The effect of turbulence intensity on film cooling of gas turbine blade from trenched shaped holes

This paper reports a computational investigation on the effects of mainstream turbulence intensity on film cooling effectiveness from trenched holes over a symmetrical blade. Computational solutions of the steady, Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes equations are obtained using a finite volume method with k − ε Turbulence model. Whenever possible, computational results are compared with experimental ones from data found in the open literature. Computational results are presented for a row of 25° forward-diffused film hole within transverse slot injected at 35° to AGTB symmetrical blade. Four blowing ratios, M = 0.3, 0.5, 0.9 and 1.3 are studied together with four mainstream turbulence intensities of Tu = 0.5, 2, 4 and 10%. Results indicate that the trenched shaped holes tend to give better film cooling effectiveness than that obtained from discrete shaped holes for all blowing ratios and all turbulence intensities. The trenching of shaped holes has changed the optimum blowing ratio and also the location of re-attachment of separated jet at high blowing ratios. Moreover, it has been found that the effect of mainstream turbulence intensity for trenched shaped holes is similar to that obtained for discrete shaped holes with the exception that the sensitivity of film cooling effectiveness to turbulence intensity has decreased for trenched shaped holes.     

Effects of injection angle orientation on concave and convex surfaces film cooling

The present study employs a transient liquid crystal thermography to measure film cooling performance over constant curvature of concave and convex surfaces. This work investigates detailed distributions of both film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient on concave and convex surfaces with one row of injection holes inclined stream-wise at 35° at four blowing ratios (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0) on four test pieces with different hole configurations. All test models have a row of discrete holes with a stream-wise injection angle (γ of 35° and a pitch-to-diameter ratio (P/d) of 3. The current work examines four different injection configurations, one with simple and three with 8° forward-expanded holes. Three compound angles of 0, 45 and 90° with air (ρ_c/ρ_m = 0.98) as coolants are tested under the mainstream Reynolds number (Re_d) of 2300 on concave surface, and 1700 on convex surface. Measured results of the concave surface show that both the span-wise averaged heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness increase with blowing ratios for all tested models. Higher heat transfer levels induced by large flow disturbance of compound-angle injection also lead to poorer overall film cooling performance, especially at high blowing ratio and large span-wise injection angle. Present results show that the best surface protection on the concave surface over the widest range of M can be provided by the forward-expanded holes with β = 0° (Model-B), followed by the forward-expanded holes with β = 45° (Model-C). Convex surface results show that the compound-angle injection indicates increases in both film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer at moderate and high blowing ratios. The forward-expanded hole with simple-angle injection provides the best film performance because of high film cooling effectiveness and low heat transfer coefficient at blowing ratio of 0.5.     

Film cooling effectiveness from trenched shaped and compound holes

This paper presents a comparative-numerical investigation on film cooling from a row of simple and compound-angle holes injected at 35° on a flat plate with four film cooling configurations: (1) cylindrical film hole; (2) 15° forward diffused film hole; (3) trenched cylindrical film hole; (4) trenched 15° forward-diffused film hole. All simulations are at fixed density ratio of 1.6, blowing ratio of 1.25, length-to-diameter L/D = 4 and pitch-to-diameter ratio of 3.0. The effect of length-to-diameter ratio on film cooling has been also investigated using L/D in the range of 1–8. Computational solutions of the steady, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations have been obtained using a finite volume method. It has been found that the shape of the hole and the trenched holes can significantly affect the film cooling flow over the protected surface. Further, it has been shown that the film cooling effectiveness by trenched shaped holes is higher than all other configurations both in spanwise and streamwise specially downstream of the injection. Also, a trenched compound angle injection shaped hole produces much higher film cooling protection than the other configurations investigated in the present paper. The length-to-diameter ratio of trenched holes was found to have a significant effect on film cooling effectiveness and the spread of the coolant jets.     

