A Novel Technique for Assessing Turbine Cooling System Performance

Author(s):  
S. Luque ◽  
T. Povey

A new experimental technique for the accurate measurement of steady-state metal temperature surface distributions of modern heavily film-cooled turbine vanes has been developed and is described in this paper. The technique is analogous to the thermal paint test, but has been designed for fundamental research. The experimental facility consists of an annular sector cascade of HP turbine vanes from a current production engine. Flow conditioning is achieved by using an annular sector of deswirl vanes downstream of the test section, being both connected by a three-dimensionally contoured duct. As a result, a transonic and periodic flow, highly representative of the engine aerodynamic field, is established: inlet turbulence levels, mainstream Mach and Reynolds numbers, and coolant-to-mainstream total pressure ratio are matched. Since the fully three-dimensional NGV geometry is used, the correct radial pressure gradient and secondary flow development are simulated and the cooling flow redistribution is engine-realistic. To allow heat transfer measurements to be performed, a mainstream-to-coolant temperature difference (up to 33.5 °C) is generated by using two steel-wire mesh heaters, operated in series. NGV surface metal temperatures are measured (between 20 and 40 °C) by wide-band thermochromic liquid crystals. These are calibrated in situ and on a per-pixel basis against vane surface thermocouples, in a heating process that spans the entire colour play and during which the turbine vanes can be assumed to slowly follow a succession of isothermal states. Experimental surface distributions of metal effectiveness are presented in this paper. By employing resin vanes of the same geometry and cooling configuration (to implement adiabatic wall thermal boundary conditions) and the transient liquid crystal technique, surface distributions of external heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness will be acquired. By combining these measurements with those from the metal vanes, the results can be scaled to engine conditions with a good level of accuracy.

2010 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Luque ◽  
T. Povey

A new experimental technique for the accurate measurement of steady-state metal temperature surface distributions of modern heavily film-cooled turbine vanes has been developed and is described in this paper. The technique is analogous to the thermal paint test but has been designed for fundamental research. The experimental facility consists of an annular sector cascade of high pressure (HP) turbine vanes from a current production engine. Flow conditioning is achieved by using an annular sector of deswirl vanes downstream of the test section, being both connected by a three-dimensionally contoured duct. As a result, a transonic and periodic flow, highly representative of the engine aerodynamic field, is established: Inlet turbulence levels, mainstream Mach and Reynolds numbers, and coolant-to-mainstream total pressure ratio are matched. Since the fully three-dimensional nozzle guide vane (NGV) geometry is used, the correct radial pressure gradient and secondary flow development are simulated and the cooling flow redistribution is engine-realistic. To allow heat transfer measurements to be performed, a mainstream-to-coolant temperature difference (up to 33.5°C) is generated by using two steel-wire mesh heaters, operated in series. NGV surface metal temperatures are measured (between 20°C and 40°C) by wide-band thermochromic liquid crystals. These are calibrated in situ and on a per-pixel basis against vane surface thermocouples, in a heating process that spans the entire color play and during which the turbine vanes can be assumed to slowly follow a succession of isothermal states. Experimental surface distributions of overall cooling effectiveness are presented in this paper. By employing resin vanes of the same geometry and cooling configuration (to implement adiabatic wall thermal boundary conditions) and the transient liquid crystal technique, surface distributions of external heat transfer coefficient and film cooling effectiveness can be acquired. By combining these measurements with those from the metal vanes, the results can be scaled to engine conditions with a good level of accuracy.


1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Wadia ◽  
D. A. Nealy

Leading edge showerhead cooling designs represent an important feature of certain classes of high-temperature turbine airfoils. This paper outlines a methodology for predicting the surface temperatures of showerhead designs with spanwise injection through an array of discrete holes. The paper describes a series of experiments and analyses on scaled cylinder models with injection through holes inclined at 20, 30, 45, and 90 deg for typical radial and circumferential spacing-to-diameter ratios of 10 and 4, respectively. The experiments were conducted in a wind tunnel on several stainless steel test specimens in which flow and heat transfer parameters were measured over the simulated airfoil leading edge surfaces. Based on the experiments, an engineering design model is proposed that treats the gas-to-surface heat transfer coefficient with film cooling in a manner suggested by a recent Purdue–NASA investigation and includes the important contribution of upstream (coolant inlet face) heat transfer. The experiments suggest that the averaged film cooling effectiveness in the showerhead region is primarily influenced by the inclination of the injection holes. The effectiveness parameter is not strongly affected by variations in coolant-to-gas stream pressure ratio, free-stream Mach number, gas-to-coolant temperature ratio, and gas stream Reynolds number. The model is employed to determine (inferentially) the average Stanton number reduction parameter for a series of pressure ratios varying from 1.004 to 1.3, Mach numbers ranging from 0.1 to 0.2, temperature ratios between 1.6 and 2.0, and Reynolds numbers ranging from 3.5×104 to 9.0×104.


