To achieve high thermal efficiency in modern gas turbines, the turbine-inlet temperature has to be increased. In response to such requisites and to prevent thermal failure of the components exposed to hot gas streams, the use of different cooling techniques, including film cooling, is essential. Finding an optimum film cooling design has become a challenge as it is influenced by a large number of flow and geometrical parameters. This study is dedicated to some important aspects of film cooling of a turbine guide vane and consists of three parts. The first part is associated with an experimental investigation of the suction and pressure side cooling by means of a transient IR-Thermography technique under engine representative conditions. It is shown that the overall film cooling performance of the suction side can be improved by adding showerhead cooling if fan-shaped holes are used, while cylindrical holes may not necessarily benefit from a showerhead. According to the findings, investigation of an optimum cooling design for the suction side is not only a function of hole shape, blowing ratio, state of approaching flow, etc., but is also highly dependent on the presence/absence of showerhead cooling as well as the number of cooling rows. In this regard, it is also discussed that the combined effect of the adiabatic film effectiveness (AFE) and the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) should be considered in such study. As for the pressure side cooling, it is found that either the showerhead or a single row of cylindrical cooling holes can enhance the HTC substantially, whereas a combination of the two or using fan-shaped holes indicates considerably lower HTC. An important conclusion is that adding more than one cooling row will not augment the HTC and will even decrease it under certain circumstances. In the second part, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) investigations have shown that film cooling holes subjected to higher flow acceleration will maintain a higher level of AFE. Although this was found to be valid for both suction and pressure side, due to an overall lower acceleration for the pressure side, a lower AFE was achieved. Moreover, the CFD results indicate that fan-shaped holes with low area ratio (dictated by design constraints for medium-size gas turbines), suffer from cooling jet separation and hence reduction in AFE for blowing ratios above unity. Verification of these conclusions by experiments suggests that CFD can be used more extensively, e.g. for parametric studies. The last part deals with method development for deriving correlations based on experimental data to support engineers in the design stage. The proposed method and the ultimate correlation model could successfully correlate the laterally averaged AFE to the downstream distance, the blowing ratio and the local pressure coefficient representing the effect of approaching flow. The applicability of the method has been examined and the high level of predictability of the final model demonstrates its suitability to be used for design purposes in the future. / Turbo Power Program

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.

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

No description available.