Numerical study on film cooling effectiveness from shaped and crescent holes

This paper presents a comparative numerical investigation on film cooling from a row of holes injected at 35° on a flat plate with three film cooling configurations, including cylindrical hole, 15° forward diffused shaped hole, and new crescent hole. All simulations are conducted at blowing ratio of 0.6 and 1.25, length-to-diameter ratio of four and pitch-to-diameter ratio of three. Computational solutions of the steady, Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations are obtained using a finite volume method. Previous successful application of a two-layer turbulence model to cylindrical hole is extended to predict film cooling for the different hole geometries. It has been found that the film cooling effectiveness of cylindrical holes obviously declined along with increasing the blowing ratio. While the forward diffused shaped hole presents a marked improvement, with a higher effectiveness at the lateral area between adjacent holes. By comparison, the crescent hole exhibits the highest film cooling effectiveness among the three configurations both in spanwise and streamwise especially downstream of the intersection of the two holes. Also, the crescent hole can restrain the vortex intensity, and then enhance the film cooling effectiveness.     

Influence of coolant injector configuration on film cooling effectiveness for gaseous and liquid film coolants

An experimental investigation is conducted to bring out the effects of coolant injector configuration on film cooling effectiveness, film cooled length and film uniformity associated with gaseous and liquid coolants. A series of measurements are performed using hot air as the core gas and gaseous nitrogen and water as the film coolants in a cylindrical test section simulating a thrust chamber. Straight and compound angle injection at two different configurations of 30°–10° and 45°–10° are investigated for the gaseous coolant. Tangential injection at 30° and compound angle injection at 30°–10° are examined for the liquid coolant. The analysis is based on measurements of the film-cooling effectiveness and film uniformity downstream of the injection location at different blowing ratios. Measured results showed that compound angle configuration leads to lower far-field effectiveness and shorter film length compared to tangential injection in the case of liquid film cooling. For similar injector configurations, effectiveness along the stream wise direction showed flat characteristics initially for the liquid coolant, while it was continuously dropping for the gaseous coolant. For liquid coolant, deviations in temperature around the circumference are very low near the injection point, but increases to higher values for regions away from the coolant injection locations. The study brings out the existance of an optimum gaseous film coolant injector configuration for which the effectiveness is maximum.     

Leading edge film cooling heat transfer with high free stream turbulence using a transient liquid crystal image method

This paper studies film effectiveness and heat transfer coefficients on a large scale symmetric circular leading edge with three rows of film holes. The film hole configuration focuses on a smaller injection angle of 20° and a larger hole pitch with respect to the hole diameter (P/d=7.86). The study includes four blowing ratios (M=1.0,1.5,2.0 and 2.5), two Reynolds numbers (Re=30,000 and 60,000), and two free stream turbulence levels (nominally Tu=1% and 20% depending on the Reynolds number). A transient liquid crystal (LC) image technique is employed to obtain the film effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient distributions with high spatial resolutions of 0.6 mm in both streamwise and spanwise directions. Results are presented for detailed and spanwise averaged values of film effectiveness and Frössling number. Turbulence intensity has an attenuation on film effectiveness as well as on Frössling number for all blowing ratios at Re=30,000. Under high turbulence conditions the film effectiveness and Frössling number increase as blowing ratio increases from 1.0 to 2.0 for both Reynolds numbers. Further increasing the blowing ratio results in reverse effect. Increasing the Reynolds number from 30,000 to 60,000 results in increases in both the film effectiveness and Frössling number at high turbulence except for M=2.5. The blowing ratio of two shows a spatial coupling of the stagnation row of film holes with the second row (21.5°) of film holes which results in the highest film effectiveness and also the highest Frössling numbers.     

Film cooling and heat transfer with air injection through two rows of compound angle holes.

This paper describes the results of an experimental investigation into the film cooling effectiveness and the heat transfer characteristics of two staggered rows of compound angle holes. The effects of hole spacings and turbulence intensity on film cooling and heat transfer characteristic are investigated for three blowing rates; 0.5, 1.0 and 1.7. An attempt has been made to correlate the film cooling effectiveness results using a two dimensional correlation group. The increase of spanwise hole spacing results in a reduction in the film cooling effectiveness and an increase in the Stanton number. Increasing the freestream turbulence intensity has caused a significant reduction in the local film cooling effectiveness but increased the Stanton number, especially at blowing rate of 0.5.     

A numerical evaluation on the effect of sister holes on film cooling effectiveness and the surrounding flow field

A numerical study was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the novel sister hole film cooling technique. Two secondary coolant holes bound the primary coolant hole slightly downstream of its midpoint, intended to minimize the primary vortex pair and improve cooling performance. An unstructured hexahedral mesh was generated and the realizable k–ε turbulence model with near-wall modeling was used in these simulations. Blowing ratios of 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 were simulated to evaluate the applicability of sister holes in practical applications. It was found that sister holes significantly improved cooling performance over the entire computational domain, particularly at high blowing ratios. These results arose by countering the primary vortex pair with a secondary pair from these sister holes, ultimately maintaining flow adhesion where the coolant stream would have otherwise separated.     

