Gas turbine engines are extensively used in the aviation and power generation industries. They are used as topping cycles in combined cycle power plants, or as stand alone power generation units. Gains in thermodynamic efficiency can be realized by increasing the turbine inlet temperatures. Since modern turbine inlet temperatures exceed the melting point of the constituent superalloys, it is necessary to provide an aggressive cooling system. Relatively cool air, ducted from the compressor of the engine is used to remove heat from the hot turbine blade. This air flows through passages in the hollow blade (internal cooling), and is also ejected onto the surface of the blade to form an insulating film (film cooling). Modern land-based gas turbine engines use high Reynolds number internal flow to cool their internal passages. The first part of this study focuses on experiments pertaining to passages with Reynolds numbers of up to 400,000. Common turbulator designs (45degree parallel sharp-edged and round-edged) ribs are studied. Older correlations are found to require corrections in order to be valid in the high Reynolds number parameter space. The effect of rotation on heat transfer in a typical three-pass serpentine channel is studied using a computational model with near-wall refinement. Results from this computational study indicate that the hub experiences abnormally high heat transfer under rotation. An experimental study is conducted at Buoyancy numbers similar to an actual engine on a wedge shaped model trailing edge, roughened with pin-fins and equipped with slot ejection. Results show an asymmetery between the leading and trailing surfaces due to rotation - a difference which is subdued due to the provision of pin-fins. Film cooling effectiveness is measured by the PSP mass transfer analogy technique in two different configurations: a flat plate and a typical high pressure turbine blade. Parameters studied include a step immediately upstream of a row of holes; the Strouhal number (quantifying rotor-stator interaction) and coolant to mainstream density ratio. Results show a deterioration in film cooling effectiveness with on increasing the Strouhal number. Using a coolant with a higher density results in higher film cooling effectiveness.

Improvements to gas turbine efficiency depend closely on cooling technologies, as efficiency increases with turbine inlet temperature. To aid in this process, simulations that consider real engine conditions need to be considered. The first step towards this goal is a benchmark study using direct numerical simulations to consider a single periodic film cooling hole that characterizes the error in adiabatic boundary conditions, a common numerical simpliflication. Two cases are considered: an adiabatic case and a conjugate case. The adiabatic case is for validation to previous work conducted by Pietrzyk and Peet. The conjugate case considers heat transfer in the solid endwall in addition to the fluid, eliminating any simplified boundary conditions. It also includes an impinging jet and plenum, typical of actual endwall configurations. The numerical solver is NEK5000 and the two cases were run at 504 and 128 processors for the adiabatic and conjugate cases respectively. The approximate combined time is 100,000 CPU hours. In the adiabatic case, the results show good agreement for average velocity profiles but over prediction of the film cooling effectiveness. A convergence study suggests that there may be an area of unresolved flow, and the film cooling momentum flux may be too high. Preliminary conjugate results show agreement with velocity profiles, and significant differences in cooling effectiveness. Both cases will need to be refined near the cooling hole exit, and another convergence study done. The results from this study will be used in a larger case that considers an actual turbine vane and film cooling hole arrangement with real engine conditions.

This experimental study consists of two parts. For the first part, the film cooling effectiveness for a single row of seven cylindrical holes with a compound angle is measured on a flat surface using five different measurement techniques: steady-state liquid crystal thermography, transient liquid crystal thermography, pressure sensitive paint (PSP), thermocouples, and infrared thermography. A comparison of the film cooling effectiveness from each of the measurement techniques is presented. All methods show a good comparison, especially for the higher blowing ratios. The PSP technique shows the most accurate measurements and has more advantages for measuring film cooling effectiveness. Also, the effect of blowing ratio on the film cooling effectiveness is investigated for each of the measurement techniques. The second part of the study investigates the effect of hole geometries on the film cooling effectiveness using pressure sensitive paint. Nitrogen is injected as the coolant air so that the oxygen concentration levels can be obtained for the test surface. The film effectiveness is then obtained by the mass transfer analogy. Five total hole geometries are tested: fan-shaped laidback with a compound angle, fan-shaped laidback with a simple angle, a conical configuration with a compound angle, a conical configuration with a simple angle, and the reference geometry (cylindrical holes) used in part one. The effect of blowing ratio on film cooling effectiveness is presented for each hole geometry. The spanwise averaged effectiveness for each geometry is also presented to compare the geometry effect on film cooling effectiveness. The geometry of the holes has little effect on the effectiveness at low blowing ratios. The laterally expanded holes show improved effectiveness at higher blowing ratios. All experiments are performed in a low speed wind tunnel with a mainstream velocity of 34 m/s. The coolant air is injected through the coolant holes at four different coolant-to-mainstream velocity ratios: 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, and 1.8.

