Effects of Deposits on Film Cooling of a Vane Endwall Along the Pressure Side

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

Film cooling is influenced by surface roughness and depositions that occur from contaminants present in the hot gas path, whether that film cooling occurs on the vane itself or on the endwalls associated with the vanes. Secondary flows in the endwall region also affect the film-cooling performance along the endwall. An experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of surface deposition on film cooling along the pressure side of a first-stage turbine vane endwall. A large-scale wind tunnel with a turbine vane cascade was used to perform the experiments. The vane endwall was cooled by an array of film-cooling holes along the pressure side of the airfoil. Deposits having a semielliptical shape were placed along the pressure side to simulate individual row and multiple row depositions. Results indicated that the deposits lowered the average adiabatic effectiveness levels downstream of the film-cooling rows by deflecting the coolant jets toward the vane endwall junction on the pressure side. Results also indicated that there was a steady decrease in adiabatic effectiveness levels with a sequential increase in the number of rows with the deposits.

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

Film-cooling is influenced by surface roughness and depositions that occur from contaminants present in the hot gas path, whether that film-cooling occurs on the vane itself or on the endwalls associated with the vanes. Secondary flows in the endwall region also affect the film-cooling performance along the endwall. An experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of surface deposition on film-cooling along the pressure side of a first-stage turbine vane endwall. A large-scale wind tunnel with a turbine vane cascade was used to perform the experiments. The vane endwall was cooled by an array of film-cooling holes along the pressure side of the airfoil. Deposits having a semi-elliptical shape were placed along the pressure side to simulate individual row and multiple row depositions. Results indicated that the deposits lowered the average adiabatic effectiveness levels downstream of the film-cooling rows by deflecting the coolant jets towards the vane endwall junction on the pressure side. Results also indicated that there was a steady decrease in adiabatic effectiveness with a sequential increase in the number of rows with the deposits.


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):  
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.


Author(s):  
J. Michael Cutbirth ◽  
David G. Bogard

This study focused on the film cooling performance on the pressure side of a turbine vane subjected to high mainstream turbulence levels, with and without showerhead blowing. Whereas previous studies have measured the adiabatic effectiveness and heat transfer at the surface of the airfoil, the goal of this study was to examine the flow and thermal fields above the surface. These measurements included flow visualization, thermal profiles, and laser Doppler velocimetry. For comparison, adiabatic effectiveness was also measured. A mainstream turbulence level of Tu∞ = 20%, with integral length scale of seven hole diameters, was used. Particularly insightful is the discovery that the large scale high mainstream turbulence causes a lateral oscillation of coolant jet resulting in a much wider time average distribution of coolant. Even with high mainstream turbulence, showerhead blowing was found to still cause a significantly increased dispersion of the pressure side coolant jets.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
pp. 678-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Michael Cutbirth ◽  
David G. Bogard

This study focused on the film cooling performance on the pressure side of a turbine vane subjected to high mainstream turbulence levels, with and without showerhead blowing. Whereas previous studies have measured the adiabatic effectiveness and heat transfer at the surface of the airfoil, the goal of this study was to examine the flow and thermal fields above the surface. These measurements included flow visualization, thermal profiles, and laser Doppler velocimetry. For comparison, adiabatic effectiveness was also measured. A mainstream turbulence level of Tu∞=20%, with integral length scale of seven hole diameters, was used. Particularly insightful is the discovery that the large-scale high mainstream turbulence causes a lateral oscillation of coolant jet resulting in a much wider time average distribution of coolant. Even with high mainstream turbulence, showerhead blowing was found to still cause a significantly increased dispersion of the pressure side coolant jets.


Author(s):  
Joshua B. Anderson ◽  
James R. Winka ◽  
David G. Bogard ◽  
Michael E. Crawford

The leading edge of a turbine vane is subject to some of the highest temperature loading within an engine, and an accurate understanding of leading edge film coolant behavior is essential for modern engine design. Although there have been many investigations of the adiabatic effectiveness for showerhead film cooling of a vane leading edge region, there have been no previous studies in which individual rows of the showerhead were tested with the explicit intent of validating superposition models. For the current investigation, a series of adiabatic effectiveness experiments were performed with a five-row and three-row showerhead. The experiments were repeated separately with each individual row of holes active. This allowed evaluation of superposition methods on both the suction side of the vane, which was moderately convex, and the pressure side of the vane, which was mildly concave. Superposition was found to accurately predict performance on the suction side of the vane at lower momentum flux ratios, but not at higher momentum flux ratios. On the pressure side of the vane the superposition predictions were consistently lower than measured values, with significant errors occurring at the higher momentum flux ratios. Reasons for the under-prediction by superposition analysis are presented.