Numerical investigation of the influence of incidence angle on asymmetrical turbine blade model showerhead film cooling effectiveness

The influence of various incidence angles on film cooling effectiveness of an axial turbine blade cascade with leading edge ejection from two rows of cooling holes is numerically investigated. The rows are located in the vicinity of the stagnation line. One row is located on the suction side and the other one is on the pressure side. The predicted pressure field for various blowing ratios (M = 0.7, 1.1 and 1.5) is compared with available experimental results at the design condition. Moreover, the effect of various incidence angles (?10°, ?5°, 0°, 5° and 10°) at three blowing rates is investigated by analyzing the results of both laterally averaged and area averaged values of adiabatic film cooling effectiveness. Numerical results indicate that the incidence angle can strongly affect the thermal protection of the blade at low blowing ratio but becomes less dominant at high blowing ratio. In fact, for the low blowing ratio, a small change in the incidence angle that relates to the design condition can deeply affect the thermal protection of the blade, which is evident from the laterally and area averaged film cooling effectiveness distributions.     

Film cooling on a convex surface: influence of external pressure gradient and Mach number on film cooling performance

 The film cooling performance on a convex surface subjected to zero and favourable pressure gradient free-stream flow was investigated. Adiabatic film cooling effectiveness values were obtained for five different injection geometries, three with cylindrical holes and two with shaped holes. Heat transfer coefficients were derived for selected injection configurations. CO₂ was used as coolant to simulate density ratios between coolant and free-stream close to gas turbine engine conditions. The film cooling effectiveness results indicate a strong dependency on the free-stream Mach number level. Results obtained at the higher free-stream Mach number show for cylindrical holes generally and for shaped holes at moderate blowing rates significant higher film cooling effectiveness values compared to the lower free-stream Mach number data. Free-stream acceleration generally reduced adiabatic film cooling effectiveness relative to constant free-stream flow conditions. The different free-stream conditions investigated indicate no significant effects on the corresponding heat transfer increase due to film injection. The determined heat flux ratios or film cooling performance indicated that coolant injection with shaped film cooling holes is much more efficient than with cylindrical holes especially at higher blowing rates. Heat flux penalties can occur at high blowing rates when using cylindrical holes. Received on 29 May 2000     

Analysis of upstream,double-row,cylindrical holes on primary and secondary effects of endwall flow and film cooling

Flow features and film cooling performance of five configurations of double-row, cylindrical holes, upstream of an E3 vane, in a linear cascade are numerically investigated. This simulation is completed using a verified turbulence model at four blowing ratios (M = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0). The first three configurations have two rows of cylindrical holes, each row with the same compound angle (β=-45°, 0° or 45°), while the other two have two rows with opposite compound angles (β=-45°, 45° and β=45°, -45°), which are also referred to as double-jet film cooling (DJFC) holes. The primary effects on the downstream endwall and the secondary effects on the nearby airfoil of the cooled passage are analyzed and discussed in detail. Results show that at low blowing ratios the movement of the coolant is denominated by the interaction between the jets and vortices resulting in similar film coverage on both the endwall and airfoil. The effect of vortices is reduced at high blowing ratios. It is also shown that the movement of the coolant is determined by the initial velocity direction, as well as the film cooling configuration.     

Study of airborne particles produced by normal impact of millimetric droplets onto a liquid film

The aim of this work is to carry out an experimental investigation into the generation of airborne microparticles when millimetric droplets of aqueous solutions impact onto a liquid film. Impact experiments using 3.9 mm diameter droplets were carried out for Weber numbers between 159 and 808, with a fixed Ohnesorge number of 2 × 10⁻³ and film parameters S _f (the ratio between the thickness of the liquid film h _film and the diameter of the impacting droplet d _i) between 0.3 and 1. Observed results show that the deposition/splashing threshold is independent of the parameter S _f in agreement with the data in the literature. The aerosol measurement results demonstrate the production of solid particles from the evaporation of secondary microdroplets with diameters less than 30 μm formed when splash occurs. The median diameter of these microdroplets is around 20 μm, corresponding to a value of d ₅₀/d _i = 5 × 10⁻³. Taken together, the results show that the mass and the number of particles emitted increase as the Weber number increases. Moreover, at a Weber number of 808, the results show that the mass and number of particles emitted increases as the parameter S _f decreases. In this case, the mean number of microdroplets emitted per impact is equal to 14 for S _f = 1 and equal to 76 for S _f = 0.3.     