The inlet temperature of modern gas turbine engines has been increased to achieve higher thermal efficiency and increased output. The blade edge regions, including the blade tip, the leading edge, and the platform, are exposed to the most extreme heat loads, and therefore, must be adequately cooled to maintain safety. For the blade tip, there is tip leakage flow due to the pressure gradient across the tip. This leakage flow not only reduces the blade aerodynamic performance, but also yields a high heat load due to the thin boundary layer and high speed. Various tip configurations, such as plane tip, double side squealer tip, and single suction side squealer tip, have been studied to find which one is the best configuration to reduce the tip leakage flow and the heat load. In addition to the flow and heat transfer on the blade tip, film cooling with various arrangements, including camber line, upstream, and two row configurations, have been studied. Besides these cases of low inlet/outlet pressure ratio, low temperature, non-rotating, the high inlet/outlet pressure ratio, high temperature, and rotating cases have been investigated, since they are closer to real turbine working conditions. The leading edge of the rotor blade experiences high heat transfer because of the stagnation flow. Film cooling on the rotor leading edge in a 1-1/2 turbine stage has been numerically studied for the design and off-design conditions. Simulations find that the increasing rotating speed shifts the stagnation line from the pressure side, to the leading edge and the suction side, while film cooling protection moves in the reverse direction with decreasing cooling effectiveness. Film cooling brings a high unsteady intensity of the heat transfer coefficient, especially on the suction side. The unsteady intensity of film cooling effectiveness is higher than that of the heat transfer coefficient. The film cooling on the rotor platform has gained significant attention due to the usage of low-aspect ratio and low-solidity turbine designs. Film cooling and its heat transfer are strongly influenced by the secondary flow of the end-wall and the stator-rotor interaction. Numerical predictions have been performed for the film cooling on the rotating platform of a whole turbine stage. The design conditions yield a high cooling effectiveness and decrease the cooling effectiveness unsteady intensity, while the high rpm condition dramatically reduces the film cooling effectiveness. High purge flow rates provide a better cooling protection. In addition, the impact of the turbine work process on film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient has been investigated. The overall cooling effectiveness shows a higher value than the adiabatic effectiveness does.

Detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions were measured on the stationary blade tip and on the leading edge region of a rotating blade using a Pressure Sensitive Paint technique. Air and nitrogen gas were used as the film cooling gases and the oxygen concentration distribution for each case was measured. The film cooling effectiveness information was obtained from the difference of the oxygen concentration between air and nitrogen gas cases by applying the mass transfer analogy. In the case of the stationary blade tip, plane tip and squealer tip blades were used while the film cooling holes were located (a) along the camber line on the tip or (b) along the span of the pressure side. The average blowing ratio of the cooling gas was controlled to be 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0. Tests were conducted in a five-bladed linear cascade with a blow down facility. The free stream Reynolds number, based on the axial chord length and the exit velocity, was 1,100,000 and the inlet and the exit Mach number were 0.25 and 0.59, respectively. Turbulence intensity level at the cascade inlet was 9.7%. All measurements were made at three different tip gap clearances of 1%, 1.5%, and 2.5% of blade span. Results show that the locations of the film cooling holes and the presence of squealer have significant effects on surface static pressure and film-cooling effectiveness. Same technique was applied to the rotating turbine blade leading edge region. Tests were conducted on the first stage rotor of a 3-stage axial turbine. The Reynolds number based on the axial chord length and the exit velocity was 200,000 and the total to exit pressure ratio was 1.12 for the first rotor. The effects of the rotational speed and the blowing ratio were studied. The rotational speed was controlled to be 2400, 2550, and 3000 rpm and the blowing ratio was 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0. Two different film cooling hole geometries were used; 2-row and 3-row film cooling holes. Results show that the rotational speed changes the directions of the coolant flows. Blowing ratio also changes the distributions of the coolant flows. The results of this study will be helpful in understanding the physical phenomena regarding the film injection and designing more efficient turbine blades.

