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Adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness is examined on a high-pressure turbine blade by varying three critical engine parameters, viz., coolant blowing ratio, coolant-to-mainstream density ratio, and freestream turbulence intensity. Three average coolant blowing ratios (BR=1.2, 1.7, and 2.2 on the pressure side and BR=1.1, 1.4, and 1.8 on the suction side), three average coolant density ratios (DR=1.0, 1.5, and 2.5), and two average freestream turbulence intensities (Tu=4.2% and 10.5%) are considered. Conduction-free pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique is adopted to measure film-cooling effectiveness. Three foreign gases—N2 for low density, CO2 for medium density, and a mixture of SF6 and argon for high density are selected to study the effect of coolant density. The test blade features two rows of cylindrical film-cooling holes on the suction side (45 deg compound), 4 rows on the pressure side (45 deg compound) and 3 around the leading edge (30 deg radial). The inlet and the exit Mach numbers are 0.24 and 0.44, respectively. The Reynolds number of the mainstream flow is 7.5×105 based on the exit velocity and blade chord length. Results suggest that the PSP is a powerful technique capable of producing clear and detailed film-effectiveness contours with diverse foreign gases. Large improvement on the pressure side and moderate improvement on the suction side effectiveness is witnessed when blowing ratio is raised from 1.2 to 1.7 and 1.1 to 1.4, respectively. No major improvement is seen thereafter with the downstream half of the suction side showing drop in effectiveness. The effect of increasing coolant density is to increase effectiveness everywhere on the pressure surface and suction surface except for the small region on the suction side, xss/Cx<0.2. Higher freestream turbulence causes effectiveness to drop everywhere except in the region downstream of the suction side where significant improvement in effectiveness is seen.

It has been suggested by researchers that ingestion, through rim seals, of mainstream gas into axial-flow turbine disk cavities is a consequence of the prevailing unsteady three-dimensional flow field. The cause–effect relationship is complex—to help understand it, experiments were performed in a model single-stage turbine rig using two different vane-blade configurations. Selected measurements from one of the configurations were reported earlier (1999–2001). The second configuration is new, featuring smaller numbers of vanes and blades and a larger vane turning angle. Selected measurements are presented and compared to those from the first configuration. The measurements include unsteady and rotor revolution time-average static pressure spatial distributions, and spatial distribution, in the rotor-stator cavity, of time-average ingestion. The parameters in the experiments were the main airflow rate, the purge/seal airflow rate, and the rotor speed. Unsteady three-dimensional CFD simulation may be helpful in identifying the roles of the many intertwined phenomena in the ingestion process.

This paper is focused on the effect of film-hole configurations on platform film cooling. The platform is cooled by purge flow from a simulated stator-rotor seal combined with discrete-hole film cooling within the blade passage. The cylindrical holes and laidback fan-shaped holes are assessed in terms of film-cooling effectiveness and total pressure loss. Lined up with the freestream streamwise direction, the film holes are arranged on the platform with two different layouts. In one layout, the film-cooling holes are divided into two rows and more concentrated on the pressure side of the passage. In the other layout, the film-cooling holes are divided into four rows and loosely distributed on the platform. Four film-cooling hole configurations are investigated totally. Testing was done in a five-blade cascade with medium high Mach number condition (0.27 and 0.44 at the inlet and the exit, respectively). The detailed film-cooling effectiveness distributions on the platform were obtained using pressure sensitive paint technique. Results show that the combined cooling scheme (slot purge flow cooling combined with discrete-hole film cooling) is able to provide full film coverage on the platform. The shaped holes present higher film-cooling effectiveness and wider film coverage than the cylindrical holes, particularly at higher blowing ratios. The hole layout affects the local film-cooling effectiveness. The shaped holes also show the advantage over the cylindrical holes with lower total pressure loss.

The film-cooling effectiveness on the surface of a high pressure turbine blade is measured using the pressure sensitive paint technique. Compound angle laidback fan-shaped holes are used to cool the blade surface with four rows on the pressure side and two rows on the suction side. The coolant injects to one side of the blade, either pressure side or suction side. The presence of wake due to the upstream vanes is simulated by placing a periodic set of rods upstream of the test blade. The wake rods can be clocked by changing their stationary positions to simulate progressing wakes. The effect of wakes is recorded at four phase locations along the pitchwise direction. The freestream Reynolds number, based on the axial chord length and the exit velocity, is 750,000. The inlet and exit Mach numbers are 0.27 and 0.44, respectively, resulting in a pressure ratio of 1.14. Five average blowing ratios ranging from 0.4 to 1.5 are tested. Results reveal that the tip-leakage vortices and endwall vortices sweep the coolant on the suction side to the midspan region. The compound angle laidback fan-shaped holes produce a good film coverage on the suction side except for the regions affected by the secondary vortices. Due to the concave surface, the coolant trace is short and the effectiveness level is low on the pressure surface. However, the pressure side acquires a relatively uniform film coverage with the multiple rows of cooling holes. The film-cooling effectiveness increases with the increasing average blowing ratio for either side of coolant ejection. The presence of stationary upstream wake results in lower film-cooling effectiveness on the blade surface. The compound angle shaped holes outperform the compound angle cylindrical holes by the elevated film-cooling effectiveness, particularly at higher blowing ratios.

