeds namely, 2400rpm, 2550rpm and 3000rpm. Interstage aerodynamic measurements with miniature five hole probes are also acquired at these speeds. The aerodynamic data characterizes the flow along the first stage rotor exit, second stage stator exit and second stage rotor exit. For each rotor speed, film cooling effectiveness is determined on the first stage rotor platform for upstream stator-rotor gap ejection, downstream discrete hole ejection and a combination of upstream gap and downstream hole ejection. Upstream coolant ejection experiments are conducted for coolant to mainstream mass flow ratios of MFR=0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% and downstream discrete hole injection tests corresponding to average hole blowing ratios of M = 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0 for each turbine speed. To provide a complete picture of hub cooling under rotating conditions, experiments with simultaneous injection of coolant gas through upstream and downstream injection are conducted for an of MFR=1% and Mholes=0.75, 1.0 and 1.25 for the three turbine speeds. Heat transfer coefficients are determined on the rotor platform for similar upstream and downstream coolant injection. Rotation is found to significantly affect the distribution of coolant on the platform. The measured effectiveness magnitudes are lower than that obtained with numerical simulations. Coolant streams from both upstream and downstream injection orient themselves towards the blade suction side. Passage vortex cuts-off the coolant film for the lower MFR for upstream injection. As the MFR increases, the passage vortex effects are diminished. Effectiveness was maximum when Mholes was closer to one as the coolant ejection velocity is approximately equal to the mainstream relative velocity for this blowing ratio. Heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness increase with increasing rotational speed for upstream rotor stator gap injection while for downstream hole injection the maximum effectiveness and heat transfer coefficients occur at the reference speed of 2550rpm.

Modern gas turbine engines require higher turbine-entry gas temperature to improve their thermal efficiency and thereby their performance. A major accompanying concern is the heat-up of the turbine components which are already subject to high thermal and mechanical stresses. This heat-up can be reduced by: (i) applying thermal barrier coating (TBC) on the surface, and (ii) providing coolant to the surface by injecting secondary air discharged from the compressor. However, as the bleeding off of compressor discharge air exacts a penalty on engine performance, the cooling functions must be accomplished with the smallest possible secondary air injection. This necessitates a detailed and systematic study of the various flow and geometrical parameters that may have a bearing on the cooling pattern. In the present study, experiments were performed in three regions of a non-rotating gas turbine blade cascade: blade platform, blade span, and blade tip. The blade platform and blade span studies were carried out on a high pressure turbine rotor blade cascade in medium flow conditions. Film-cooling effectiveness or degree of cooling was assessed in terms of cooling hole geometry, blowing ratio, freestream turbulence, coolant-to-mainstream density ratio, purge flow rate, upstream vortex for blade platform cooling and blowing ratio, and upstream vortex for blade span cooling. The blade tip study was performed in a blow-down flow loop in a transonic flow environment. The degree of cooling was assessed in terms of blowing ratio and tip clearance. Limited heat transfer coefficient measurements were also carried out. Mainstream pressure loss was also measured for blade platform and blade tip film-cooling with the help of pitot-static probes. The pressure sensitive paint (PSP) and temperature sensitive paint (TSP) techniques were used for measuring film-cooling effectiveness whereas for heat transfer coefficient measurement, temperature sensitive paint (TSP) technique was employed. Results indicated that the blade platform cooling requires a combination of upstream purge flow and downstream discrete film-cooling holes to cool the entire platform. The shaped cooling holes provided wider film coverage and higher film-cooling effectiveness than the cylindrical holes while also creating lesser mainstream pressure losses. Higher coolant-to-mainstream density ratio resulted in higher effectiveness levels from the cooling holes. On the blade span, at any given blowing ratio, the suction side showed better coolant coverage than the pressure side even though the former had two fewer rows of holes. Film-cooling effectiveness increased with blowing ratio on both sides of the blade. Whereas the pressure side effectiveness continued to increase with blowing ratio, the increase in suction side effectiveness slowed down at higher blowing ratios (M=0.9 and 1.2). Upstream wake had a detrimental effect on film coverage. 0% and 25% wake phase positions significantly decreased film-cooling effectiveness magnitude. Comparison between the compound shaped hole and the compound cylindrical hole design showed higher effectiveness values for shaped holes on the suction side. The cylindrical holes performed marginally better in the curved portion of the pressure side. Finally, the concept tip proved to be better than the baseline tip in terms of reducing mainstream flow leakage and mainstream pressure loss. The film-cooling effectiveness on the concept blade increased with increasing blowing ratio and tip gap. However, the film-coverage on the leading tip portion was almost negligible.

