On the Reliability of RANS Turbulence Models for Endwall Cooling Prediction

Author(s):  
Xueying Li ◽  
Jing Ren ◽  
Hongde Jiang

The large scale coherent structures in the flow field of film cooling makes it difficult for the modeling of film cooling flow and heat transfer. The interaction between the complex secondary flows near the endwall and the film cooling jets makes it even worse. A typical flat vane endwall with/without film cooling is investigated experimentally and numerically. The aerodynamic and heat transfer of the endwall is measured. Adiabatic film cooling effectiveness is measured using PSP technique and conjugate overall cooling effectiveness is measured by TSP technique for different conditions. The coolant to mainstream massflow ratio (MFR) is varied from 0.5% to 1.5% in the experiment. Several RANS turbulence models are tested in the prediction of endwall aerodynamics, heat transfer, film cooling and conjugate heat transfer. Detailed analyses of the computational results are performed. The algebraic anisotropic turbulence model proposed previously aiming at a more accurate modeling of the Reynolds stress and turbulent scalar flux is employed in the study. The SST with transition model shows advantage in the prediction of endwall flow field and film cooling with high blowing ratios which is detached from the surface. The Realizable k-epsilon model is more suitable for predicting attached film cooling and conjugate heat transfer of the endwall. The algebraic anisotropic models show better agreement with the experimental data qualitatively and quantitatively for both adiabatic and conjugate situations.

Author(s):  
Mahmood Silieti ◽  
Eduardo Divo ◽  
Alain J. Kassab

This paper documents a computational investigation of the film-cooling effectiveness of a 3-D gas turbine endwall with one cylindrical cooling hole. The simulations were performed for an adiabatic and conjugate heat transfer models. Turbulence closure was investigated using five different turbulence models; the standard k-ε model, the RNG k-ε model, the realizable k-ε model, the standard k-ε model, as well as the SST k-ω model. Results were obtained for a blowing ratio of 2.0, and a coolant-to-mainflow temperature ratio of 0.54. The simulations used a dense, high quality, O-type, hexahedral grid. The computed flow/temperature fields are presented, in addition to local, two-dimensional distribution of film cooling effectiveness for the adiabatic and conjugate cases. Results are compared to experimental data in terms of centerline film cooling effectiveness downstream cooling-hole, the predictions with realizable k-ε turbulence model exhibited the best agreement especially in the region for (x/D ≤ 6). All turbulence models predicted the jet lift-off. Also, the results show the effect of the conjugate heat transfer on the temperature (effectiveness) field in the film-cooling hole region and, thus, the additional heating up of the cooling jet itself.


Volume 4 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood Silieti ◽  
Eduardo Divo ◽  
Alain J. Kassab

We investigate the numerical prediction of film cooling effectiveness of a two-dimensional gas turbine endwall for the cases of conjugate and adiabatic heat transfer models. Further, the consequence of various turbulence models employed in the computation are investigated by considering various turbulence models: ‘RNG’ k-ε model, Realizable k-ε model, Standard k-ω model, ‘SST’ k-ω model, and ‘RSM’ model. The computed flow field and surface temperature profiles along with the film effectiveness for one and two cooling slots at different injection angles and blowing ratio of one are presented. The results show the strong effect of the conjugate heat transfer on the film effectiveness compared to the adiabatic and analytically derived formulae and show that turbulence model used significantly affects the film effectiveness prediction when separation occurs in the film hole and some level of jet lift-off is present.


Author(s):  
M. Ghorab ◽  
S. I. Kim ◽  
I. Hassan

Cooling techniques play a key role in improving efficiency and power output of modern gas turbines. The conjugate technique of film and impingement cooling schemes is considered in this study. The Multi-Stage Cooling Scheme (MSCS) involves coolant passing from inside to outside turbine blade through two stages. The first stage; the coolant passes through first hole to internal gap where the impinging jet cools the external layer of the blade. Finally, the coolant passes through the internal gap to the second hole which has specific designed geometry for external film cooling. The effect of design parameters, such as, offset distance between two-stage holes, gap height, and inclination angle of the first hole, on upstream conjugate heat transfer rate and downstream film cooling effectiveness performance are investigated computationally. An Inconel 617 alloy with variable properties is selected for the solid material. The conjugate heat transfer and film cooling characteristics of MSCS are analyzed across blowing ratios of Br = 1 and 2 for density ratio, 2. This study presents upstream wall temperature distributions due to conjugate heat transfer for different gap design parameters. The maximum film cooling effectiveness with upstream conjugate heat transfer is less than adiabatic film cooling effectiveness by 24–34%. However, the full coverage of cooling effectiveness in spanwise direction can be obtained using internal cooling with conjugate heat transfer, whereas adiabatic film cooling effectiveness has narrow distribution.


Author(s):  
Young Seok Kang ◽  
Dong-Ho Rhee ◽  
Sanga Lee ◽  
Bong Jun Cha

Abstract Conjugate heat transfer analysis method has been highlighted for predicting heat exchange between fluid domain and solid domain inside high-pressure turbines, which are exposed to very harsh operating conditions. Then it is able to assess the overall cooling effectiveness considering both internal cooling and external film cooling at the cooled turbine design step. In this study, high-pressure turbine nozzles, which have three different film cooling holes arrangements, were numerically simulated with conjugate heat transfer analysis method for predicting overall cooling effectiveness. The film cooling holes distributed over the nozzle pressure surface were optimized by minimizing the peak temperature, temperature deviation. Additional internal cooling components such as pedestals and rectangular rib turbulators were modeled inside the cooling passages for more efficient heat transfer. The real engine conditions were given for boundary conditions to fluid and solid domains for conjugate heat transfer analysis. Hot combustion gas properties such as specific heat at constant pressure and other transport properties were given as functions of temperature. Also, the conductivity of Inconel 718 was also given as a function of temperature to solve the heat equation in the nozzle solid domain. Conjugate heat transfer analysis results showed that optimized designs showed better cooling performance, especially on the pressure surface due to proper staggering and spacing hole-rows compared to the baseline design. The overall cooling performances were offset from the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness. Locally concentrated heat transfer and corresponding high cooling effectiveness region appeared where internal cooling effects were overlapped in the optimized designs. Also, conjugate heat transfer analysis results for the optimized designs showed more uniform contours of the overall cooling effectiveness compared to the baseline design. By varying the coolant mass flow rate, it was observed that pressure surface was more sensitive to the coolant mass flow rate than nozzle leading edge stagnation region and suction surface. The CHT results showed that optimized designs to improve the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness also have better overall cooling effectiveness.


