Numerical investigations of endwall film cooling design of a turbine vane using four-holes pattern

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Liu ◽  
Xi Wenxiong ◽  
Mengyao Xu ◽  
Jiawen Song ◽  
Shibin Luo ◽  
...  

Purpose Endwall film cooling protects vane endwall by coolant coverage, especially at the leading edge (LE) region and vane-pressure side (PS) junction region. Strong flow impingement and complex vortexaa structures on the vane endwall cause difficulties for coolant flows to cover properly. This work aims at a full-scale arrangement of film cooling holes on the endwall which improves coolant efficiency in the LE region and vane-PS junction region. Design/methodology/approach The endwall film holes are grouped in four-holes constructal patterns. Three ways of arranging the groups are studied: based on the pressure field, the streamlines or the heat transfer field. The computational analysis is done with the k-ω SST model after validating the turbulence model properly. Findings By clustering the film cooling holes in four-holes patterns, the ejection of the coolant flow is stronger. The four-holes constructal patterns also improve the local coolant coverage in the “tough” regions, such as the junction region of the PS and the endwall. The arrangement based on streamlines distribution can effectively improve the coolant coverage and the arrangement based on the heat transfer distribution (HTD) has benefits by reducing high-temperature regions on the endwall. Originality/value A full-scale endwall film cooling design is presented considering interactions of different film cooling holes. A comprehensive model validation and mesh independence study are provided. The cooling holes pattern on the endwall is designed as four-holes constructal patterns combined with several arrangement choices, i.e. by pressure, by heat transfer and by streamline distributions.

Author(s):  
Vijay K. Garg

A multi-block, three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code has been used to compute heat transfer coefficient on the blade, hub and shroud for a rotating high-pressure turbine blade with 172 film-cooling holes in eight rows. Film cooling effectiveness is also computed on the adiabatic blade. Wilcox’s k-ω model is used for modeling the turbulence. Of the eight rows of holes, three are staggered on the shower-head with compound-angled holes. With so many holes on the blade it was somewhat of a challenge to get a good quality grid on and around the blade and in the tip clearance region. The final multi-block grid consists of 4784 elementary blocks which were merged into 276 super blocks. The viscous grid has over 2.2 million cells. Each hole exit, in its true oval shape, has 80 cells within it so that coolant velocity, temperature, k and ω distributions can be specified at these hole exits. It is found that for the given parameters, heat transfer coefficient on the cooled, isothermal blade is highest in the leading edge region and in the tip region. Also, the effectiveness over the cooled, adiabatic blade is the lowest in these regions. Results for an uncooled blade are also shown, providing a direct comparison with those for the cooled blade. Also, the heat transfer coefficient is much higher on the shroud as compared to that on the hub for both the cooled and the uncooled cases.


Author(s):  
Andrew F. Chen ◽  
Chao-Cheng Shiau ◽  
Je-Chin Han

The combined effects of inlet purge flow and the slashface leakage flow on the film cooling effectiveness of a turbine blade platform were studied using the pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. Detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions on the endwall were obtained and analyzed. The inlet purge flow was generated by a row of equally-spaced cylindrical injection holes inside a single-tooth generic stator-rotor seal. In addition to the traditional 90 degree (radial outward) injection for the inlet purge flow, injection at a 45 degree angle was adopted to create a circumferential/azimuthal velocity component toward the suction side of the blades, which created a swirl ratio (SR) of 0.6. Discrete cylindrical film cooling holes were arranged to achieve an improved coverage on the endwall. Backward injection was attempted by placing backward injection holes near the pressure side leading edge portion. Slashface leakage flow was simulated by equally-spaced cylindrical injection holes inside a slot. Experiments were done in a five-blade linear cascade with an average turbulence intensity of 10.5%. The inlet and exit Mach numbers were 0.26 and 0.43, respectively. The inlet and exit mainstream Reynolds numbers based on the axial chord length of the blade were 475,000 and 720,000, respectively. The coolant-to-mainstream mass flow ratios (MFR) were varied from 0.5%, 0.75%, to 1% for the inlet purge flow. For the endwall film cooling holes and slashface leakage flow, blowing ratios (M) of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 were examined. Coolant-to-mainstream density ratios (DR) that range from 1.0 (close to low temperature experiments) to 1.5 (intermediate DR) and 2.0 (close to engine conditions) were also examined. The results provide the gas turbine engine designers a better insight into improved film cooling hole configurations as well as various parametric effects on endwall film cooling when the inlet (swirl) purge flow and slashface leakage flow were incorporated.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Sundaram ◽  
K. A. Thole

