Heat Transfer Enhancement for Turbine Blade Internal Cooling

Author(s):  
Lesley M. Wright ◽  
Je-Chin Han

Gas turbines are used extensively for aircraft propulsion, land-based power generation, and industrial applications. The turbine inlet temperatures are far above the permissible metal temperatures. Therefore, there is a need to cool the blades for safe operation. Modern developments in turbine cooling technology play a critical role in increasing the thermal efficiency and power output of advanced gas turbine designs. Turbine blades and vanes are cooled internally and externally. This paper focuses on heat transfer augmentation of turbine blade internal cooling. Internal cooling is typically achieved by passing the cooling air through rib-enhanced serpentine passages inside the blades. Impinging jets, pin fins and dimples are also used for enhancing internal cooling heat transfer. In the past 10 years, there has been considerable progress in turbine blade internal cooling research and this paper is emphasized on reviewing selected publications to reflect recent developments in this area. In particular, this paper focuses on the newly developed design concepts as well as the combination of existing cooling techniques for turbine airfoil internal heat transfer augmentation. Rotation effects on the turbine blade leading-edge, triangular-shaped channel, mid-chord multi-pass channel and trailing-edge, wedge-shaped channel with coolant ejection are also considered.

Author(s):  
Michael E. Lyall ◽  
Alan A. Thrift ◽  
Atul Kohli ◽  
Karen A. Thole

The performance of many engineering devices from power electronics to gas turbines is limited by thermal management. Heat transfer augmentation in internal flows is commonly achieved through the use of pin fins, which increase both surface area and turbulence. The present research is focused on internal cooling of turbine airfoils using a single row of circular pin fins that is oriented perpendicular to the flow. Low aspect ratio pin fins were studied whereby the channel height to pin diameter was unity. A number of spanwise spacings were investigated for a Reynolds number range between 5000 to 30,000. Both pressure drop and spatially-resolved heat transfer measurements were taken. The heat transfer measurements were made on the endwall of the pin fin array using infrared thermography and on the pin surface using discrete thermocouples. The results show that the heat transfer augmentation relative to open channel flow is the highest for smallest spanwise spacings and lowest Reynolds numbers. The results also indicate that the pin fin heat transfer is higher than the endwall heat transfer.


Author(s):  
Oguz Uzol ◽  
Cengiz Camci

A new concept for enhanced turbulent transport of heat in internal coolant passages of gas turbine blades is introduced. The new heat transfer augmentation component called “oscillator fin” is based on an unsteady flow system using the interaction of multiple unsteady jets and wakes generated downstream of a fluidic oscillator. Incompressible, unsteady and two dimensional solutions of Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations are obtained both for an oscillator fin and for an equivalent cylindrical pin fin and the results are compared. Preliminary results show that a significant increase in the turbulent kinetic energy level occur in the wake region of the oscillator fin with respect to the cylinder with similar level of aerodynamic penalty. The new concept does not require additional components or power to sustain its oscillations and its manufacturing is as easy as a conventional pin fin. The present study makes use of an unsteady numerical simulation of mass, momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate conservation equations for flow visualization downstream of the new oscillator fin and an equivalent cylinder. Relative enhancements of turbulent kinetic energy and comparisons of the total pressure field from transient simulations qualitatively suggest that the oscillator fin has excellent potential in enhancing local heat transfer in internal cooling passages without significant aerodynamic penalty.


Author(s):  
E. E. Donahoo ◽  
C. Camci ◽  
A. K. Kulkarni ◽  
A. D. Belegundu

There are many heat transfer augmentation methods that are employed in turbine blade design, such as impingement cooling, film cooling, serpentine passages, trip strips, vortex chambers, and pin fins. The use of crosspins in the trailing edge section of turbine blades is commonly a viable option due to their ability to promote turbulence as well as supply structural integrity and stiffness to the blade itself. Numerous crosspin shapes and arrangements are possible, but only certain configurations offer high heat transfer capability while maintaining taw total pressure loss. This study preseots results from 3-D numerical simulations of airflow through a turbine blade internal cooling passage. The simulations model viscous flow and heat transfer over full crosspins of circular cross-section with fixed height-to-diameter ratio of 0.5, fixed transverse-to-diameter spacing ratio of 1.5, and varying streamwise spacing. Preliminary analysis indicates that endwall effects dominate the flow and heat transfer at lower Reynolds numbers. The flow dynamics involved with the relative dose proximity of the endwalls for such short crosspins have a definite influeoce on crosspin efficiency for downstream rows.


