A Combined Experimental and Numerical Study of the Turbine Blade Tip Film Cooling Effectiveness Under Rotation Condition

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Rezasoltani ◽  
Kun Lu ◽  
Meinhard T. Schobeiri ◽  
Je-Chin Han

Detailed numerical and experimental investigations of film cooling effectiveness were conducted on the blade tips of the first rotor row pertaining to a three-stage research turbine. Four different blade tip ejection configurations were utilized to determine the impact of the hole arrangements on the film cooling effectiveness. Plane tip with tip hole cooling, squealer tip with tip hole cooling, plane tip with pressure side (PS) edge compound angle hole cooling, and squealer tip with PS-edge compound angle hole cooling. To avoid rotor imbalance, every pair is installed radially. Film cooling effectiveness measurements were performed for three blowing ratios (M) of 0.75, 1.25, and 1.75. Film cooling data was also obtained for three rotational speeds; 3000 rpm (reference condition), 2550 rpm and 2000 rpm. Film cooling measurements were performed using pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. In a parallel effort, extensive numerical investigations of the above configurations were performed to give a better view of flow behavior using a commercially available code. The experimental investigations were performed in the three-stage multipurpose turbine research facility at the Turbomachinery Performance and Flow Research Laboratory (TPFL), Texas A&M University.

Author(s):  
M. Rezasoltani ◽  
K. Lu ◽  
M. T. Schobeiri ◽  
J. C. Han

Detailed numerical and experimental investigations of film cooling effectiveness were conducted on the blade tips of the first rotor row pertaining to a three-stage research turbine. Four different blade tip ejection configurations were utilized to determine the impact of the hole arrangements on the film cooling effectiveness. plane tip with tip hole cooling, squealer tip with tip hole cooling, plane tip with pressure-side-edge compound angle hole cooling and squealer tip with pressure-side-edge compound angle hole cooling. To avoid rotor imbalance, every pair is installed radially. Film cooling effectiveness measurements were performed for three blowing ratios (M) of 0.75, 1.25 and 1.75. Film cooling data was also obtained for three rotational speeds; 3000 rpm (reference condition), 2550 rpm and 2000 rpm. Film cooling measurements were performed using pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. In a parallel effort, extensive numerical investigations of the above configurations were performed to give a better view of flow behavior using a commercially available code. The experimental investigations were performed in the three-stage multi-purpose turbine research facility at the Turbomachinery Performance and Flow Research Laboratory (TPFL), Texas A&M University.


Author(s):  
S. Naik ◽  
A. Lerch

This paper investigates the aerodynamic and film cooling characteristics of a first stage turbine high lift blade. The blade operating conditions are representative of those normally found in a heavy-duty gas turbine. The airfoil incorporates several rows of film cooling holes located at various axial positions along the airfoil chord and the blade tip. Additionally the impact of the platform leading edge rim purge flow has been investigated and its interaction with the airfoil aerodynamic and film cooling characteristics. The film cooling holes are geometrically three-dimensional in shape, and depending on the location on the airfoil, they consist of various fan shapes, which are either compounded or in-line with the external main flow direction. Numerical studies and experimental investigations in a linear cascade have been conducted for a range of exit Mach and Reynolds numbers. The influence and sensitivity of the coolant ejected from the airfoil, tip and the platform rim purges on the overall airfoil film cooling has been investigated for a range of operating conditions. The measured film cooling effectiveness on the airfoil, blade tip and platform surfaces compared well with the predictions. The suction side film cooling effectiveness, which consisted of two pre-throat film rows, proved to be very effective up to the suction side trailing edge. The impact of variations in the airfoil cooling flows showed that the film cooling was relatively in-sensitive on the suction side. However, on the blade tip, it was found that the film cooling characteristics are strongly dependent on the clearances and the tip coolant ejection rate. On the platform surface, the impact of variations in the rim purge flows was evident, but proved not to alter the global film cooling characteristics on neither the airfoil nor the platform surfaces significantly.


Author(s):  
Xiang Zhang ◽  
Zhong Yang ◽  
Shuqing Tian ◽  
Haiteng Ma

Detailed numerical investigations of film cooling effectiveness are conducted for the holes on the tip cavity floor and near the tip pressure side. The tested blade tip is a squealer with the trailing rim wall cut to allow the accumulated coolant in the cavity to escape and cool the trailing edge. The heat transfer coefficients on the un-cooled flat and cutback squealer blade tip are studied with numerical and experimental methods. Three dust purging holes with different diameters are arranged along the camber line, which forms the basic cooled case (PG case). Additional six tip cavity holes are arranged on cavity floor near the suction side rim (PG-TF case). Another row of angled twenty-one holes is arranged along the pressure side just below the tip based on the PG case (PG-PSF case). The coolant supply pressure ratios are controlled to be 1, 1.11, and 1.22 respectively, offering local blowing ratio from 0 to 2.5. Results show that the dust purging flow cooling performance increases with the cavity depth. Discrete holes on the cavity floor offer a well-distributed coolant, which refines the cooling effect on the cavity floor. The PG-PSF case with cooling holes on the pressure side has the best overall cooling performance with more coolant consumed, when PR ≥ 1.22. However, maintaining the same coolant mass flow the PG-TF case has the best cooling performance, and the margin between PG-TF and PG-PSF case decreases with mass flow. The moving shroud cases reveal that blade movement will cause significant negative impacts on film cooling effectiveness.


