Pedestal and Endwall Contribution in Heat Transfer in Thin Wedge Shaped Trailing Edge
Short pin fins (pedestals) and long ribs (enlarged pedestals) are usually used in trailing edge cooling of turbine airfoils. To better reproduce the geometry of such cooling systems, test section of this experimental study is a wedge duct with inserts, to take into account effects of accelerating flow. A complete investigation of the system needs a separate evaluation of the heat transfer coefficients (HTC) for the pedestal surface and for the free endwall surface. In the present work an innovative technique made of different methods for these two different regions is presented, so cooling performances of each are evaluated. Thermochromic liquid crystal (TLC) transient technique is used to measure detailed heat transfer coefficients only on the endwall surface: a typical transparent (Plexiglas®) test article is used. Aluminum pedestals, employing a procedure based on a finite elements code, allow to measure the average heat transfer coefficient on the insert surface. To investigate the effects on transient technique of high conductive components, a comparison with Plexiglas inserts has been performed. Results show an underestimation of HTC with TLC transient technique only for aluminum long ribs at low Reynolds number values. Nevertheless the results seem to agree with other authors both for the endwall surface and for the entire cooling system.