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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.

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Efficiency and power output of gas turbines improve with an increase in turbine inlet temperatures, and blade designers continually seek out new methods of increasing these temperatures. Increases in turbine inlet temperatures are achieved by utilizing a combination of internal convective cooling and external film-cooling. This study will evaluate several novel cooling schemes for turbine airfoils, called microcircuits. Microcircuits are placed inside the turbine blade wall, and the features turbulate the air and increase heat transfer surface area, thereby augmenting convective cooling. The coolant flow then exits internal cooling passages to the external side of the blade. Here the coolant forms a protective layer along the external surface of the blade to protect the blade from the heated mainstream flow. In the current study, a low-speed large-scale wind tunnel facility was developed to measure internal heat transfer coefficients and external adiabatic effectiveness, using thermal liquid crystallography and infrared thermography. This test facility is unique in that it can be used to test the effects of internal cooling features on external film cooling. Results show that the highest augmentations in internal heat transfer were seen at the lowest Reynolds numbers. Internal features affected the shapes of external film-cooling contours, but the magnitudes of the spanwise averaged values did not change significantly with changes in internal geometry. / Master of Science

In this dissertation, Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) is evaluated in ribbed duct geometries to show the potential of simulating complex geometry with a simple structured grid. IBM is first investigated in well-accepted benchmark cases: channel flow and pipe flow with circular cross-section. IBM captures all the flow features with very good accuracy in these two cases. Then a two side ribbed duct geometry is test using IBM at Reynolds number of 20,000 under fully developed assumption. The IBM results agrees well with body conforming grid predictions. A one side ribbed duct geometry is also tested at a bulk Reynolds number of 1.5⨉10⁴. Three cases have been examined for this geometry: a stationary case; a case of positive rotation at a rotation number (Ro=ΩDₕ/U) of 0.3 (destabilizing); and a case of negative rotation at Ro= -0.3 (stabilizing). Time averaged mean, turbulent quantities are presented, together with heat transfer. The overall good agreement between IBM, BCG and experimental results suggests that IBM is a promising method to apply to complex blade geometries. Due to the disadvantage of IBM that it requires large amount of cells to resolve the boundary near the immersed surface, wall modeled LES (WMLES) is evaluated in the final part of this thesis. WMLES is used for simulating turbulent flow in a developing staggered ribbed U-bend duct. Three cases have been tested at a bulk Reynolds number of 10⁵: a stationary case; a positive rotation case at a rotation number Ro=0.2; and a negative rotation case at Ro=-0.2. Coriolis force effects are included in the calculation to evaluate the wall model under the influence of these effects which are known to affect shear layer turbulence production on the leading and trailing sides of the duct. Wall model LES prediction shows good agreement with experimental data. / Master of Science

The analysis of turbulent flows provides a unique scientific challenge whose solution remains central to unraveling the fundamental nature of all fluid dynamics. Measuring and predicting turbulent flows becomes even more difficult when considering a two-phase flow, which is a commonly encountered engineering problem across many disciplines. One such example, the ingestion of foreign debris into a gas turbine engine, provided the impetus for this study. Despite more than 40 years of research, operation with a particle-laden inlet flow remains a significant problem for modern turbomachines. The purpose, therefore, is to develop experimental methods for investigating multi-phase flows relevant to the cooling of gas turbine components. Initially, several generic components representing turbine cooling designs were evaluated with a particle-laden flow using a special high temperature test facility. The results of this investigation revealed that blockage was highly sensitive to the carrier flowfield as defined by the cooling geometry. A second group of experiments were conducted in one commonly used cooling design using a Time Resolved Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (TRDPIV) system that directly investigated both the carrier flowfield and particle trajectories. Traditional PIV processing algorithms, however, were unable to resolve the particle motions of the two-phase flow with sufficient fidelity. To address this issue, a new Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) algorithm was developed and validated for both single-phase and two-phase flows. The newly developed PTV algorithm was shown to outperform other published algorithms as well as possessing a unique ability to handle particle laden two-phase flows. Overall, this work demonstrates several experimental methods that are well suited for the investigation of wall-bounded turbulent two-phase flows, with a special emphasis on a turbine cooling method. The studies contained herein provide valuable information regarding the previously unknown fluid and particle dynamics within the turbine cooling system. / Ph. D.