This experimental study contains two points; part1 – turbine blade heat transfer under low Reynolds number flow conditions, and part 2 – trailing edge cooling and heat transfer. The effect of unsteady wake and free stream turbulence on heat transfer and pressure coefficients of a turbine blade was investigated in low Reynolds number flows. The experiments were performed on a five blade linear cascade in a low speed wind tunnel. A spoked wheel type wake generator and two different turbulence grids were employed to generate different levels of the Strouhal number and turbulence intensity, respectively. The cascade inlet Reynolds number based on blade chord length was varied from 15,700 to 105,000, and the Strouhal number was varied from 0 to 2.96 by changing the rotating wake passing frequency (rod speed) and cascade inlet velocity. A thin foil thermocouple instrumented blade was used to determine the surface heat transfer coefficient. A liquid crystal technique based on hue value detection was used to measure the heat transfer coefficient on a trailing edge film cooling model and internal model of a gas turbine blade. It was also used to determine the film effectiveness on the trailing edge. For the internal model, Reynolds numbers based on the hydraulic diameter of the exit slot and exit velocity were 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 30,000 and corresponding coolant – to – mainstream velocity ratios were 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, and 1.8 for the external models, respectively. The experiments were performed at two different designs and each design has several different models such as staggered / inline exit, straight / tapered entrance, and smooth / rib entrance. The compressed air was used in coolant air. A circular turbulence grid was employed to upstream in the wind tunnel and square ribs were employed in the inlet chamber to generate turbulence intensity externally and internally, respectively.

A scaled-up gas turbine vane model was constructed in such a way to achieve a Biot number (Bi) representative of an actual engine component, and experiments were performed to collect temperature data which may be used to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes used in the design of gas turbine cooling schemes. The physical model incorporated an internal impingement plate to provide cooling on the inner wall surface, and film cooling over the external surface was provided by a single row of holes located on the suction side of the vane. A single row of holes was chosen to simplify the operating condition and test geometry for the purpose of evaluating CFD predictions. Thermocouples were used to measure internal gas temperatures and internal surface temperatures over a range of coolant flow rates, while infra-red thermography was used to measure external surface temperatures. When Bi is matched to an actual engine component, these measured temperatures may be normalized relative to the coolant temperature and mainstream gas temperature to determine the overall cooling effectiveness, which will be representative of the real engine component. Measurements were made to evaluate the overall effectiveness resulting from internal impingement cooling alone, and then with both internal impingement cooling and external film cooling as the coolant flow rate was increased. As expected, with internal impingement cooling alone, both internal and external wall surfaces became colder as the coolant flow rate was increased. The addition of film cooling further increased the overall effectiveness, particularly at the lower and intermediate flow rates tested, but provided little benefit at the highest flow rates. An optimal jet momentum flux ratio of I=1.69 resulted in a peak overall effectiveness, although the film effectiveness was shown to be low under these conditions. The effect of increasing the coolant-to-mainstream density ratio was evaluated at one coolant flow rate and resulted in higher values of overall cooling effectiveness and normalized internal temperatures, throughout the model. Finally, a 1-dimensional heat transfer analysis was performed (using a resistance analogy) in which overall effectiveness with film cooling was predicted from measurements of film effectiveness and overall effectiveness without film cooling. This analysis tended to over-predict overall effectiveness, at the lowest values of the jet momentum flux ratio, while under-predicting it at the highest values. / text

A series of experiments were carried out to measure the effects of convex surface curvature on film cooling. In the first series of experiments cooling holes were positioned along the vane such that their non-dimensional curvature parameter, 2r/d, was matched. Single row of holes with the same diameter were placed at high and moderate curvature position along a turbine vane resulting in 2r/d = 28 and 40, accordingly. A third row of holes was installed on the vane at the same location as the moderate curvature row with a larger hole diameter, resulting in 2r/d = 28, matching the high curvature row. Adiabatic temperature measurements were then carried out for blowing ratios of M = 0.30 to 1.60 tested at a density ratio of DR = 1.20. The results indicated that there was some scaling of performance present with matching 2r/d, but there was not an exact matching of performance. The second series of experiments focused on the effects of a changing surface curvature downstream of injection. Two row of holes were positioned along the vane surface such that the local radius of curvature and hole diameters were equivalent, with one row positioned upstream of the maximum curvature point and the other downstream of the maximum curvature point. Adiabatic temperature measurements were carried out for blowing ratios of M = 0.30 to 1.60 and tested at a density ratio of DR = 1.20. The results show that the change in curvature downstream plays a significant role in the performance of film cooling and that the local surface curvature is insufficient in capturing its effects. Additional experiments were carried out to measure the effects of the approaching boundary layer influence on film cooling as well as the effect of injection angle at a weakly convex surface. / text