Two sets of experiments were performed on a simulated turbine nozzle guide vane. First, adiabatic and overall effectiveness measurements were taken in the showerhead region of the vane using adiabatic and matched Biot vane models, respectively. Measurements of overall effectiveness in the showerhead region are not found in the literature, and are a useful baseline for validating the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Overall effectiveness is useful because it shows the results of combining film cooling, internal convection, and surface conduction to provide a more complete picture of vane cooling than adiabatic effectiveness. An impingement plate was utilized to generate internal jet cooling. Momentum flux ratios were matched between the models and ranged from I*SH = 0.76 to 6.70, based on showerhead upstream approach velocity. The second set of experiments used a different model to examine the effects of surface curvature on adiabatic effectiveness. Results in open literature are found by varying the radius of curvature of a fixed setup, so the current approach was novel in that it looked at adiabatic effectiveness at locations of various curvature around the same vane. Blowing ratios from M = 0.4 to M = 1.6 were tested at a density ratio of DR = 1.20 for two locations on the suction side of the vane. Results were presented in terms of laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness and contour plots of adiabatic effectiveness, and were compared to literature. / text

This study focused on experimentally measuring the performance of a fully cooled, scaled up C3X turbine vane. Experimental measurements focused on investigating row-to-row interactions of coolant jets and the contributions of external film cooling and internal impingement cooling to overall cooling effectiveness. Overall effectiveness was experimentally measured using a thermally scaled, matched Biot number vane model featuring a realistic internal impingement scheme and had normalized surface temperatures that were representative of those found on engine components. A geometrically identical vane was also constructed out of low conductivity polystyrene foam to measure the normalized adiabatic wall temperature, or adiabatic effectiveness of the film cooling configuration. The vanes featured a full coverage film-cooling scheme with a five-row showerhead and 13 total rows of holes containing 149 total coolant holes. This study was the first study to make highly detailed measurements of overall effectiveness on a fully-cooled vane model and expands on previous studies of adiabatic and overall effectiveness on the showerhead and single rows of holes on a matched Biot vane by considering a fully cooled configuration to determine if the results from these previous studies also hold for a fully cooled configuration. Additionally, velocity and thermal fields were measured just upstream of two different suction side rows of holes in order to study the effect of introducing upstream coolant injection. The effects of mainstream turbulence and span-wise location were examined and at the downstream row of holes, the contributions of different rows of holes to the approach flow were compared. This study was the first to measure mean and fluctuating velocity data on the suction side of a turbine vane with upstream coolant injection. Understanding the effects of how upstream injection affects the performance of downstream rows of holes is critical to understanding the film cooling performance on a fully cooled turbine airfoil. / text

The leading edge of a turbine vane is subject to some of the highest temperature loading within an engine, and an accurate understanding of leading edge film coolant behavior is essential to efficient engine design. Although there have been many investigations of the adiabatic effectiveness for showerhead film cooling within the leading edge region, there have been no previous studies in which individual rows of the showerhead were tested with the explicit intent of validating superposition models. For the current investigation, a series of adiabatic effectiveness experiments were performed with a five-row showerhead, wherein each row of holes was operated in isolation. This allowed evaluation of superposition on both the suction side of the vane, which was moderately convex, and the pressure side of the vane, which was mildly concave. Superposition was found to accurately predict performance on the suction side of the vane at lower momentum flux ratios, but not for higher momentum flux ratios. On the pressure side of the vane, the superposition predictions were consistently lower than measured values, with significant under-prediction of adiabatic effectiveness occurring at the higher mass flow rates. Possible reasons for the under-prediction of effectiveness by the superposition model are presented. / text