Effect of film cooling on the aerodynamic performance of an airfoil

The effect of film cooling on the aerodynamic performance of turbine blades is becoming increasingly important as the gas turbine operating temperature is being increased in order to increase the performance. The current paper investigates the effect of blowing ratio on the aerodynamic losses of a symmetric airfoil by pressure measurements and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The test model features 4 rows of holes located on the suction side at 5%, 10%, 15% and 50% of the chord length. The Reynolds number based on the airfoil chord is 1.2 × 10⁵. Experiments are performed by varying the location of air injection, the angle of attack, and the mainstream velocity. The coolant air is injected at ambient temperature and the blowing ratio is varied from 0 to 1.91. It is observed that the losses due to film cooling increase with blowing ratio of 0 to 0.48, and the wake is shifted towards the suction side. Conversely, the aerodynamic losses decrease when the blowing ratio is increased further from 0.64 to 1.91. This trend has been observed for all the experimental configurations. The effect of blowing ratio on flow separation is investigated with the time-averaged velocity fields obtained from PIV measurements. It is observed that low blowing ratios, the separation point shifts upstream and at high blowing ratios the ejected coolant energizes the flow and delays separation. The pressure field around the airfoil is reconstructed from the integration of the Poisson equation based on the PIV velocity fields. The experimental results can be used for validation of numerical models for predicting losses due to film cooling.     

Experimental study on surface wave and film breakdown of falling liquid film flow

In order to evaluate characteristics of the liquid film flow and their influences on heat and mass transfer, measurements of the instantaneous film thickness using a capacitance method and observation of film breakdown are performed. Experimental results are reported in the paper. Experiments are carried out at Re = 250–10000, T _in = 20–50°C and three axial positions of vertically falling liquid films for film thickness measurements. Instantaneous surface waveshapes are given by the interpretation of the test data using the cubic spline method. The correlation of the mean film thickness versus the film Reynolds number is also given by fitting the test data. It is revealed that the surface wave has nonlinear behavior. Observation of film breakdown is performed at Re = 1.40 × 10³–1.75 × 10⁴ and T _in = 85–95°C. From experimental results, the correlation of the film breakdown criterion can be obtained as follows: Bd = 1.567 × 10⁻⁶ Re ^1.183     

A broad reconsideration of anti-vortex film cooling method using numerical optimization and an improved heat-flux model

This paper represents the detailed results of an evolutionary optimization framework towards the exploration of vortex mechanisms leading to effective anti-vortex film cooling. In this regards, several arrangements of triple cooling holes were studied on flat and curved geometries using differential-evolution optimization algorithm and a modified Reynolds-stress based flow solver. Depending on the flow and geometric parameters, four distinct types of vortex interaction with different cooling mechanisms were identified. The vortex-trapping mechanism, observed in the optimized upstream arrangement acts through imposing a mild downwash over the main counter-rotating vortex pair and provides the best cooling effectiveness for the low injection angle (less than 30°) cases. The vortex-suppression and -balancing are the optimal possible solutions of the adjacent arrangement. The latter is the classic well-known type of anti-vortex cooling, while the former provides a sudden strong controlling potential for high blowing ratios (higher than 1.0) and high injection angle film cooling. For the non-flat surfaces the triple holes effectively perform up to blowing-ratio of 2.0. However, the reverse-vortex-trapping mechanism occurring in the downstream arrangement is recommended for convex surfaces, while the adjacent arrangement is the choice for concave regions. In general, there is a possibility of reducing the coolant consumption about 30% through increasing the pitch-to-diameter ratio, while the values of cooling-effectiveness still remain in an acceptable range.     

