Combustor Turbine Interface Studies—Part 1: Endwall Effectiveness Measurements

2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Colban ◽  
K. A. Thole ◽  
G. Zess

Improved durability of gas turbine engines is an objective for both military and commercial aeroengines as well as for power generation engines. One region susceptible to degradation in an engine is the junction between the combustor and first vane given that the main gas path temperatures at this location are the highest. The platform at this junction is quite complex in that secondary flow effects, such as the leading edge vortex, are dominant. Past computational studies have shown that the total pressure profile exiting the combustor dictates the development of the secondary flows that are formed. This study examines the effect of varying the combustor liner film-cooling and junction slot flows on the adiabatic wall temperatures measured on the platform of the first vane. The experiments were performed using large-scale models of a combustor and nozzle guide vane in a wind tunnel facility. The results show that varying the coolant injection from the upstream combustor liner leads to differing total pressure profiles entering the turbine vane passage. Endwall adiabatic effectiveness measurements indicate that the coolant does not exit the upstream combustor slot uniformly, but instead accumulates along the suction side of the vane and endwall. Increasing the liner cooling continued to reduce endwall temperatures, which was not found to be true with increasing the film-cooling from the liner.

Author(s):  
W. F. Colban ◽  
K. A. Thole ◽  
G. Zess

Improved durability of gas turbine engines is an objective for both military and commercial aeroengines as well as for power generation engines. One region susceptible to degradation in an engine is the junction between the combustor and first vane given that the main gas path temperatures at this location are the highest. The platform at this junction is quite complex in that secondary flow effects, such as the leading edge vortex, are dominant. Past computational studies have shown that the total pressure profile exiting the combustor dictates the development of the secondary flows that are formed. This study examines the effect of varying the combustor liner film-cooling and junction slot flows on the adiabatic wall temperatures measured on the platform of the first vane. The experiments were performed using large-scale models of a combustor and nozzle guide vane in a wind tunnel facility. The results show that varying the coolant injection from the upstream combustor liner leads to differing total pressure profiles entering the turbine vane passage. Endwall adiabatic effectiveness measurements indicate that the coolant does not exit the upstream combustor slot uniformly but instead accumulates along the suction side of the vane and endwall. Increasing the liner cooling continued to reduce endwall temperatures, which was not found to be true with increasing the film-cooling from the liner.


Author(s):  
Rohit A. Oke ◽  
Terrence W. Simon

This paper describes the advantages of introducing film cooling flow through the endwall upstream of the first stage nozzle guide vane. To perform these studies, a linear cascade is built. It consists of three vanes and two endwalls that form two passages. One endwall is flat and the other is contoured from upstream of the leading edge, continuing through the passage. The approach flow is of high turbulence and large length scale, representative of the engine combustor exit flow. Film cooling flow is introduced through two successive rows of slots, a single row of slots and slots that have particular area distributions in the pitchwise direction. Measurements are taken by heating the film cooling flow slightly above the main flow temperature and recording temperature distributions in the film cooling flow-main flow mixing zone at various axial planes. The single and double slot injection cases represent base-line injection geometries. They show that at lower ratios of coolant to main flow momentum fluxes, film cooling flow migrates toward the suction side due to secondary flow. At higher ratios, the pressure side endwall region is cooled more effectively. Observations are drawn by comparing the baseline injection cases with cases of different geometries for which slots are blocked partially to re-distribute mass and momentum injection rates of the emerging flow. The downstream evolutions of temperature contours are discussed. The idea is to utilize secondary flows to control pitchwise coolant distributions.


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):  
G. Barigozzi ◽  
A. Perdichizzi ◽  
L. Abba ◽  
L. Pestelli

Abstract The present paper reports on an experimental investigation on the aerodynamic and heat transfer performance of different platform cooling schemes: two based on cylindrical and shaped holes and one featuring a slot located upstream of the leading edge plane simulating the combustor to stator interface gap. Tests were run on a 6-vane cascade operated at an isentropic cascade exit Mach number of 0.4 and a significant inlet turbulence intensity level of about 9%. The cooling schemes were first tested to quantify their impact on secondary flows and related losses for variable injection conditions. Heat transfer performance was then assessed through adiabatic film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient measurements. The Net Heat Flux Reduction parameter was then computed to critically assess the cooling schemes. When compared with the cylindrical hole scheme, shaped holes outperform for all tested injection rates, while the slot alone is able to thermally protect only the front of the passage. Discrete holes are required to cool the platform region along the whole pressure side and the suction side leading edge region.