The endwall of a first-stage vane experiences high heat transfer and low adiabatic effectiveness levels because of high turbine operating temperatures and formation of leading edge vortices. These vortices lift the coolant off the endwall and pull the hot mainstream gases toward it. The region of focus for this study is the vane-endwall junction region near the stagnation location where cooling is very difficult. Two different film-cooling hole modifications, namely, trenches and bumps, were evaluated to improve the cooling in the leading edge region. This study uses a large-scale turbine vane cascade with a single row of axial film-cooling holes at the leading edge of the vane endwall. Individual hole trenches and row trenches were placed along the complete row of film-cooling holes. Two-dimensional semi-elliptically shaped bumps were also evaluated by placing the bumps upstream and downstream of the film-cooling row. Tests were carried out for different trench depths and bump heights under varying blowing ratios. The results indicated that a row trench placed along the row of film-cooling holes showed a greater enhancement in adiabatic effectiveness levels when compared to individual hole trenches and bumps. All geometries considered produced an overall improvement to adiabatic effectiveness levels.


Author(s):  
J. J. Johnson ◽  
P. I. King ◽  
J. P. Clark ◽  
P. J. Koch

As part of a thorough benchmarking of the baseline cooling design in planned optimization work, Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) conjugate heat transfer (CHT) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) assessments have been accomplished at RTV design flow conditions to simulate both a cooled flat plate pressure side (PS) model infrared thermography experiment as well as a full-scale, fully-cooled, full-wheel blowdown experiment on the same high pressure turbine (HPT) vane. Numerous past works on turbomachinery film cooling have been conducted using flat plate models because of their simplicity, repeatability, and low cost of experimentation relative to full scale rotating blowdown rigs. Some of these works generated film cooling correlations still in use today in industry for HPT components. The CFD assessments in this work provide insight into the fundamental differences between a flat plate model and a realistic 3-D vane in terms of film cooling performance for the same PS cooling array. The comparisons of results wring out expected differences between the geometries due to aspects such as highly curved surfaces and endwall effects. However, with nearly-matched coolant-to-mainstream temperature and pressure ratios, the cooling performance between the two models is surprisingly similar, especially in the midspan region. The similarities and differences observed herein represent the rigor and accuracy afforded by simulating both the solid and fluid domains as well as the high-density unstructured meshes that take into account all individual cooling passages and internal plenums, on top of the typically-assessed external fluid flow field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Liu ◽  
Wei Du ◽  
Guohua Zhang ◽  
Safeer Hussain ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Endwall film cooling is a significant cooling method to protect the endwall region and the junction region of endwall and a turbine vane, where usually a relatively high temperature load exists. This work aims to find the optimized arrangement of film cooling holes on the endwall and improve the film cooling in some difficult regions on the endwall, such as pressure side-endwall junction region. Several ideas for film cooling hole arrangement design are proposed, based on the pressure coefficient distribution, the streamline distribution, and the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) distribution, respectively. Four specified designs are built and compared. The results are obtained by numerical calculations with a well-validated turbulence model, the k–ω shear stress transport (SST) model. From this work, the designs based on the pressure coefficient distribution (designs 1 and 2) force the flow from the pressure side to the suction side (SS), especially in design 2, which adopts compound angle holes. The designs based on pressure coefficients have benefit in the cooling of the SS but give worse coolant coverage on the pressure side. In addition, designs 1 and 2 have little influence on the original pressure field. The design based on the streamline distributions (design 3) has larger coolant coverage on the endwall and provides good coolant coverage on the endwall and pressure side junction region. The design based on the HTC distribution provides large overall film cooling effectiveness on both the pressure side and the SS. More film cooling holes are placed on the high temperature regions, which is more effective in practice.


Author(s):  
N. Sundaram ◽  
K. A. Thole

The endwall of a first stage vane experiences high heat transfer and low adiabatic effectiveness levels because of high turbine operating temperatures and formation of leading edge vortices. These vortices lift the coolant off the endwall and pull the hot mainstream gases towards it. The region of focus for this study is the vane-endwall junction region near the stagnation location where cooling is very difficult. Two different film-cooling hole modifications, namely trenches and bumps, were evaluated to improve the cooling in the leading edge region. This study uses a large-scale turbine vane cascade with a single row of axial film-cooling holes at the leading edge of the vane endwall. Individual hole trenches and row trenches were placed along the complete row of film-cooling holes. Two-dimensional semi-elliptically shaped bumps were also evaluated by placing the bumps upstream and downstream of the film-cooling row. Tests were carried out for different trench depths and bump heights under varying blowing ratios. The results indicated that a row trench placed along the row of film-cooling holes showed a greater enhancement in adiabatic effectiveness levels when compared to individual hole trenches and bumps. All geometries considered produced an overall improvement to adiabatic effectiveness levels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas E. Holgate ◽  
Peter T. Ireland ◽  
Eduardo Romero

