Systematic Experimental and Numerical Investigations on the Aerothermodynamics of a Film Cooled Turbine Cascade With Variation of the Cooling Hole Shape: Part II — Numerical Approach

Author(s):  
Thomas Hildebrandt ◽  
Wolfgang Ganzert ◽  
Leonhard Fottner

An extensive numerical study was accomplished in order to accompany an experimental research program. The present work is focussed on the influence of the shape and the inclination of film cooling holes on the aerodynamic of the turbine cooling flow. Four different cooling hole geometries located on the suction side of a large scale turbine cascade were modelled and numerically simulated over the entire range of practically applicable blowing ratios. The thermodynamic conditions chosen, were in order to simulate comparable engine conditions. Having computer limitations in mind, former simulations had to cope with either of two limitations. Meshing the entire domain led to an insufficient grid resolution in the vicinity of the ejection area, omitting valuable detailed flow information. In contrast, the so-called local approach (Vogel, 1996) overcame this problem by isolating an area close to the ejection zone, hence leading to a proper numerical resolution. A major drawback of this method is the required assumption for a limiting streamsurface, which often led to an inaccurate pressure distribution on the blade surface. Therefore, a new numerical technique in applying a 3D Navier-Stokes code on cooling flow problems — the global approach — was used, overcoming the restrictions of the above mentioned approaches. In the frame of these numerical investigations the commercially available CFD-package FINE™/Turbo by NUMECA was used. The CFD-package incorporates a modern flow solver and the capability to perform multi-species computations, which was utilised herein. A second species (tracer gas) with the properties of air, was introduced, ejecting from the cooling plenum, hence strongly facilitating the visual detection of the emerging and dispersing cooling flow. The numerical resolution reached well over one million grid points. The distributions of the tracer concentration and the oil and dye visualisations clearly reveal a strong dependency between the cooling hole shape and the efficiency of the film cooling. A considerable increase in the latter could be achieved, if non-cylindrical cooling hole geometries were used. The CFD simulations are in a very good agreement with the measurements (Ganzert, Hildebrandt and Fottner, 2000), clearly uncoveringvery detailed flow phenomena, which could also be detected in the experimental results. It was found out that the shape and the inclination angle of the cooling holes are of paramount importance to the distributing pattern of the cooling air and hence to the cooling efficiency.

Author(s):  
Eiji Sakai ◽  
Toshihiko Takahashi

To understand film cooling flow fields on a gas turbine blade, this paper reports a series of large-eddy simulations of an inclined round jet issuing into a crossflow. Simulations were performed at constant momentum ratio conditions, IR = 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and Reynolds number, Re = 15,300, based on the crossflow velocity and the film cooling hole diameter. Density ratio, DR, is changed from 1.0 to 2.0, and effects of the density ratio on vortical structures around the film cooling hole exit and film cooling effectiveness are investigated. The results showed that the vortical structure of the ejected jet drastically changes with varying density ratio. When the density ratio is comparatively small, hairpin vortices are formed downstream of the hole exit. On the contrary, when the density ratio is comparatively high, the formation of the hairpin vortices is suppressed and jet shear layer vortices are formed on side edges of the cooling jet. The jet shear layer vortices conveys the coolant air to the wall surface. As a result, higher film cooling effectiveness is obtained at comparatively high density ratio conditions compared to comparatively low density ratio conditions. Additional simulations were performed to discuss a possibility of an improvement in the film cooling effectiveness by controlling the formation of the jet shear layer vortices.