Film cooling is used in gas turbine engines to cool turbine components. Cooler air is bled from the compressor, routed internally through turbine vanes and blades, and exits through discrete holes, creating a film of coolant on the parts’ surfaces. Cooling the turbine components protects them from thermal damage and allows the engine to operate at higher combustion temperatures, which increases the engine efficiency. Shaped film cooling holes with diffuser exits have the advantage that they decelerate the coolant flow, enabling the coolant jets to remain attached to the surface at higher coolant flow rates. Furthermore, the expanded exits of the coolant holes provide a wider coolant distribution over the surface. The first part of this dissertation provides data for a new laidback, fan-shaped hole geometry designed at Pennsylvania State University’s Experimental and Computational Convection Laboratory. The shaped hole geometry was tested on flat plate facilities at the University of Texas at Austin and Pennsylvania State University. The objective of testing at two laboratories was to verify the adiabatic effectiveness performance of the shaped hole, with the intent of the data being a standard of comparison for future experimental and computational shaped hole studies. At first, measurements of adiabatic effectiveness did not match between the labs, and it was later found that shaped holes are extremely sensitive to machining, the material they are machined into, and coolant entrance effects. In addition, the adiabatic effectiveness was found to scale with velocity ratio for multiple density ratios and mainstream turbulence intensities. The second part of this dissertation measures heat transfer coefficient augmentation (hf/h0) at density ratios (DR) of 1.0, 1.2, and 1.5 using a uniform heat flux plate and the same shaped hole geometry. In the past, heat transfer coefficient augmentation was generally measured at DR = 1.0 under the assumption that hf/h0 was independent of density ratio. This dissertation is the first study to directly measure the wall and adiabatic wall temperature to calculate heat transfer coefficient augmentation at DR > 1.0. The results showed that the heat transfer coefficient augmentation was low while the jets were attached to the surface and increased when the jets started to separate. At DR = 1.0, hf/h0 was higher for a given blowing ratio than at DR = 1.2 and DR = 1.5. However, when velocity ratios are matched, better correspondence was found at the different density ratios. Surface contours of hf/h0 showed that the heat transfer was initially increased along the centerline of the jet, but was reduced along the centerline at distances farther downstream. The decrease along the centerline may be due to counter-rotating vortices sweeping warm air next to the heat flux plate toward the center of the jet, where they sweep upward and thicken the thermal boundary layer. This warming of the core of the coolant jet over the heated surface was confirmed with thermal field measurements. / text

Deposition of contaminant particles on gas turbine surfaces reduces the aerodynamic and cooling efficiency of the turbine and degrades its materials. Gas turbine designers seek a better understanding of this complicated phenomenon and how to mitigate its effects on engine efficiency and durability. The present study developed an experimental method in wind tunnel facilities to simulate the important physical aspects of the interaction between deposition and turbine cooling, particularly film cooling. This technique consisted of spraying molten wax droplets into the mainstream flow that would deposit and solidify on large scale, cooled, turbine airfoil models in a manner consistent with inertial deposition on turbine surfaces. The wax particles were sized to properly simulate the travel of particles in the flow path, and their adhesion to the surface was modeled by ensuring they remained at least partially molten upon impact. Initial development of this wax spray technique was performed with a turbine blade leading edge model with three rows of showerhead film cooling. It was then applied to turbine vane models with showerhead holes and row on pressure side consisting of either standard cylindrical holes or similar holes situated in a spanwise, recessed trench. Vane models were either approximately adiabatic or had a thermal conductivity selected to simulate the conjugate heat transfer of turbine airfoils at engine conditions. These models were also used to measure the adiabatic film effectiveness and overall cooling effectiveness in order to better assess how the cooling design interacted with deposition. Deposit growth was found to be sensitive to the mainstream air and the model surface temperatures and the solidification temperature of the wax. Deposits typically grew to an equilibrium thickness caused by a balance between erosion and adhesion. The existence of film cooling substantially redistributed deposit growth, but changes in blowing ratio had a minor effect. A hypothesis was proposed and substantiated for the physical mechanisms governing wax deposit growth, and its applicability to engine situations was discussed. / text