Author(s):  
Martin Draksler ◽  
Bosˇtjan Koncˇar

An array of impinging jets is characterized by high heat removal capability. As such it is used as a cooling technique in various industrial applications, i.e. paper drying, turbine blades cooling etc. The objective of the current study is to analyze the coherent structures in the interaction region of impinging jets and relate them to the local heat transfer. Since they play the major role in the local heat enhancement, their proper identification is crucial for the understanding of the heat transfer mechanisms. Three different methods for identification of flow structures in the jet interaction region are discussed in the paper. Heat transfer capability of different jet arrangements (in-line and hexagonal) are compared and analyzed in the context of flow structures comparison. The numerical simulations were performed with the CFD code ANSYS-CFX, solving Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (RANS approach). For the turbulence modeling Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model was used.


2007 ◽  
Vol 130 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan A. Sewall ◽  
Danesh K. Tafti

The problem of accurately predicting the flow and heat transfer in the ribbed internal cooling duct of a rotating gas turbine blade is addressed with the use of large eddy simulations (LES). Four calculations of the developing flow region of a rotating duct with ribs on opposite walls are used to study changes in the buoyancy parameter at a constant rotation rate. The Reynolds number is 20,000, the rotation number is 0.3, and the buoyancy parameter is varied between 0.00, 0.25, 0.45, and 0.65. Previous experimental studies have noted that leading wall heat transfer augmentation decreases as the buoyancy parameter increases with low buoyancy, but heat transfer then increases with high buoyancy. However, no consistent physical explanation has been given in the literature. The LES results from this study show that the initial decrease in augmentation with buoyancy is a result of larger separated regions at the leading wall. However, as the separated region spans the full pitch between ribs with an increase in buoyancy parameter, it leads to increased turbulence and increased entrainment of mainstream fluid, which is redirected toward the leading wall by the presence of a rib. The impinging mainstream fluid results in heat transfer augmentation in the region immediately upstream of a rib. The results obtained from this study are in very good agreement with previous experimental results.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 443-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Je-Chin Han

Gas turbines are used extensively for aircraft propulsion, land-based power generation, and industrial applications. Developments in turbine cooling technology play a critical role in increasing the thermal efficiency and power output of advanced gas turbines. Gas turbine blades are cooled internally by passing the coolant through several rib-enhanced serpentine passages to remove heat conducted from the outside surface. External cooling of turbine blades by film cooling is achieved by injecting relatively cooler air from the internal coolant passages out of the blade surface in order to form a protective layer between the blade surface and hot gas-path flow. For internal cooling, this presentation focuses on the effect of rotation on rotor blade coolant passage heat transfer with rib turbulators and impinging jets. The computational flow and heat transfer results are also presented and compared to experimental data using the RANS method with various turbulence models such as k-ε, and second-moment closure models. This presentation includes unsteady high free-stream turbulence effects on film cooling performance with a discussion of detailed heat transfer coef- ficient and film-cooling effectiveness distributions for standard and shaped film-hole geometry using the newly developed transient liquid crystal image method.


Author(s):  
James Batstone ◽  
David Gillespie ◽  
Eduardo Romero

A novel form of gas turbine blade or vane cooling in which passages repeatedly branch within the wall of the cooled component is introduced in this paper. These so called dendritic cooling geometries offer particular performance improvements compared to traditional cooling holes where the external cross flow is low, and conventional films have a tendency to lift off the surface. In these regions improved internal cooling efficiency is achieved, while the coolant film is ejected at a low momentum ratio resulting in reduced aerodynamic losses between the film and hot gases, and a more effective surface film. By varying the number of branches of the systems at a particular location it is possible to tune the flow and heat transfer to the requirements at that location whilst maintaining the pressure margin. The additional loss introduced using the internal branching structure allows a full film-coverage arrangement of holes at the external blade surface. In this paper the results of transient heat transfer experiments characterising the internal heat transfer coefficient distribution in large scale models of dendritic passages are reported. Experiments were conducted with 1, 2 and 3 internal flow branches at a range of engine representative Reynolds numbers and exit momentum ratios. CFD models are used to help explain the flow field in the cooling passages. Furthermore the sensitivity of the pressure loss to the blowing ratio at the exit of the cooling holes is characterised and found to be inversely proportional to the number of branches in the dendritic system. Surprisingly the highly branched systems generally do not exhibit the highest pressure losses.