Modern gas turbine engines operate at temperatures well above the melting point of the metal components. This has driven manufactures to develop sophisticated cooling methods which minimise the use of coolant to maximise engine efficiency by enabling further increases in operating temperature. This thesis investigates the cooling performance of engine representative mid-chord internal cooling passages for turbine blades. The work forms part of a larger E.C. FP7 project ERICKA (Engine Representative Internal Cooling Knowledge Applications).This thesis provides detailed maps of heat transfer coefficient (HTC) under a number of conditions, new experimental techniques, and has lead to a better understanding of the impact HTC distributions have on the thermal performance of a turbine blade at engine conditions. Transient liquid crystal experiments have been conducted on a large scale model of an engine representative internal cooling passage at three aspect ratios (width:height (chord length:spanwise length), 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4). Spatially resolved maps of Nusselt number have been produced for the full surface of the internal cooling passages. Little information exists in the literature for more engine representative geometries, and it is rare for spatial measurements to be presented over the full surface. The detailed maps provide validation data for CFD within the ERICKA programme. A novel method which produces spatially resolved maps in areas with highly non-one-dimensional heat transfer has been developed and validated. This method couples transient finite element analysis and data from transient liquid crystal experiments. Applied to the ribbed passage geometry, this produced spatially resolved maps of HTC over the rib surface. To the author’s best knowledge this is the first time spatial HTC maps have been presented for an engine representative rib. Industry best practice methods for internal cooling passage design typically apply averaged values of HTC, in part due to lack of spatially resolved data. To determine the significance of this approximation on blade design and life, experimental measurements have been applied to finite element (FEA) models at typical engine conditions. Application of a 3D HTC distribution to a FEA model of a section of ribbed wall demonstrated a significant under prediction (up to 58%) of localised thermal gradients when an average value is applied compared to a spatially resolved profile. This work demonstrated good agreement between distributions taken from experimental data and CFD predictions, indicating that CFD distributions may be more appropriate than bulk values in the design process. A 2D FEA study was undertaken to quantify the impact of HTC distribution approximations and aspect ratio on cooling of a generic turbine section. This study considered multiple adjacent internal cooling passages. It was confirmed that multi-pass arrangements offer greater heat removal for a given mass flow rate. Also a symmetric heat transfer profile with a higher HTC on the ribbed wall is the most desirable distribution. Use of average values significantly impacted the metal temperature, causing an underprediction up to 13◦C and 8◦C in the maximum and average values respectively. Based on the experimental HTC data, the 1:3 aspect ratio passage offered the lowest metal temperatures. Applying HTC distributions from CFD data (calculated with using the centreline temperature) showed, in general, good agreement, with the lowest metal temperatures (by up to 8◦C) in the 1:4 aspect ratio passage. Use of and HTC distribution provided by CFD prediction based on the mixed bulk temperature, produced average and peak metal temperatures 16◦C and 17◦C, respectively, lower in the 1:4 aspect ratio passage than the next best design. This highlights the need for appropriate and consistent method to be used in the analysis. As expected, reducing the passage aspect ratio led to increases in both thermal gradient and total pressure loss.

<p>A first part of a ”Heat Transfer Handbook” about correlations for internal cooling of gas turbine vanes and blades has been created. The work is based on the cooling of vanes and blades 1 and 2 on different Siemens Gas Turbines. The cooling methods increase the heat transfer in the cooling channels by increasing the heat transfer coefficient and/or increasing the heat transfer surface area. The penalty paid for the increased heat transfer is higher pressure losses.</p><p>Three cooling methods, called rib turbulated cooling, matrix cooling and impingement cooling were investigated. Rib turbulated cooling and impingement cooling are typically used in the leading edge or mid region of the airfoil and matrix cooling is mostly applied in the trailing edge region.</p><p>Literature studies for each cooling method, covering both open literature and internal reports, were carried out in order to find correlations developed from tests. The correlations were compared and analyzed with focus on suitability for use in turbine conditions. The analysis resulted in recommendations about what correlations to use for each cooling method.</p><p>For rib turbulated cooling in square or rectangular ducts, four correlations developed by Han and his co-workers [3.5], [3.8], [3.9] and [3.6] are recommended, each valid for different channel and rib geometries. For U-shaped channels, correlations of Nagoga [3.4] are recommended.</p><p>Matrix cooling is relatively unknown in west, but has been used for many years in the former Soviet Union. Therefore available information in open literature is limited. Only one source of correlations was found. The correlations were developed by Nagoga [4.2] and are valid for closed matrixes. Siemens Gas Turbines are cooled with open matrixes, why further work with developing correlations is needed.</p><p>For impingement cooling on a flat target plate, a correlation of Florschuetz et al. [5.7] is recommended for inline impingement arrays. For staggered arrays, both the correlations of Florschuetz et al. [5.7] and Höglund [5.8] are suitable. The correlations for impingement on curved target plate gave very different results. The correlation of Nagoga is recommended, but it is also advised to consult the other correlations when calculating heat transfer for a specific case.</p><p>Another part of the work has been to investigate the codes of two heat transfer programs named Q3D and Multipass, used in the Siemens offices in Finspång and Lincoln, respectively. Certain changes in the code are recommended.</p>

A first part of a ”Heat Transfer Handbook” about correlations for internal cooling of gas turbine vanes and blades has been created. The work is based on the cooling of vanes and blades 1 and 2 on different Siemens Gas Turbines. The cooling methods increase the heat transfer in the cooling channels by increasing the heat transfer coefficient and/or increasing the heat transfer surface area. The penalty paid for the increased heat transfer is higher pressure losses. Three cooling methods, called rib turbulated cooling, matrix cooling and impingement cooling were investigated. Rib turbulated cooling and impingement cooling are typically used in the leading edge or mid region of the airfoil and matrix cooling is mostly applied in the trailing edge region. Literature studies for each cooling method, covering both open literature and internal reports, were carried out in order to find correlations developed from tests. The correlations were compared and analyzed with focus on suitability for use in turbine conditions. The analysis resulted in recommendations about what correlations to use for each cooling method. For rib turbulated cooling in square or rectangular ducts, four correlations developed by Han and his co-workers [3.5], [3.8], [3.9] and [3.6] are recommended, each valid for different channel and rib geometries. For U-shaped channels, correlations of Nagoga [3.4] are recommended. Matrix cooling is relatively unknown in west, but has been used for many years in the former Soviet Union. Therefore available information in open literature is limited. Only one source of correlations was found. The correlations were developed by Nagoga [4.2] and are valid for closed matrixes. Siemens Gas Turbines are cooled with open matrixes, why further work with developing correlations is needed. For impingement cooling on a flat target plate, a correlation of Florschuetz et al. [5.7] is recommended for inline impingement arrays. For staggered arrays, both the correlations of Florschuetz et al. [5.7] and Höglund [5.8] are suitable. The correlations for impingement on curved target plate gave very different results. The correlation of Nagoga is recommended, but it is also advised to consult the other correlations when calculating heat transfer for a specific case. Another part of the work has been to investigate the codes of two heat transfer programs named Q3D and Multipass, used in the Siemens offices in Finspång and Lincoln, respectively. Certain changes in the code are recommended.