Study of the shock-induced acceleration of hexane droplets

An experimental study of the interaction of a shock wave with a hexane droplet is presented. The main goal of the experiments was to record images of the process and measure basic parameters describing movement, dispersion and evaporation of the droplets engulfed by a shock wave propagating in air. A shock tube with a visualization section was used for this research. Photography of the process allowed one to measure the positions, velocities and sizes of mist clouds created by the interaction processes. Analysis of the pictures shows that there is no qualitative difference between cases for different size droplets, but shock Mach number had a significant effect on the process. Quantitative analysis shows that under certain conditions, a catastrophic breakup mechanism of dispersion occurred. The droplets are shattered into a mist cloud before they achieve mechanical equilibrium with the surrounding gas. The approximate time for the complete dispersion and acceleration of the fuel droplet varies from 300 to 500 μs, and depends both on the droplet diameter and shock velocity. The dispersion time is controlled principally by the droplet diameter, and to a lesser extent, the shock Mach number. This paper is based on work that was presented at the 20th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, Montreal, Canada, July 31–August 5, 2005.     

Detonation diffraction through different geometries

We performed the study of the diffraction of a self-sustained detonation from a cylindrical tube (of inner diameter d) through different geometric configurations in order to characterise the transmission processes and to quantify the transmission criteria to the reception chamber. For the diffraction from a tube to the open space the transmission criteria is expressed by d _c  = k _c ·λ (with λ the detonation cell size and k _c depending on the mixture and on the operture configuration, classically 13 for alkane mixtures with oxygen). The studied geometries are: (a) a sharp increase of diameter (D/d > 1) with and without a central obstacle in the diffracting section, (b) a conical divergent with a central obstacle in the diffracting section and (c) an inversed intermediate one end closed tube insuring a double reflection before a final diffraction between the initiator tube and the reception chamber. The results for case A show that the reinitiation process depends on the ratio d/λ. For ratios below k _c the re-ignition takes place at the receptor tube wall and at a fixed distance from the step, i.e. closely after the diffracted shock reflection shows a Mach stem configuration. For ratios below a limit ratio k _lim (which depends on D/d) the re-ignition distance increases with the decrease of d/λ. For both case A and B the introduction of a central obstacle (of blockage ratio BR = 0.5) at the exit of the initiator tube decreases the critical transmission ratio k _c by 50%. The results in configuration C show that the re-ignition process depends both on d/λ and the geometric conditions. Optimal configuration is found that provides the transmission through the two successive reflections (from d = 26 mm to D _ch = 200 mm) at as small d/λ as 2.2 whatever the intermediate diameter D is. This configuration provides a significant improvement in the detonation transmission conditions.

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This paper was based on work that was partly presented at the International Conference on Combustion and Detonation, Zel’dovich Memorial II, Moscow, Russia, 30 August–3 September 2004, and at the 20th International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive systems, Montreal, Canada, 31 July–5 August 2005.     

Numerical simulation of the effect of plasma aerodynamic actuation on improving film hole cooling performance

The primary goal of this paper is to study film cooling performance for a cylindrical hole with plasma aerodynamic actuation. The simulation model of plasma aerodynamic actuation on improving film hole cooling effectiveness was established. The heat effect of plasma aerodynamic actuation model was taken into consideration. It was firstly found that the velocity and blowing ratio greatly affect the film cooling effectiveness. Then, position, power input, and the number of plasma actuators were particularly investigated.     

Large-eddy Simulation of Film Cooling Flows with Variable Density Jets

The present paper investigates the impact of the velocity and density ratio on the turbulent mixing process in gas turbine blade film cooling. A cooling fluid is injected from an inclined pipe at α=30° into a turbulent boundary layer profile at a freestream Reynolds number of Re_∞ = 400,000. This jet-in-a-crossflow (JICF) problem is investigated using large-eddy simulations (LES). The governing equations comprise the Navier–Stokes equations plus additional transport equations for several species to simulate a non-reacting gas mixture. A variation of the density ratio is simulated by the heat-mass transfer analogy, i.e., gases of different density are effused into an air crossflow at a constant temperature. An efficient large-eddy simulation method for low subsonic flows based on an implicit dual time-stepping scheme combined with low Mach number preconditioning is applied. The numerical results and experimental velocity data measured using two-component particle-image velocimetry (PIV) are in excellent agreement. The results show the dynamics of the flow field in the vicinity of the jet hole, i.e., the recirculation region and the inclination of the shear layers, to be mainly determined by the velocity ratio. However, evaluating the cooling efficiency downstream of the jet hole the mass flux ratio proves to be the dominant similarity parameter, i.e., the density ratio between the fluids and the velocity ratio have to be considered.