2021 ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
И.К. Андрианов ◽  
М.С. Гринкруг

Работа посвящена исследованию проблемы управления тепловым состоянием оболочечных лопаток судовых турбин, находящихся в условиях высокотемпературного нагружения. В работе рассматривались вопросы сочетания внешней тепловой защиты с помощью теплоизоляционного покрытия и внутреннего охлаждения. Математическая модель теплопереноса строилась на основании дифференциальных уравнений теплопроводности Фурье, условия теплоотдачи в каналах охлаждения. Проведена оценка влияния состава покрытия не изменение формы оболочки дефлектора с целью интенсификации охлаждения при неизменных параметрах скорости и температуры хладагента на входе в канал. Решение системы нелинейных уравнений теплопереноса проведено с помощью метода конечных разностей. Проведен численный эксперимент при реализации равномерного температурного поля на поверхности тела лопатки. Предложенная математическая модель позволяет рассчитать геометрию дефлекторов охлаждаемых лопаток судовых газовых турбин. Применение модели и результатов расчетов позволит рационализировать процесс охлаждения лопаток турбин, выбирая оптимальные сочетания внешней тепловой защиты и расхода хладагента. The work is devoted to the study of the problem of controlling the thermal state of the shell blades of marine turbines under high-temperature loading conditions. The paper deals with the combination of external thermal protection with the help of thermal insulation coating and internal cooling. The mathematical model of heat transfer was built on the basis of the Fourier differential equations of thermal conductivity, the conditions of heat transfer in cooling channels. The influence of the coating composition on the change in the shape of the deflector shell was evaluated in order to intensify cooling at constant parameters of the speed and temperature of the refrigerant at the inlet to the channel. The solution of the system of nonlinear heat transfer equations is carried out using the finite difference method. A numerical experiment is performed for the realization of a uniform temperature field on the surface of the blade body. The proposed mathematical model allows us to calculate the geometry of the deflectors of the cooled blades of marine gas turbines. The application of the model and the results of the calculations will allow to rationalize the cooling process of the turbine blades, choosing the optimal combination of external thermal protection and refrigerant consumption.


Author(s):  
Zhiqi Zhao ◽  
Lei Luo ◽  
Xiaoxu Kan ◽  
Dandan Qiu ◽  
Xun Zhou

Abstract High thermal load on the turbine blade tip surface leads to high temperature corrosion and severe structural damage. One common way is to deliver a part of coolant through bleed holes onto the tip portion for cooling purpose. In this study, numerical simulations are performed to investigate the effects of rotation on the internal tip heat transfer in a simplified rotating two-pass channel with a bleed hole, which is applicable to the internal cooling passage of typical gas turbine blade. The bleed hole is placed on the tip wall of a two-pass channel at different locations, i.e. the ratio of distance from the outlet-side wall to width of the tip wall is 0.07, 0.21, 0.5, 0.78, 0.93, respectively. A smooth channel without bleed hole is used as Baseline. The Reynolds number is fixed at 10,000. The Ro numbers are varied from 0 to 0.4. Results show that a three-dimensional vortex, which is induced by the Coriolis force, is found at the bend region. It transports the fluid from the trailing side to leading side, which is beneficial to enhance tip heat transfer. The middle-mounted hole shows a better heat transfer augmentation compared to other hole arrangement. The rotation have a notable effect on the heat transfer and flow structures. Compared to the smooth channel, the heat transfer augmentation is about 34%.


Author(s):  
Mohammad A. Elyyan ◽  
Danesh K. Tafti

The use of dimple-protrusions for internal cooling of rotating turbine blades has been investigated. A channel with dimple imprint diameter to channel height ratio (H/D = 1.0), dimple depth to channel height ratio (δ/H = 0.2), spanwise and streamwise pitch to channel height ratios (P/H = S/H = 1.62) was modeled. Four rotation numbers; Rob = 0.0, 0.15, 0.39, and 0.64, at nominal flow Reynolds number, ReH = 10000, were investigated to quantify the effect of Coriolis forces on the flow structure and heat transfer in the channel. Under the influence of rotation, the leading (protrusion) side of the channel showed weaker flow impingement, larger wakes and delayed flow reattachment with increasing rotation number. The trailing (dimple) side experienced a smaller recirculation region inside the dimple and stronger flow ejection from the dimple cavity with increasing rotation. Secondary flow structures in the cross-section played a major role in transporting momentum away from the trailing side at high rotation numbers and limiting heat transfer augmentation. While heat transfer augmentation on the trailing side increases by over 90% at Rob = 0.64, overall Nusselt number and friction coefficient augmentation ratios decrease from 2.5 to 2.05, and 5.74 to 4.78, respectively, as rotation increased from Rob = 0 to Rob = 0.64.


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