Liquid crystals have become an accurate and convenient means of measuring surface temperature and heat transfer for the gas turbine and heat transfer research communities. The measurement of surface shear stress using liquid crystals is finding increasing favour with aerodynamicists and developments in these techniques ensure that liquid crystals will continue to provide key thermal and shear stress data in the future. The increasing use of three-dimensional finite element computational models has allowed industry to capitalize on the advantages of the full surface data generated. The paper reviews the use of these complex materials in research with a special emphasis on recent developments in the field. The aim is to provide the reader with an up to date background in this measurement technology and allow the researcher to decide whether liquid crystals would be suitable in specific applications.
Calculations of the performance of modern gas turbines usually include allowance for cooling air flow rate; assumptions are made for the amount of the cooling air bled from the compressor, as a fraction of the mainstream flow, but this fractional figure is often set in relatively arbitrary fashion. There are two essential effects of turbine blade cooling: (i) the reduction of the gas stagnation temperature at exit from the combustion chamber (entry to the first nozzle row) to a lower stagnation temperature at entry to the first rotor and (ii) a pressure loss resulting from mixing the cooling air with the mainstream. Similar effects occur in the following cooled blade rows. The paper reviews established methods for determining the amount of cooling air required and semi-empirical relations, for film cooled blading with thermal barrier coatings, are derived. Similarly, the pressure losses related to elements of cooling air leaving at various points round the blade surface are integrated over the whole blade. This gives another semi-empirical expression, this time for the complete mixing pressure loss in the blade row, as a function of the total cooling air used. These two relationships are then used in comprehensive calculations of the performance of a simple open-cycle gas turbine. for varying combustion temperature and pressure ratio. These calculations suggest that for maximum plant efficiency there may be a limiting combustion temperature (below that which would be set by stoichiometric combustion). For a given combustion temperature, the optimum pressure ratio is reduced by the effect of cooling air.
A new type of direct-heat-flux gauge (DHFG) comprising an insulating layer mounted on a metal substrate has been developed. The gauge measures the heat flux across the insulating layer by measuring the top surface temperature employing a sputtered thin-film gauge (TFG) and the metal temperature using a thermocouple. The TFGs are platinum temperature sensors with physical thickness less than 0.1 µm. They are instrumented on the insulating layer. The thermal properties and the ratio of the thickness over the thermal conductivity of the insulating layer have been calibrated. A detailed method of analysis for calculating the surface heat flux from DHFG temperature traces is presented. The advantages of the DHFG include its high accuracy, its wide range of frequency response (from dc to 100 kHz) and, most significantly, that there is no requirement for knowledge of the structure of the metal substrate. Since the metal substrate is of high conductivity, few thermocouples are required to monitor the small spatial variation of the metal temperature, whereas multiple thin-film gauges may be employed. The DHFGs have been applied to a gas turbine nozzle guide vane and tested in the Oxford Cold Heat Transfer Tunnel successfully.
Pronounced nonuniformities in combustor exit flow temperature (hot-streaks), which arise because of discrete injection of fuel and dilution air jets within the combustor and because of endwall cooling flows, affect both component life and aerodynamics. Because it is very difficult to quantitatively predict the effects of these temperature nonuniformities on the heat transfer rates, designers are forced to budget for hot-streaks in the cooling system design process. Consequently, components are designed for higher working temperatures than the mass-mean gas temperature, and this imposes a significant overall performance penalty. An inadequate cooling budget can lead to reduced component life. An improved understanding of hot-streak migration physics, or robust correlations based on reliable experimental data, would help designers minimize the overhead on cooling flow that is currently a necessity. A number of recent research projects sponsored by a range of industrial gas turbine and aero-engine manufacturers attest to the growing interest in hot-streak physics. This paper presents measurements of surface and endwall heat transfer rate for a high-pressure (HP) nozzle guide vane (NGV) operating as part of a full HP turbine stage in an annular transonic rotating turbine facility. Measurements were conducted with both uniform stage inlet temperature and with two nonuniform temperature profiles. The temperature profiles were nondimensionally similar to profiles measured in an engine. A difference of one-half of an NGV pitch in the circumferential (clocking) position of the hot-streak with respect to the NGV was used to investigate the affect of clocking on the vane surface and endwall heat transfer rate. The vane surface pressure distributions, and the results of a flow-visualization study, which are also given, are used to aid interpretation of the results. The results are compared to two-dimensional predictions conducted using two different boundary layer methods. Experiments were conducted in the Isentropic Light Piston Facility (ILPF) at QinetiQ Farnborough, a short-duration engine-sized turbine facility. Mach number, Reynolds number, and gas-to-wall temperature ratios were correctly modeled. It is believed that the heat transfer measurements presented in this paper are the first of their kind.
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