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):  
Peter T. Ingram ◽  
Savas Yavuzkurt

In existing gas turbine heat transfer literature there are several correlations developed for the spanwise-averaged film-cooling effectiveness and heat transfer augmentation for inline injection on flat plates. More accurate and detailed prediction of film-cooling performance, particularly 3-D metal temperatures are needed for design purposes. 2-D correlations where effectiveness and heat transfer augmentation are functions of streamwise and spanwise directions would help to satisfy this need. Based on this fact, the current study extends the spanwise-averaged correlations into 2-D correlations by using a Gaussian distribution in the transverse direction. The correlations are obtained using limited spanwise data and more available spanwise-averaged data and existing spanwise-averaged correlations for a single row of holes with inline injection. These correlations presented in this paper are functions of different flow parameters such as mass flow ratio M, density ratio DR, transverse pitch P/D, and inline injection angle α, with ranges of M:0.2–2.5, DR: 1.2,1.5,1.8, P/D: 2, 3,5, α: 30, 60, 90 degrees. The developed correlations match existing spanwise-averaged correlations when averaged. These correlations are used to calculate solid flat plate temperatures for two well-documented cases of film-cooled flat plates. Spanwise variations in the metal temperature were calculated to be between 5–6K for a temperature difference of 40K and between 20–30K for a temperature difference of 250K, significant for design purposes. The study also contains the comparison of solid temperatures for conjugate and non-conjugate heat transfer cases using a Reduced Order Film Model (ROFM) which is implemented in a loosely coupled conjugate heat transfer technique called Iterative Conjugate Heat Transfer (ICHT)).The differences between conjugate and non conjugate simulations are about 6K or 2% of the local temperature for low temperature study and about 20K or 5% for high temperature study. The study showed that the difference between conjugate and non-conjugate solutions increases as the temperature levels increase. These differences are quite important and should be taken into account during design of turbine blades.


1974 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. F. Blair

Experiments were conducted to determine the film cooling effectiveness and convective heat transfer coefficient distributions on the endwall of a large-scale turbine vane passage. The vane test models employed simulated the passage geometry and upstream cooling slot geometry of a typical first stage turbine. The test models were constructed of low thermal conductivity foam and foil heaters. The tests were conducted at a typical engine Reynolds number but at lower than typical Mach numbers. The film cooling effectiveness distribution for the entire endwall and the heat transfer distribution for the downstream one-half of the endwall were characterized by large gapwise variations which were attributed to a secondary flow vortex.


Author(s):  
H. I. Oguntade ◽  
G. E. Andrews ◽  
A. D. Burns ◽  
D. B. Ingham ◽  
M. Pourkashanian

Conjugate heat transfer CFD was undertaken on the influence of hole size on effusion cooling. The coupled thermal mixing between the hot-gas and coolant jets and the heat transfer within the effusion walls were modelled using the ANSYS FLUENT software. The heat and mass transfer analogy was employed to predict the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness separately from the overall cooling effectiveness by adding a tracer gas to the coolant air and predicting its concentration at the inner wall surface. The geometries predicted were those investigated experimentally by Andrews and his co-workers using a 152mm length of effusion cooling with 10 rows of square array holes in a flat metal wall. Effusion of X/D of 4.6 and 1.85 were investigated at constant X, the large hole diameter at the lower X/D drastically reduces the hole blowing rate and this improves the film cooling and deteriorates the internal wall cooling. The CFD predictions enable these qualitative effects to be investigated in more detail. The agreement of predictions and experiment was very good at low coolant mass flow rates, but under-predicted the measurements at higher flow rates by about 5–12%. The experimental results showed that the smaller X/D gave a better overall cooling performance and the predictions also showed this, but demonstrated that it was not just to due improved effusion film cooling as there was not the expected large reduction in internal wall cooling.


Author(s):  
Dieter Bohn ◽  
Jing Ren ◽  
Karsten Kusterer

Secondary flows in the cooling jets are the main reason for the degradation of the cooling performance of a film-cooled blade. The formation of kidney vortices can significantly be reduced for shaped holes instead of cylindrical holes. For the determination of the film cooling heat transfer, the design of a turbine blade relies on the conventional determination of the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer conditions for test configurations. Thus, additional influences by the interaction of fluid flow and heat transfer and influences by additional convective heat transfer cannot be taken into account with sufficient accuracy. Within this paper, calculations of a film-cooled duct wall with application of the adiabatic and a conjugate heat transfer condition have been performed for different configurations with cylindrical and shaped holes. It can be shown that the application of the conjugate calculation method comprises the influence of heat transfer on the velocity field within the cooling film. In particular, the secondary flow velocities are affected by the local heat transfer, which varies significantly depending on the local position.


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

Data from conical-shaped film cooling holes are 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 3 mm, 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, the 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-ɛ turbulent model will be applied with a second order of discretization and an 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 midrange blowing ratios, but not at higher levels.


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