2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Luque ◽  
J. Batstone ◽  
D. R. H. Gillespie ◽  
T. Povey ◽  
E. Romero

A full thermal experimental assessment of a novel dendritic cooling scheme for high-pressure turbine vanes has been conducted and is presented in this paper, including a comparison to the current state-of-the-art cooling arrangement for these components. The dendritic cooling system consists of cooling holes with multiple internal branches that enhance internal heat transfer and reduce the blowing ratio at hole exit. Three sets of measurements are presented, which describe, first, the local internal heat transfer coefficient of these structures and, secondly, the cooling flow capacity requirements and overall cooling effectiveness of a highly engine-representative dendritic geometry. Full-coverage surface maps of overall cooling effectiveness were acquired for both dendritic and baseline vanes in the Annular Sector Heat Transfer Facility, where scaled near-engine conditions of Mach number, Reynolds number, inlet turbulence intensity, and coolant-to-mainstream pressure ratio (or momentum flux ratio) are achieved. Engine hardware was used, with laser-sintered metal counterparts for the novel cooling geometry (their detailed configuration, design, and manufacture are discussed). The dendritic system will be shown to offer improved overall cooling effectiveness at a reduced cooling mass flow rate due to a more uniform film cooling effectiveness, a decreased tendency for films to lift off in regions of low external cross flow, improved through-wall heat transfer and internal cooling efficiency, increased internal wetted surface area of the cooling holes, and the enhanced turbulence induced in them.


Author(s):  
S. Luque ◽  
J. Batstone ◽  
D. R. H. Gillespie ◽  
T. Povey ◽  
E. Romero

A full thermal experimental assessment of a novel dendritic cooling scheme for high-pressure turbine vanes has been conducted and is presented in this paper, including comparisons to the conventional cooling arrangement for these components. The dendritic cooling system consists of cooling holes with multiple internal branches which enhance internal heat transfer and reduce the blowing ratio at hole exit. Three sets of measurements are presented, which describe, first, the local internal heat transfer coefficient of these structures, and, secondly, the cooling flow capacity requirements and overall cooling effectiveness of a highly engine-representative dendritic geometry. Full-coverage surface maps of overall cooling effectiveness were acquired for both dendritic and baseline vanes in the Annular Sector Heat Transfer Facility, where scaled near-engine conditions of Mach number, Reynolds number, inlet turbulence intensity and coolant-to-mainstream pressure ratio (or momentum flux ratio) are achieved. Engine hardware was used, with laser-sintered metal counterparts for the novel cooling geometry (their detailed configuration, design, and manufacture are discussed). The dendritic system will be shown to offer improved overall cooling effectiveness at a reduced cooling mass flow rate due to a more uniform film cooling effectiveness, a decreased tendency for films to lift off in regions of low external cross flow, improved through-wall heat transfer and internal cooling efficiency, increased internal wetted surface area of the cooling holes, and the enhanced turbulence induced in them.


Author(s):  
Shoji Takada ◽  
Shunki Yanagi ◽  
Kazuhiko Iigaki ◽  
Masanori Shinohara ◽  
Daisuke Tochio ◽  
...  

HTTR is a helium gas cooled graphite-moderated HTGR with the rated power 30 MWt and the maximum reactor outlet coolant temperature 950°C. The vessel cooling system (VCS), which is composed of thermal reflector plates, cooling panel composed of fins connected between adjacent water cooling tubes, removes decay heat from reactor core by heat transfer of thermal radiation, conduction and natural convection in case of loss of forced cooling (LOFC). The metallic supports are embedded in the biological shielding concrete to support the fins of VCS. To verify the inherent safety features of HTGR, the LOFC test is planned by using HTTR with the VCS inactive from an initial reactor power of 9 MWt under the condition of LOFC while the reactor shut-down system disabled. In this test, the temperature distribution in the biological shielding concrete is prospected locally higher around the support because of thermal conduction in the support. A 2-dimensional symmetrical model was improved to simulate the heat transfer to the concrete through the VCS support in addition to the heat transfer thermal radiation and natural convection. The model simulated the water cooling tubes setting horizontally at the same pitch with actual configuration. The numerical results were verified in comparison with the measured data acquired from the test, in which the RPV was heated up to around 110 °C without nuclear heating with the VCS inactive, to show that the temperature is locally high but kept sufficiently low around the support in the concrete due to sufficient thermal conductivity to the cold temperature region.


Author(s):  
Cuong Q. Nguyen ◽  
Perry L. Johnson ◽  
Bryan C. Bernier ◽  
Son H. Ho ◽  
Jayanta S. Kapat