Author(s):  
K. Lu ◽  
M. Rezasoltani ◽  
M. T. Schobeiri ◽  
J. C. Han

Applying a new non-axisymmetric endwall contouring technology introduced by Turbomachinery Performance and Flow Research Laboratory (TPFL) at Texas A&M University to the second rotor row of a three-stage research turbine, has shown that for a single rotor row a major turbine efficiency improvement can be achieved [1]. Motivated by these results, comprehensive numerical and experimental investigations on the TPFL research turbine were conducted to determine the impact of the endwall contouring on film cooling effectiveness. For this investigation, the first rotor row directly subjected to the purge flow injection was chosen to which the new contouring technology was applied. Performing an extensive RANS simulation by using the boundary conditions from the experiments, aerodynamics, performance and film cooling effectiveness studies were performed by varying the injection blowing ratio and turbine rotational speed. Performance measurements were carried out within a rotational speed range of 1800 to 3000 RPM. The corresponding CFD simulations were carried out for four rotational speeds, 2000, 2400, 2600, and 3000 rpm. Comparison of the RANS aerodynamics simulation with experiments reveals noticeable differences. Considering the film cooling effectiveness, major differences between experiment and numerical results were observed and discussed in the paper.


Author(s):  
Lesley M. Wright ◽  
Stephen T. McClain ◽  
Charles P. Brown ◽  
Weston V. Harmon

A novel, double hole film cooling configuration is investigated as an alternative to traditional cylindrical and fanshaped, laidback holes. This experimental investigation utilizes a Stereo-Particle Image Velocimetry (S-PIV) to quantitatively assess the ability of the proposed, double hole geometry to weaken or mitigate the counter-rotating vortices formed within the jet structure. The three-dimensional flow field measurements are combined with surface film cooling effectiveness measurements obtained using Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP). The double hole geometry consists of two compound angle holes. The inclination of each hole is θ = 35°, and the compound angle of the holes is β = ± 45° (with the holes angled toward one another). The simple angle cylindrical and shaped holes both have an inclination angle of θ = 35°. The blowing ratio is varied from M = 0.5 to 1.5 for all three film cooling geometries while the density ratio is maintained at DR = 1.0. Time averaged velocity distributions are obtained for both the mainstream and coolant flows at five streamwise planes across the fluid domain (x/d = −4, 0, 1, 5, and 10). These transverse velocity distributions are combined with the detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions on the surface to evaluate the proposed double hole configuration (compared to the traditional hole designs). The fanshaped, laidback geometry effectively reduces the strength of the kidney-shaped vortices within the structure of the jet (over the entire range of blowing ratios considered). The three-dimensional velocity field measurements indicate the secondary flows formed from the double hole geometry strengthen in the plane perpendicular to the mainstream flow. At the exit of the double hole geometry, the streamwise momentum of the jets is reduced (compared to the single, cylindrical hole), and the geometry offers improved film cooling coverage. However, moving downstream in the steamwise direction, the two jets form a single jet, and the counter-rotating vortices are comparable to those formed within the jet from a single, cylindrical hole. These strong secondary flows lift the coolant off the surface, and the film cooling coverage offered by the double hole geometry is reduced.


Author(s):  
Kevin Liu ◽  
Shang-Feng Yang ◽  
Je-Chin Han

A detailed parametric study of film-cooling effectiveness was carried out on a turbine blade platform. The platform was cooled by purge flow from a simulated stator–rotor seal combined with discrete hole film-cooling. The cylindrical holes and laidback fan-shaped holes were accessed in terms of film-cooling effectiveness. This paper focuses on the effect of coolant-to-mainstream density ratio on platform film-cooling (DR = 1 to 2). Other fundamental parameters were also examined in this study—a fixed purge flow of 0.5%, three discrete-hole film-cooling blowing ratios between 1.0 and 2.0, and two freestream turbulence intensities of 4.2% and 10.5%. Experiments were done in a five-blade linear cascade with inlet and exit Mach number of 0.27 and 0.44, respectively. Reynolds number of the mainstream flow was 750,000 and was based on the exit velocity and chord length of the blade. The measurement technique adopted was the conduction-free pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. Results indicated that with the same density ratio, shaped holes present higher film-cooling effectiveness and wider film coverage than the cylindrical holes, particularly at higher blowing ratios. The optimum blowing ratio of 1.5 exists for the cylindrical holes, whereas the effectiveness for the shaped holes increases with an increase of blowing ratio. Results also indicate that the platform film-cooling effectiveness increases with density ratio but decreases with turbulence intensity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fu-qiang Wang ◽  
Jian Pu ◽  
Jian-hua Wang ◽  
Wei-dong Xia