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):  
Jason E. Albert ◽  
David G. Bogard

Film cooling performance is typically quantified by separating the external convective heat transfer from the other components of the conjugate heat transfer that occurs in turbine airfoils. However, it is also valuable to assess the conjugate heat transfer in terms of the overall cooling effectiveness, which is a parameter of importance to airfoil designers. In the current study, adiabatic film effectiveness and overall cooling effectiveness values were measured for the pressure side of a simplified turbine vane model with three rows of showerhead cooling at the leading edge and one row of body film cooling holes on the pressure side. This was done by utilizing two geometrically identical models made from different materials. Adiabatic film effectiveness was measured using a very low thermal conductivity material, and the overall cooling effectiveness was measured using a material with a higher thermal conductivity selected such that the Biot number of the model matched that of a turbine vane at engine conditions. The theoretical basis for this matched-Biot number modeling technique is discussed in some detail. Additionally, two designs of pressure side body film cooling holes were considered in this study: a standard design of straight, cylindrical holes and an advanced design of “trenched” cooling holes in which the hole exits were situated in a recessed, transverse trench. This study was performed using engine representative flow conditions, including a coolant-to-mainstream density ratio of DR = 1.4 and a mainstream turbulence intensity of Tu = 20%. The results of this study show that adiabatic film and overall cooling effectiveness increase with blowing ratio for the showerhead and pressure side trenched holes. Performance decreases with blowing ratio for the standard holes due to coolant jet separation from the surface. Both body film designs have similar performance at a lower blowing ratio when the standard hole coolant jets remain attached. Far downstream of the cooling holes both designs perform similarly because film effectiveness decays more rapidly for the trenched holes.


Author(s):  
Jason E. Albert ◽  
David G. Bogard

An important issue in the use of coal- or biomass-derived synthetic gaseous (syngas) fuels is the deposition of contaminants on film cooled turbine surfaces, which alter cooling and aerodynamic performance and increase material degradation. The current study applied a new experimental technique that simulated the key physical aspects of contaminant deposition on a film cooled turbine vane. The depositing contaminants were modeled in a wind tunnel facility with a spray of molten wax droplets of a size range that matched the Stokes number of the contaminant particles in engine conditions. Most experiments were performed using a vane model with a thermal conductivity selected such that the model had the same Biot number of an actual engine airfoil, resulting in a cooler surface temperature. Some experiments were performed using an approximately adiabatic model for comparison. The film cooling design consisted of three rows of showerhead cooling at the leading edge and one row of body film cooling holes on the pressure side. Two designs of pressure side body film cooling holes were considered: a standard design of straight, cylindrical holes and an advanced design of “trenched” cooling holes in which the hole exits were situated in a recessed, transverse trench. The results showed thin deposits formed in the trench, with the thickest deposits on its downstream wall between coolant jets. Adiabatic film effectiveness levels were essentially unchanged by the presence of deposits for either film configuration. Deposit formation was strongly influenced by the model surface temperature with cooler surfaces inhibiting deposition. There was evidence of a threshold surface temperature above which deposits became significantly thicker.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Christophel ◽  
K. A. Thole ◽  
F. J. Cunha

Durability of turbine blade tips has been and continues to be challenging, particularly since increasing turbine inlet temperatures is the driver for improving turbine engine performance. As a result, cooling methods along the blade tip are crucial. Film-cooling is one typically used cooling method whereby coolant is supplied through holes placed along the pressure side of a blade. The subject of this paper is to evaluate the adiabatic effectiveness levels that occur on the blade tip through blowing coolant from holes placed near the tip of a blade along the pressure side. A range of blowing ratios was studied whereby coolant was injected from holes placed along the pressure side tip of a large-scale blade model. Also present were dirt purge holes on the blade tip, which is part of a commonly used blade design to expel any large particles present in the coolant stream. Experiments were conducted in a linear cascade with a scaled-up turbine blade whereby the Reynolds number of the engine was matched. This paper, which is Part 1 of a two part series, compares adiabatic effectiveness levels measured along a blade tip, while Part 2 combines measured heat transfer coefficients with the adiabatic effectiveness levels to assess the overall cooling benefit of pressure side blowing near a blade tip. The results show much better cooling can be achieved for a small tip gap compared with a large tip gap with different flow phenomena occurring for each tip gap setting.


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