Author(s):  
Franz Puetz ◽  
Johannes Kneer ◽  
Achmed Schulz ◽  
Hans-Joerg Bauer

An increased demand for lower emission of stationary gas turbines as well as civil aircraft engines has led to new, low emission combustor designs with less liner cooling and a flattened temperature profile at the outlet. As a consequence, the heat load on the endwall of the first nozzle guide vane is increased. The secondary flow field dominates the endwall heat transfer, which also contributes to aerodynamic losses. A promising approach to reduce these losses is non-axisymmetric endwall contouring. The effects of non-axisymmetric endwall contouring on heat transfer and film cooling are yet to be investigated. Therefore, a new cascade test rig has been set up in order to investigate endwall heat transfer and film cooling on both a flat and a non-axisymmetric contoured endwall. Aerodynamic measurements that have been made prior to the upcoming heat transfer investigation are shown. Periodicity and detailed vane Mach number distributions ranging from 0 to 50% span together with the static pressure distribution on the endwall give detailed information about the aerodynamic behavior and influence of the endwall contouring. The aerodynamic study is backed by an oil paint study, which reveals qualitative information on the effect of the contouring on the endwall flow field. Results show that the contouring has a pronounced effect on vane and endwall pressure distribution and on the endwall flow field. The local increase and decrease of velocity and the reduced blade loading towards the endwall is the expected behavior of the 3d contouring. So are the results of the oil paint visualization, which show a strong change of flow field in the leading edge region as well as that the contouring delays the horse shoe vortex hitting the suction side.


Author(s):  
Sabine Ardey ◽  
Stefan Wolff ◽  
Leonhard Fottner

For a better understanding of the turbulence structures attached to film cooling jets, mean flow velocities and turbulent fluctuations were measured by means of 3D hot wire anemometry in the injection zone of a linear, large scale, high pressure turbine cascade with leading edge film cooling. Near the stagnation point, the blades are equipped with one row of film cooling holes each on the suction and pressure side. Two basically different coolant jet situations are compared: On the suction side the jet features the ordinary kidney vortex. On the pressure side, the jet separates completely from the blade surface since it is located above a large recirculation zone created by a locally adverse pressure gradient and a flow separation near the pressure side injection. The measured Reynolds stresses were analyzed with regard to turbulence production and diffusion. The Bousinesque Hypothesis was tested and could not be confirmed. It was found that the turbulence is highly anisotropic. In addition to the brief description of the experimental set up and the acquired data, given in this paper, the complete information are published as a test case (Ardey and Fottner, 1998) that is directly accessible via internet at: http://www.unibw-muenchen.de/campus/LRT12/welcome.html


Author(s):  
Yi Lu ◽  
Yinyi Hong ◽  
Zhirong Lin ◽  
Xin Yuan

Detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions were experimentally obtained on a turbine vane platform within a linear cascade. Testing was done in a large scale five-vane cascade with low freestream Renolds number condition 634,000 based on the axial chord length and the exit velocity. The detailed film-cooling effectiveness distributions on the platform were obtained using pressure sensitive paint technique. Two film-cooling hole configurations, cylindrical and fan-shaped, were used to cool the vane surface with two rows on pressure side, two rows on suction side and three rows on leading edge. For cylindrical holes, the blowing ratio of the coolant through the discrete cooling holes on pressure side and suction side ranged from 0.3 to 1.5 (based on the inlet mainstream velocity) while the blowing ratio ranging from 0.15 to 1.5 on leading edge; for fan-shaped holes, the four blowing ratios were 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. Results showed that average film-cooling effectiveness decreased with increasing blowing rate for the cylindrical holes, while the fan-shaped passage showed increased film-cooling effectiveness with increasing blowing ratio, indicating the fan-shaped cooling holes helped to improve film-cooling effectiveness by reducing overall jet liftoff. Fan-shaped holes improved average film-cooling effectiveness by 93.2%, 287.6% and 489.6% on pressure side, −4.1%, 27.9% and 78.2% on suction side over cylindrical holes at the blowing ratio of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 respectively. Numerical results were used to analyze the details of the flow and heat transfer on the cooling area with two turbulence models. Results demonstrated that tendency of the film cooling effectiveness distribution of numerical calculation and experimental measurement was generally consistent at different blowing ratio.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Zess ◽  
K. A. Thole

