INVESTIGATION OF A QUASI-STEADY LIQUID CRYSTAL TECHNIQUE FOR FILM COOLING HEAT TRANSFER MEASUREMENTS

A quasi-steady technique to simultaneously measure the local heat transfer coefficient and cooling effectiveness on surfaces involving film cooling situations is investigated. The method employs a composite slab consisting of a very thin laminate layer of low-thermal-conductivity material superposed upon a highly conductive metal substrate. The resulting heat transfer in the thin laminate is described by one-dimensional conduction. A very thin coating of thermochromic liquid crystals sprayed onto the surface of the laminate is used in conjunction with a computer image processing procedure to provide local surface temperature data. This information, combined with the substrate and mainstream gas temperatures, provides highly detailed (90 video pixels/cm²) local convection heat transfer distributions. The method is used to conduct flat-plate film cooling experiments consisting of a single row of discrete holes inclined at 35 to the mainstream flow. The local surface temperature is influenced by the combination of two interacting fluid streams at different temperatures. A numerical analysis was performed to assess the assumptions underlying the data reduction procedure. The experimental uncertainty of 7% in the heat transfer coefficient is comparable to prior studies. Furthermore, the uncertainty of 5% in the film cooling effectiveness, coupled with the negligible lateral conduction errors, indicates the present technique offers a unique capability for accurate measurement of the local film cooling effectiveness.