Abstract Film-hole can be often blocked by thermal-barrier coatings (TBCs) spraying, resulting in the variations of aerodynamic and thermal performances of film cooling. In this study, a numerical study of the blockage effect on the film cooling effectiveness of inclined cylindrical-holes was carried out on a concave surface to simulate the airfoil pressure side. Three typical blowing ratios (BRs) of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 were chosen at an engine-similar density ratio (DR) of 2.0. Two common inclination angles of 30 deg and 45 deg were designed. The blockage ratios were adjusted from 0 to 20%. The results indicated the blockage could enhance the penetration of film cooling flow to the mainstream. Thus, the averaged effectiveness and coolant coverage area were reduced. Moreover, the pressure loss inside of the hole was increased. With the increase of BR, the decrement of film cooling effectiveness caused by blockage rapidly increased. At BR = 1.5, the decrement could be acquired up to 70% for a blockage ratio of 20%. The decrement of film cooling effectiveness caused by blockage was nearly nonsensitive to the injection angle; however, the larger angle could generate the higher increment of pressure loss caused by blockage. A new design method for the couple scheme of film cooling and TBC was proposed, i.e., increasing the inlet diameter according to the blockage ratio before TBC spraying. In comparison with the original unblocked-hole, the enlarged blocked-hole not only kept the nearly same area-averaged effectiveness but also reduced slightly the pressure loss inside of the hole. Unfortunately, application of enlarged blocked-hole at large BR could lead to a more obvious reduction of effectiveness near hole-exit, in comparison with the original common-hole.


Author(s):  
Joao Vieira ◽  
John Coull ◽  
Peter Ireland ◽  
Eduardo Romero

Abstract High pressure turbine blade tips are critical for gas turbine performance and are sensitive to small geometric variations. For this reason, it is increasingly important for experiments and simulations to consider real geometry features. One commonly absent detail is the presence of welding beads on the cavity of the blade tip, which are an inherent by-product of the blade manufacturing process. This paper therefore investigates how such welds affect the Nusselt number, film cooling effectiveness and aerodynamic performance. Measurements are performed on a linear cascade of high pressure turbine blades at engine realistic Mach and Reynolds numbers. Two cooled blade tip geometries were tested: a baseline squealer geometry without welding beads, and a case with representative welding beads added to the tip cavity. Combinations of two tip gaps and several coolant mass flow rates were analysed. Pressure sensitive paint was used to measure the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness on the tip, which is supplemented by heat transfer coefficient measurements obtained via infrared thermography. Drawing from all of this data, it is shown that the weld beads have a generally detrimental impact on thermal performance, but with local variations. Aerodynamic loss measured downstream of the cascade is shown to be largely insensitive to the weld beads.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna Anand Vasu Devan Nair Girija Kumari ◽  
Parammasivam Kanjikoil Mahali

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the film cooling effectiveness (FCE) and mixing flow characteristics of the flat surface ramp model integrated with a compound angled film cooling jet. Design/methodology/approach Three-dimensional numerical simulation is performed on a flat surface ramp model with Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes approach using a finite volume solver. The tested model has a fixed ramp angle of 24° and a ramp width of two times the diameter of the film cooling hole. The coolant air is injected at 30° along the freestream direction. Three different film hole compound angles oriented to freestream direction at 0°, 90° and 180° were investigated for their performance on-ramp film cooling. The tested blowing ratios (BRs) are in the range of 0.9–2.0. Findings The film hole oriented at a compound angle of 180° has improved the area-averaged FCE on the ramp test surface by 86.74% at a mid-BR of 1.4% and 318.75% at higher BRs of 2.0. The 180° film hole compound angle has also produced higher local and spanwise averaged FCE on the ramp test surface. Originality/value According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to investigate the ramp film cooling with a compound angle film cooling hole. The improved ramp model with a 180° film hole compound angle can be effectively applied for the end-wall surfaces of gas turbine film cooling.


Author(s):  
G. J. Sturgess

The paper deals with a small but important part of the overall gas turbine engine combustion system and continues earlier published work on turbulence effects in film cooling to cover the case of film turbulence. Film cooling of the gas turbine combustor liner imposes certain geometric limitations on the coolant injection device. The impact of practical film injection geometry on the cooling is one of increased rates of film decay when compared to the performance from idealized injection geometries at similar injection conditions. It is important to combustor durability and life estimation to be able to predict accurately the performance obtainable from a given practical slot. The coolant film is modeled as three distinct regions, and the effects of injection slot geometry on the development of each region are described in terms of film turbulence intensity and initial circumferential non-uniformity of the injected coolant. The concept of the well-designed slot is introduced and film effectiveness is shown to be dependent on it. Only slots which can be described as well-designed are of interest in practical equipment design. A prediction procedure is provided for well-designed slots which describes growth of the film downstream of the first of the three film regions. Comparisons of predictions with measured data are made for several very different well-designed slots over a relatively wide range of injection conditions, and good agreement is shown.


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