With the desire for increased power output for a gas turbine engine comes the continual push to achieve higher turbine inlet temperatures. Higher temperatures result in large thermal and mechanical stresses particularly along the nozzle guide vane. One critical region along a vane is the leading edge-endwall juncture. Based on the assumption that the approaching flow to this juncture is similar to a two-dimensional boundary layer, previous studies have shown that a horseshoe vortex forms. This vortex forms because of a radial total pressure gradient from the approaching boundary layer. This paper documents the computational design and experimental validation of a fillet placed at the leading edge-endwall juncture of a guide vane to eliminate the horseshoe vortex. The fillet design effectively accelerated the incoming boundary layer thereby mitigating the effect of the total pressure gradient. To verify the CFD studies used to design the leading edge fillet, flowfield measurements were performed in a large-scale, linear, vane cascade. The flowfield measurements were performed with a laser Doppler velocimeter in four planes orientated orthogonal to the vane. Good agreement between the CFD predictions and the experimental measurements verified the effectiveness of the leading edge fillet at eliminating the horseshoe vortex. The flow-field results showed that the turbulent kinetic energy levels were significantly reduced in the endwall region because of the absence of the unsteady horseshoe vortex.


Author(s):  
Mitra Thomas ◽  
Thomas Povey

In this paper, we propose a design philosophy for cooling high-pressure nozzle guide vane endwalls, which exploits the momentum of cooling jets to control vane secondary flows thereby improving endwall cooling uniformity. The impact of coolant-to-mainstream pressure ratio, hole inclination angle, hole diameter, vane potential field, and overall mass flux ratios are considered. Arguments are developed by examining detailed experimental studies conducted in a large-scale low-speed cascade tunnel with engine-realistic combustor geometry and turbulence profiles. Computational fluid dynamics predictions validated by the same are used to extend the parameter space. We show that the global flow field is highly sensitive to the inlet total pressure profile, which in turn can be modified by introducing relatively low mass flow rates of cooling gas at engine realistic coolant-to-mainstream pressure ratios and mass flux ratios. This interaction effect must be understood for successful design of optimised endwall cooling schemes, an effect which is not sufficiently emphasized in much of the literature on this topic. Design guidelines are given that we hope will be of use in industry.


Author(s):  
Mahmood H. Alqefl ◽  
Kedar P. Nawathe ◽  
Pingting Chen ◽  
Rui Zhu ◽  
Yong W. Kim ◽  
...  

Abstract The first stage turbine of a modern gas turbine is subjected to high thermal loads which lead to a need for aggressive cooling schemes to protect its components from melting. Endwalls are particularly challenging to cool due to the complex system of secondary flows near them that wash the protective film coolants into the mainstream. This paper shows that without including combustor cooling, the complex secondary flow physics are not representative of modern engines. Aggressive injection of all cooling flows upstream of the passage is expected to interact and change passage aerodynamics and, subsequently, mixing and transport of coolants. This study describes, experimentally, the aero-thermal interaction of cooling flows near the endwall of a first stage nozzle guide vane passage. The test section involves an engine-representative combustor-turbine interface geometry, combustor coolant flow and endwall film cooling flow injected upstream of a linear cascade. The approach flow conditions represent flow exiting a cooled, low-NOx combustor. This first part of this two-part study aims to understand the complex aerodynamics near the endwall through detailed measurements of passage three-dimensional velocity fields with and without endwall film cooling. The aerodynamic measurements reveal a dominant vortex in the passage, named here as the Impingement Vortex, that opposes the passage vortex formed at the airfoil leading edge plane. This Impingement Vortex completely changes our description of flow over a modern film cooled endwall.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document