It has been suggested by researchers that ingestion, through rim seals, of mainstream gas into axial-flow turbine disk cavities is a consequence of the prevailing unsteady three-dimensional flow field. The cause-effect relationship is complex — to help understand it, experiments were performed in a model single-stage turbine rig using two different vane-blade configurations. Selected measurements from one of the configurations were reported earlier (1999–2001). The second configuration is new, featuring smaller numbers of vanes and blades and a larger vane turning angle. Selected measurements are presented and compared to those from the first configuration. The measurements include: unsteady and time-average static pressure spatial distributions, and spatial distribution, in the rotor-stator cavity, of time-average ingestion. The parameters in the experiments were: main air flow rate, purge/seal air flow rate, and rotor speed. Unsteady three-dimensional CFD simulation may be helpful in identifying the roles of the many intertwined phenomena in the ingestion process.

Improved film cooling performance and coolant flow usage have a significant effect on overall engine performance. In the current study, film cooling performance of an improved antivortex or tripod hole geometry is evaluated on a flat plate surface with steady-state IR (infrared thermography) technique and compared to traditional baseline geometry. The baseline geometry is a simple cylindrical hole design inclined at 30 deg from the surface with pitch-to-diameter ratio of 3.0. The proposed improvement is a tripod design where the two side holes, also of the same diameter, branch out from the root of the main hole at 15 deg angle with a larger pitch-to-diameter ratio of 6.0 between the main holes. The third geometry studied is the same tripod design embedded in a trench to enhance two-dimensional film performance. The mainstream Reynolds number is 3110 based on the coolant hole inlet diameter. Two secondary fluids, air and carbon dioxide, were used to study the effects of coolant-to-mainstream density ratio (DR = 0.95 and 1.45) on film cooling effectiveness. Several blowing ratios in the range 0.5–4.0 were investigated independently at the two density ratios. Results indicate significant improvement in effectiveness with the tripod holes compared to cylindrical holes at all the blowing ratios studied. The trenched design shows improved effectiveness in the trench region and reduced effectiveness in the downstream region. At any given blowing ratio, the tripod hole designs use 50% less coolant and provide at least 30%–40% overall averaged higher cooling effectiveness. The use of relatively dense secondary fluid improves effectiveness immediately downstream of the antivortex holes but leads to poor performance downstream.

Film-cooling effectiveness from shaped holes on the near tip pressure side and cylindrical holes on the squealer cavity floor is investigated. The pressure side squealer rim wall is cut near the trailing edge to allow the accumulated coolant in the cavity to escape and cool the tip trailing edge. Effects of varying blowing ratios and squealer cavity depth are also examined on film-cooling effectiveness. The film-cooling effectiveness distributions are measured on the blade tip, near tip pressure side and the inner pressure side and suction side rim walls using pressure sensitive paint technique. The internal coolant-supply passages of the squealer tipped blade are modeled similar to those in the GE-E3 rotor blade with two separate serpentine loops supplying coolant to the film-cooling holes. Two rows of cylindrical film-cooling holes are arranged offset to the suction side profile and along the camber line on the tip. Another row of shaped film-cooling holes is arranged along the pressure side just below the tip. The average blowing ratio of the cooling gas is controlled to be 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. A five-bladed linear cascade in a blow down facility with a tip gap clearance of 1.5% is used to perform the experiments. The free-stream Reynolds number, based on the axial chord length and the exit velocity, was 1,480,000 and the inlet and exit Mach numbers were 0.23 and 0.65, respectively. A blowing ratio of 1.0 is found to give best results on the pressure side, whereas the tip surfaces forming the squealer cavity give best results for M=2. Results show high film-cooling effectiveness magnitudes near the trailing edge of the blade tip due to coolant accumulation from upstream holes in the tip cavity. A squealer depth with a recess of 2.1mm causes the average effectiveness magnitudes to decrease slightly as compared to a squealer depth of 4.2mm.