Abstract A novel airfoil leading edge film cooling design has been investigated, and its performance over conventional alternatives quantified. In conventional designs, the region near the geometric stagnation line is typically between the two most upstream film hole rows, which each emit coolant in the downstream direction on their respective sides of the airfoil. This region is thus relatively starved of coolant flow and adequate cooling is achieved inefficiently with a high density of holes expelling a large amount of coolant in order to dilute the nearby mainstream flow. Drawing inspiration from recent literature on reverse-blowing film cooling holes, several film cooling geometries have been designed and tested with a view to improving upon this situation by blowing coolant from each side of the airfoil geometric stagnation line to the other in a criss-cross pattern. This is found to be capable of producing much higher film effectiveness near the stagnation line than a series of more conventional designs which were also tested, without decreasing downstream film effectiveness. A method is also described for using experimental film effectiveness data to estimate two novel measures of the efficiency of leading edge film coolant usage: the proportion of the mainstream which interacts with leading edge film coolant and the proportion of coolant from the two most upstream film hole rows which reaches the stagnation line.


Author(s):  
J. J. Johnson ◽  
J. P. Clark ◽  
R. A. Anthony ◽  
M. K. Ooten ◽  
R. H. Ni ◽  
...  

Abstract An investigation of the experimental heat transfer and cooling effectiveness for a modern fully-cooled high-pressure turbine (HPT) inlet vane is presented. Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is conducted to simulate experiments using thin-film heat-flux gauges on full-scale 3D vanes at engine-representative conditions from Part 1 of this paper. Pressure side (PS) film cooling performance is compared for a baseline and optimized configuration, in which the latter was previously developed using genetic algorithm (GA) optimization. The optimized vane was iterated using hundreds of computationally efficient 3D Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) CFD simulations with a transpiration boundary condition to simulate film cooling. This combination of CFD and GAs determined surface-optimized cooling hole orientations and placement. Steady-state flat plate infrared thermography experiments that followed also determined the best cooling hole shapes to use on different sections of the vane pressure side surface. This ultimately generated the cooling design to be fabricated using realistic materials and experimentally tested in Part 1 and simulated using CHT CFD in the current work (Part 2). Here, spanwise and streamwise heat transfer distributions for the baseline and optimized cooling design are validated against experimental data. 3D CHT CFD results are then assessed at the same conditions, providing relevance and credence to the overall cooling design methods. Ultimately, surface-optimized film cooling designs can be used to reduce the adverse effects of sub-optimal heat distribution on critical high temperature engine parts, increasing the life of the part. Alternatively, such a design could lead to increases in engine efficiency since less cooling air is required from the mainstream per part.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhihong Gao ◽  
Je-Chin Han

The effect of film-hole geometry and angle on turbine blade leading edge film cooling has been experimentally studied using the pressure sensitive paint technique. The leading edge is modeled by a blunt body with a semicylinder and an after-body. Two film cooling designs are considered: a heavily film cooled leading edge featured with seven rows of film cooling holes and a moderately film cooled leading edge with three rows. For the seven-row design, the film holes are located at 0 deg (stagnation line), ±15 deg, ±30 deg, and ±45 deg on the model surface. For the three-row design, the film holes are located at 0 deg and ±30 deg. Four different film cooling hole configurations are applied to each design: radial angle cylindrical holes, compound angle cylindrical holes, radial angle shaped holes, and compound angle shaped holes. Testing was done in a low speed wind tunnel. The Reynolds number, based on mainstream velocity and diameter of the cylinder, is 100,900. The mainstream turbulence intensity is about 7% near of leading edge model and the turbulence integral length scale is about 1.5 cm. Five averaged blowing ratios are tested ranging from M=0.5 to M=2.0. The results show that the shaped holes provide higher film cooling effectiveness than the cylindrical holes, particularly at higher average blowing ratios. The radial angle holes give better effectiveness than the compound angle holes at M=1.0–2.0. The seven-row film cooling design results in much higher effectiveness on the leading edge region than the three-row design at the same average blowing ratio or same amount coolant flow.


Author(s):  
Elon J. Terrell ◽  
Brian D. Mouzon ◽  
David G. Bogard

Studies of film cooling performance for a turbine airfoil predominately focus on the reduction of heat transfer to the external surface of the airfoil. However, convective cooling of the airfoil due to coolant flow through the film cooling holes is potentially a major contributor to the overall cooling of the airfoil. This study used experimental and computational methods to examine the convective heat transfer to the coolant as it traveled through the film cooling holes of a gas turbine blade leading edge. Experimental measurements were conducted on a model gas turbine blade leading edge composed of alumina ceramic which approximately matched the Biot number of an engine airfoil leading edge. The temperature rise in the coolant from the entrance to the exit of the film cooling holes was measured using a series of internal thermocouples and an external traversing thermocouple probe. A CFD simulation of the model of the leading edge was also done in order to facilitate the processing of the experimental data and provide a comparison for the experimental coolant hole heat transfer. Without impingement cooling, the coolant hole heat transfer was found to account for 50 to 80 percent of the airfoil internal cooling, i.e. the dominating cooling mechanism.


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