Data from conical-shaped film cooling holes is extremely sparse in open literature, especially the cooling uniformity characteristic, an important criterion for evaluating any film cooling design. The authors will compare the performance of conical-shaped holes to cylindrical-shaped holes. Cylindrical-shaped holes are often considered a baseline in terms of film cooling effectiveness and cooling uniformity coefficient. The authors will study two coupons with conical-shaped holes, which have 3° and 6° diffusion angles, named CON3 and CON6 respectively. A conjugate heat transfer computational fluid dynamics model and an experimental wind tunnel will be used to study these coupons. The three configurations: cylindrical baseline, CON3, and CON6, have a single row of holes with an inlet metering diameter of 3mm, length-to-nominal diameter of 4.3, and an injection angle of 30°. In this study, the authors will also take into account the heat transfer into the coolant flow from the coolant channel. In other words, coolant temperature at the exit of the coolant hole will be different than that measured at the inlet, and the conjugate heat transfer model will be used to correct for this difference. For the numerical model, the realizable k-ε turbulent model will be applied with a second order of discretization and enhanced wall treatment to provide the highest accuracy available. Grid independent studies for both cylindrical-shaped film cooling holes and conical-shaped holes will be performed and the results will be compared to data in open literature as well as in-house experimental data. Results show that conical-shaped holes considerably outperform cylindrical-shaped holes in film cooling effectiveness at all blowing ratios. In terms of cooling uniformity, conical-shaped holes perform better than cylindrical-shaped holes for low and mid-range blowing ratios, but not at higher levels.


Author(s):  
Sumanta Acharya ◽  
Huitao Yang ◽  
Srinath V. Ekkad ◽  
Chander Prakash ◽  
Ron Bunker

Numerical simulations of flow and heat transfer are presented for a GE-E3 turbine blade with a film-cooled tip. Results are presented for both a flat tip and a squealer tip. Straight-through coolant holes are considered, and the calculation domain includes the flow development in the coolant delivery tubes. Results are presented with three different tip gaps representing 1%, 1.5% and 2.5% of blade span, a blowing ratio (ratio of coolant-jet-exit velocity to average passage flow velocity) of 1, and an inlet turbulence intensity of 6.1%. On a flat tip, film coolant injection is shown to lower the local pressure ratio and alters the nature of the leakage vortex. High film cooling effectiveness and low heat transfer coefficients are obtained along the coolant trajectory; these values increase slightly with increasing tip clearances. For a squealer tip, the flow inside the squealer cavity exhibits streamwise directed flow, which alters the trajectory of the coolant jets and reduces their effectiveness.


Author(s):  
G. E. Andrews ◽  
M. L. Gupta ◽  
M. C. Mkpadi

The development of a test facility for investigating full coverage discrete hole wall cooling for gas turbine combustion chamber wall cooling is described. A low temperature test condition of 750K mainstream temperature and 300K coolant temperature was used to investigate the influence of coolant flow rate at a constant cross flow Mach number. Practical combustion conditions of 2100K combustor temperature and 700K coolant temperature are investigated to establish the validity of applying the low temperature results to practical conditions. For both situations a heat balance programme, taking into account the heat transfer within the wall was used to compute the film heat transfer coefficients. The mixing of the coolant air with the mainstream gases was studied through boundary layer temperature and CO2 profiles. It was shown that entrainment of hot flame gases between the injection holes resulted in a very low ‘adiabatic’ film cooling effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Hussein Maghrabie ◽  
Hamouda Mousa

Abstract Recent progress in nanotechnology has lead to a revolution in the automotive cooling system. In the present work, enhancement of car radiator thermal performance was investigated using different nanofluids named SiO2/water, ZnO/water nanofluids as cooling mediums. The present study mainly aims to investigate the impact of (5 wt.%) from SiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed in water based on car radiator heat transfer with spherical and hexagonal morphology, respectively. The experiments were performed in two working conditions of the nanofluids i.e coolant temperature and volume flow rate, moreover the present results were compared with the previous studies. The experimental working conditions were set at coolant inlet temperature (tc,i) ranged from 45 oC to 80 oC and the coolant volume flow rate (V) ranged from 3.5 lit/min to 6.5 lit/min. The experimental results show that the hexagonal ZnO/water nanofluid was superior towards enhancement of car radiator thermal performance comparing to that of SiO2 NPs. Additionally, at 6.5 lit/min and 45 °C, the enhancements of car radiator effectiveness due to using SiO2 and ZnO based water nanofluids and compared with that for the based water were 13.9% and 16%, respectively. The present study used the multiple regression analysis (MRA) and hence empirical correlations are suggested to estimate the overall heat transfer coefficient (U) for all coolants as functions of volume flow rate (V) and the coolant inlet temperature (tc,i) with a maximum STDEV of ± 1.85%.


Author(s):  
G. Barigozzi ◽  
A. Perdichizzi ◽  
M. Henze ◽  
J. Krueckels

In the present paper, aerodynamic and thermal performance of a linear nozzle vane cascade is fully assessed. Tests have been carried out with and without platform cooling, with coolant ejected through a slot located upstream of the leading edge. Cooling air is also ejected through a row of cylindrical holes located upstream of the slot, simulating a combustor cooling system. The cascade was tested at a high inlet turbulence intensity level (Tu1 = 9%) and at variable cooling injection conditions. Aero-thermal characterization of vane platform was obtained through 5-hole probe measurements, oil & dye surface flow visualizations, measurements of end wall adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient. The platform cooling scheme operated at nominal injection rate was shown to effectively reduce the heat load over most of the platform surface, with only a small increase in secondary flows loss. Combustor holes injection resulted beneficial in controlling momentum of coolant approaching the cascade, thus limiting the secondary flows growth and resulting in an increase of the coolant film length inside of the passage.


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