Author(s):  
S. Friedrichs ◽  
H. P. Hodson ◽  
W. N. Dawes

The endwall film-cooling cooling configuration investigated by Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997) had in principle sufficient cooling flow for the endwall, but in practice, the redistribution of this coolant by secondary flows left large endwall areas uncooled. This paper describes the attempt to improve upon this datum cooling configuration by redistributing the available coolant to provide a better coolant coverage on the endwall surface, whilst keeping the associated aerodynamic losses small. The design of the new, improved cooling configuration was based on the understanding of endwall film-cooling described by Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997). Computational fluid dynamics were used to predict the basic flow and pressure field without coolant ejection. Using this as a basis, the above described understanding was used to place cooling holes so that they would provide the necessary cooling coverage at minimal aerodynamic penalty. The simple analytical modelling developed in Friedrichs et al. (1997) was then used to check that the coolant consumption and the increase in aerodynamic loss lay within the limits of the design goal. The improved cooling configuration was tested experimentally in a large scale, low speed linear cascade. An analysis of the results shows that the redesign of the cooling configuration has been successful in achieving an improved coolant coverage with lower aerodynamic losses, whilst using the same amount of coolant as in the datum cooling configuration. The improved cooling configuration has reconfirmed conclusions from Friedrichs et al. (1996, 1997); firstly, coolant ejection downstream of the three-dimensional separation lines on the endwall does not change the secondary flow structures; secondly, placement of holes in regions of high static pressure helps reduce the aerodynamic penalties of platform coolant ejection; finally, taking account of secondary flow can improve the design of endwall film-cooling configurations.


Author(s):  
Siavash Khajehhasani ◽  
Bassam Jubran

A numerical study on the effects of sister holes locations on film cooling performance is presented. This includes the change of the location of the individual discrete sister holes in the streamwise and spanwise directions, where each one of these directions includes 9 different locations, The simulations are performed using three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes analysis with the realizable k–ε model combined with the standard wall function. The variation of the sister holes in the streamwise direction provides similar film cooling performance as the base case for both blowing ratios of 0.5 and 1. On the other hand, the spanwise variation of the sister holes’ location has a more prominent effect on the effectiveness. In some cases, as a result of the anti-vortices generated from the sister holes and the repositioning of the sister holes in the spanwise direction, the jet lift-off effect notably decreases and more volume of coolant is distributed in the spanwise direction.


Author(s):  
Todd A. Oliver ◽  
Joshua B. Anderson ◽  
David G. Bogard ◽  
Robert D. Moser ◽  
Gregory Laskowski

Results of a recent joint experimental and computational investigation of the flow through a plenum-fed 7-7-7 shaped film cooling hole are presented. In particular, we compare the measured adiabatic effectiveness and mean temperature against implicit large eddy simulation (iLES) for blowing ratio approximately 2, density ratio 1.6, and Reynolds number 6000. The results overall show reasonable agreement between the iLES and the experimental results for the adiabatic effectiveness and gross features of the mean temperature field. Notable discrepancies include the centerline adiabatic effectiveness near the hole, where the iLES under-predicts the measurements by Δη ≈ 0.05, and the near-wall temperature, where the simulation results show features not present in the measurements. After showing this comparison, the iLES results are used to examine features that were not measured in the experiments, including the in-hole flow and the dominant fluxes in the mean internal energy equation downstream of the hole. Key findings include that the flow near the entrance to the hole is highly turbulent and that there is a large region of backflow near the exit of the hole. Further, the well-known counter-rotating vortex pair downstream of the hole is observed. Finally, the typical gradient diffusion hypothesis for the Reynolds heat flux is evaluated and found to be incorrect.


Author(s):  
Wolfgang Ganzert ◽  
Leonhard Fottner

As a part of a more complex research program systematic isothermal investigations on the aerodynamics and heat transfer of a large scale turbine cascade with suction side film cooling were carried out. The film cooling through a row of holes at forty percent chord length on the suction side was supplied by a large plenum chamber. Two injection geometries were hitherto tested and evaluated: cylindrical holes with thirty respectively fifty degrees axial inclination angle and no lateral inclination. Typical engine conditions for the Mach and Reynolds number as well as the inlet turbulence level were maintained. The aerodynamic studies are based on steady state pressure measurements. The static profile pressure distribution together with oil-and-dye flow visualisation gives information on the surface flow conditions and boundary layer development especially in the near hole region. The measured data also comprise local and integral total pressure loss coefficients obtained by pressure probe traversing at mid span downstream of the cascade. The heat transfer examination set-up is based on the steady state liquid crystal technique using a compound of a thermochromic sheet combined with an electrical surface heating layer attached on an adiabatic blade corpus. Two dimensional pseudo colour plots are used for the documentation of the local surface heat transfer coefficient distribution and hot spot estimation. Laterally averaged and statistically analysed data of the surface heat transfer is applied in overall heat transfer examinations. All this data is used for a joint aerodynamic flow and surface heat transfer optimisation of a blowing configuration in suction side film cooled turbine cascade. The most important conclusions can be summarised as follows: Aiming at an optimised design of cylindrical film cooling configurations the axial inclination of the holes should be kept low thus diminishing the suction peak value at the cooling position in the profile pressure distribution and decreasing the mainstream deceleration area upstream of the jets. This also leads to reduced total pressure losses. Through the high influence of the blowing on the aerodynamics the flow in the near hole mixing region is highly three-dimensional. This shows significant effects in the two-dimensional surface distribution and the laterally averaged heat transfer coefficient. Oil-and-dye pictures confirm the observations qualitatively.


