Multi-Pass Serpentine Cooling Designs for Negating Coriolis Force Effect on Heat Transfer: 45-Degree Angled Rib Turbulated Channels

Traditional gas turbine blades are equipped with serpentine passages arranged along the height, wherein the coolant flows radially outward in 1st passage and radially inward in 2nd passage. Prior experimental studies have established that for traditional two-pass rib roughened ducts, under the influence of Coriolis and centrifugal forces, the heat transfer gets enhanced on trailing side for radially outward flow and gets reduced on the leading side for a radially outward flow. A reverse trend in heat transfer is observed for radially inward flow. Rotation induced forces result in non-uniform heat transfer coefficient distribution which results in non-uniform metal temperatures under steady state condition. Present study addresses the problem of non-uniform heat transfer distribution on leading and trailing sides due to rotation effect. Experimental investigation of two configurations has been carried out, where Coriolis effect was negated by aligning the coolant flow vector and rotation vector such that their cross product was effectively a null vector. Novel multi-passage serpentine ducts featuring 45-degree angled rib turbulators with four-passage and six-passage configurations have been studied. Transient liquid crystal thermography experiments were carried out under stationary and rotating conditions. Heat transfer experiments were carried out for Reynolds numbers ranging from 12000 to 80000 under stationary conditions and rotating heat transfer experiments were carried out at two Rotation numbers of 0.05 and 0.11. We found that the heat transfer characteristics of serpentine passages were not influenced by Coriolis force after the 2nd passage. The local heat transfer distribution on leading and trailing sides of serpentine passages were near-similar to each other and comparable with corresponding stationary cases. The contribution of multiple passages connected with 180-degree bends towards overall frictional losses has been evaluated in terms of pumping power and normalized friction factor. The configurations are ranked based on their thermal hydraulic performances over a wide range of Reynolds numbers. The heat transfer enhancement levels of four-passage rib roughened duct was higher than the six-passage configuration and the six-passage configuration had slightly higher thermal hydraulic performance compared to four-passage configuration.

An Investigation of Coolant Within Serpentine Passages of a High-Pressure Axial Gas Turbine Blade

Cooling flow behavior is investigated within the multiple serpentine passages with turbulators on the leading and trailing walls of an axial gas turbine blade operating at design-corrected conditions with accurate external flow conditions. Pressure and temperature measurements at midspan within the passages are obtained using miniature butt-welded thermocouples and miniature Kulite pressure transducers. These measurements, as well as airfoil surface pressure field data from a full computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation, are used as boundary conditions for a model that provides quantitative values of film-cooling blowing ratio for each film-cooling hole on the blade. The model accounts for the continuously changing cross-sectional area and shape of the channels, frictional pressure loss, convective heat transfer from the solid portion of the blade, massflow reduction as coolant bleeds out through film-cooling or impingement holes, compressibility effects, and the effects of blade rotation. The results of the model provide detailed coolant ejection information for a film-cooled rotating turbine airfoil operating at design-corrected conditions and also account for the highly variable freestream conditions on the airfoil. While these values are commonly known for simpler experimental geometries, they have previously either been unknown or estimated crudely for full-stage experiments of this nature. The better-quantified cooling parameters provide a bridge for better comparison with the wealth of film-cooling work already reported for simplified geometries. The calculation also shows the significant range in blowing ratio that can arise even among a single row of cooling holes associated with one of the turbulated passages, due to significant changes in both coolant and local freestream massfluxes.

An Investigation of Coolant Within Serpentine Passages of a High-Pressure Axial Gas Turbine Blade

Cooling flow behavior is investigated within the multiple serpentine passages with turbulators on the leading and trailing walls of an axial gas turbine blade operating at design-corrected conditions with accurate external flow conditions. Pressure and temperature measurements at midspan within the passages are obtained using miniature butt-welded thermocouples and miniature Kulite pressure transducers. These measurements, as well as airfoil surface pressure field data from a full CFD simulation, are used as boundary conditions for a model that provides quantitative values of film-cooling blowing ratio for each film cooling hole on the blade. The model accounts for the continuously changing cross-sectional area and shape of the channels, frictional pressure loss, convective heat transfer from the solid portion of the blade, massflow reduction as coolant bleeds out through film-cooling or impingement holes, compressibility effects, and the effects of blade rotation. The results of the model provide detailed coolant ejection information for a film-cooled rotating turbine airfoil operating at design-corrected conditions, and also accounts for the highly variable freestream conditions on the airfoil. While these values are commonly known for simpler experimental geometries, they have previously either been unknown or estimated crudely for full-stage experiments of this nature. The better-quantified cooling parameters provide a bridge for better comparison with the wealth of film-cooling work already reported for simplified geometries. The calculation also shows the significant range in blowing ratio that can arise even among a single row of cooling holes associated with one of the turbulated passages, due to significant changes in both coolant, and local freestream massfluxes.

Numerical Validation of Heat Transfer Augmentation Factor in Serpentine Passages With Ribbed Walls

The objectives of this study are to validate and calibrate a commercially available CFD code, ANSYS CFX, for aerodynamic and heat transfer predictions in serpentine passages with ribbed walls and to understand the relationship between complex flow fields and heat transfer behavior. The validation was accomplished with the test results of Al-Hadhrami and Han [1] who tested a two-pass, radially outward – 180° bend – radially inward, square serpentine passage with two opposite rib roughened walls. Two configurations of ribs, two Reynolds numbers, two rotational numbers, and two channel orientations were considered for this study. An augmentation factor was used to compare the CFD heat transfer predictions with the experimental results. This augmentation factor is defined as the ratio of the local Nusselt number to that of a fully developed, smooth, circular pipe flow at the same Reynolds number. For the cases studied the CFD predictions were found to match the experimental results within the experimental uncertainty band of 20% except on the leading side of the highest rotational number case where the CFD under predicted the heat transfer augmentation. Streamlines and flow field results obtained at different locations are presented for better understanding of the heat transfer behavior.

Heat Transfer in Rotating Serpentine Passages With Selected Model Orientations for Smooth or Skewed Trip Walls

Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of model orientation as well as buoyancy and Coriolis forces on heat transfer in turbine blade internal coolant passages. Turbine blades have internal coolant passage surfaces at the leading and trailing edges of the airfoil with surfaces at angles that are as large as ±50 to 60 deg to the axis of rotation. Most of the previously presented, multiple-passage, rotating heat transfer experiments have focused on radial passages aligned with the axis of rotation. The present work compares results from serpentine passages with orientations 0 and 45 deg to the axis of rotation, which simulate the coolant passages for the midchord and trailing edge regions of the rotating airfoil. The experiments were conducted with rotation in both directions to simulate serpentine coolant passages with the rearward flow of coolant or with the forward flow of coolant. The experiments were conducted for passages with smooth surfaces and with 45 deg trips adjacent to airfoil surfaces for the radial portion of the serpentine passages. At a typical flow condition, the heat transfer on the leading surfaces for flow outward in the first passage with smooth walls was twice as much for the model at 45 deg compared to the model at 0 deg. However, the differences for the other passages and with trips were less. In addition, the effects of buoyancy and Coriolis forces on heat transfer in the rotating passage were decreased with the model at 45 deg, compared to the results at 0 deg. The heat transfer in the turn regions and immediately downstream of the turns in the second passage with flow inward and in the third passage with flow outward was also a function of model orientation with differences as large as 40 to 50 percent occurring between the model orientations with forward flow and rearward flow of coolant.