Author(s):  
Rui Zhu ◽  
Gongnan Xie ◽  
Terrence W. Simon

Secondary holes to a main film cooling hole are used to improve film cooling performance by creating anti-kidney vortices. The effects of injection angle of the secondary holes on both film cooling effectiveness and surrounding thermal and flow fields are investigated in this numerical study. Two kinds of primary hole shapes are adopted. One is a cylindrical hole, the other is a horn-shaped hole which is designed from a cylindrical hole by expanding the hole in the transverse direction to double the hole size at the exit. Two smaller cylindrical holes, the secondary holes, are located symmetrically about the centerline and downstream of the primary hole. Three compound injection angles (α = 30°, 45° and 60°, β = 30°) of the secondary holes are analyzed while the injection angle of the primary hole is kept at 45°. Cases with various blowing ratios are computed. It is shown from the simulation that cooling effectiveness of secondary holes with a horn-shaped primary hole is better than that with a cylindrical primary hole, especially at high blowing ratios. With a cylindrical primary hole, increasing inclination angle of the secondary holes provides better cooling effectiveness because the anti-kidney vortices created by shallow secondary holes cannot counteract the kidney vortex pairs adequately, enhancing mixing of main flow and coolant. For secondary holes with a horn-shaped primary hole, large secondary hole inclination angles provide better cooling performance at low blowing ratios; but, at high blowing ratios, secondary holes with small inclination angles are more effective, as the film coverage becomes wider in the downstream area.


Author(s):  
Shubham Agarwal ◽  
Laurent Gicquel ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Nicolas Odier ◽  
Jérôme Dombard

Abstract Film cooling is a common technique to manage turbine vane and blade thermal environment. Optimizing its cooling efficiency is furthermore an active research topic which goes in hand with a strong knowledge of the flow associated with a cooling hole. The following paper aims at developing deeper understanding of the flow physics associated with a standard cooling hole and helping guide future cooling optimization strategies. For this purpose, Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of the 7-7-7 fan-shaped cooling hole [1] is performed and the flow inside the cooling hole is studied and discussed. Use of mathematical techniques such as the Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT) and Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) is done to quantitatively access the flow modal structure inside the hole based on the LES unsteady predictions. Using these techniques, distinct vortex features inside the cooling hole are captured. These features mainly coincide with the roll-up of the internal shear layer formed at the interface of the separation region at the hole inlet. The topology of these vortex features is discussed in detail and it is also shown how the expansion of the cross-section in case of shaped holes aids in breaking down these vortices. Indeed upon escaping, these large scale features are known to not be always beneficial to film cooling effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Moon-Young Cho ◽  
Hyeon-Seok Seo ◽  
Youn-Jea Kim

In this study, the effect of a row of double-jet film-cooling hole configurations on the thermal-flow characteristics of gas turbine blades was examined. To investigate the effect of the interference of anti-kidney vortices, the ratios of the pitch distance and hole diameter (P/d=5, 6.25, 8.333) were considered with two different compound angles (λ=0°, 4°). The film cooling performance and the generated losses were studied. Then, the relevant mechanisms were identified and explained. A numerical study was performed using ANSYS CFX 14.5 with the shear stress transport (SST) turbulent model. The blowing ratio was kept at a constant value of M=1.5. The film cooling effectiveness and temperature distribution are graphically depicted with various geometrical configurations.


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