Browsing by Subject "Film cooling"
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Item Adiabatic and overall effectiveness in the showerhead of a film cooled turbine vane and effects of surface curvature on adiabatic effectiveness(2011-12) Nathan, Marc Louis; Bogard, David G.; da Silva, AlexandreTwo sets of experiments were performed on a simulated turbine nozzle guide vane. First, adiabatic and overall effectiveness measurements were taken in the showerhead region of the vane using adiabatic and matched Biot vane models, respectively. Measurements of overall effectiveness in the showerhead region are not found in the literature, and are a useful baseline for validating the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Overall effectiveness is useful because it shows the results of combining film cooling, internal convection, and surface conduction to provide a more complete picture of vane cooling than adiabatic effectiveness. An impingement plate was utilized to generate internal jet cooling. Momentum flux ratios were matched between the models and ranged from I*SH = 0.76 to 6.70, based on showerhead upstream approach velocity. The second set of experiments used a different model to examine the effects of surface curvature on adiabatic effectiveness. Results in open literature are found by varying the radius of curvature of a fixed setup, so the current approach was novel in that it looked at adiabatic effectiveness at locations of various curvature around the same vane. Blowing ratios from M = 0.4 to M = 1.6 were tested at a density ratio of DR = 1.20 for two locations on the suction side of the vane. Results were presented in terms of laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness and contour plots of adiabatic effectiveness, and were compared to literature.Item CFD predictions of heat transfer coefficient augmentation on a simulated film cooled turbine blade leading edge(2011-05) Beirnaert-Chartrel, Gwennaël; Bogard, David G.; Moser, Robert D.Computations were run to study heat transfer coefficient augmentation with film cooling for a simulated gas turbine blade leading edge. The realizable k-[epsilon] turbulence model (RKE) and Shear Stress Transport k-[omega] turbulence model (SST) were used for the computational simulations. RKE computations completed at a unity density ratio were confirmed to be consistent with experimental measurements conducted by Yuki et al.(1998) and Johnston et al. (1999) whereas SST computations exhibited significant discrepancies. Moreover the effect of the density ratio on heat transfer coefficient augmentation was studied because experimental measurements of heat transfer coefficient augmentation with film cooling are generally constrained to unity density ratio tests. It was shown that heat transfer coefficient augmentation can be simulated using unity density ratio jets, but only when scaled with the momentum flux ratio of the coolant jets.Item Computational and experimental study of film cooling performance including shallow trench configurations(2006-12) Harrison, Katharine Lee; Bogard, David G.Film cooling computations and experiments were performed to study heat transfer and adiabatic effectiveness for several geometries. Various assumptions commonly made in film cooling experiments were computationally simulated to test the validity of using these assumptions to predict the heat flux into conducting walls. The validity of these assumptions was examined via computational simulations of film cooling on adiabatic, heated, and conducting flat plates using the commercial code FLUENT. The assumptions were found to be reasonable overall, but certain regions in the domain suffered from poor predictions. Film cooling adiabatic effectiveness and heat transfer coefficients for axial holes embedded in a 1 [hole diameter] transverse trench on the suction side of a simulated turbine vane were experimentally investigated as well to determine the net heat flux reduction. Heat transfer coefficients were determined with and without upstream heating both with and without a tripped boundary layer approach flow. The net heat flux reduction for the trench was found to be much higher than for the baseline row of holes. Two transverse trench geometries and a baseline row of holes geometry were also simulated using FLUENT and the results were compared to experiments by Waye and Bogard (2006). Trends between simulated trench configurations and baseline cylindrical holes without a trench were found to be largely in agreement with experimental trends, suggesting that FLUENT can be used as a tool for studying new trench configurations.Item Conjugate heat transfer effects on gas turbine film cooling : including thermal fields, thermal barrier coating, and contaminant deposition(2014-05) Stewart, William Robb; Bogard, David G.The efficiency of natural gas turbines is directly linked to the turbine inlet temperature, or the combustor exit temperature. Further increasing the turbine inlet temperature damages the turbine components and limits their durability. Advances in turbine vane cooling schemes protect the turbine components. This thesis studies the conjugate effects of internal cooling, film cooling and thermal barrier coatings (TBC) on turbine vane metal temperatures. Two-dimensional thermal profiles were experimentally measured downstream of a single row of film cooling holes on both an adiabatic and a matched Biot number model turbine vane. The measurements were taken as a comparison to computational simulations of the same model and flow conditions. To improve computational models of the evolution of a film cooling jet as it propagates downstream, the thermal field above the vane, not just the footprint on the vane surface must be analyzed. This study expands these data to include 2-D thermal fields above the vane at 0, 5 and 10 hole diameters downstream of the film cooling holes. In each case the computational jets remained colder than the experimental jets because they did not disperse into the mainstream as quickly. Finally, in comparing results above adiabatic and matched Biot number models, these thermal field measurements allow for an accurate analysis of whether or not the adiabatic wall temperature was a reasonable estimate of the driving temperature for heat transfer. In some cases the adiabatic wall temperature did give a good indication of the driving temperature for heat transfer while in other cases it did not. Previous tests simulating the effects of TBC on an internally and film cooled model turbine vane showed that the insulating effects of TBC dominate over variations in film cooling geometry and blowing ratio. In this study overall and external effectiveness were measured using a matched Biot number model vane simulating a TBC of thickness 0.6d, where d is the film cooing hole diameter. This new model was a 35% reduction in thermal resistance from previous tests. Overall effectiveness measurements were taken for an internal cooling only configuration, as well as for three rows of showerhead holes with a single row of holes on the pressure side of the vane. This pressure side row of holes was tested both as round holes and as round holes embedded in a realistic trench with a depth of 0.6 hole diameters. Even in the case of this thinner TBC, the insulating effects dominate over film cooling. In addition, using measurements of the convective heat transfer coefficient above the vane surface, and the thermal conductivities of the vane wall and simulated TBC material, a prediction technique of the overall effectiveness with TBC was evaluated.Item The effect of channel parameters on the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness of shaped holes in crossflow(2015-12) Wilkes, Ellen Katherine; Bogard, David G.; Webber, Michael E.There is limited information in the literature on the behavior of shaped film cooling holes fed by crossflow and even less information on the effect of crossflow parameters on film cooling performance. Here, two scaled film cooling models were used to independently vary the crossflow Reynolds numbers in the range of 36,000 to 57,000 and the crossflow velocity ratio from 0.36 to 0.64. Careful attention was paid to controlling physical parameters between comparisons to isolate the effects of internal velocity ratio or Reynolds number on the performance of shaped holes. In the process of controlling the physical parameters of the system, a novel correction for coolant to mainstream density ratio was proposed. The results of this study showed that channel velocity ratio had a larger effect on the film cooling performance of shaped holes than channel Reynolds number. When the mass flux of fluid through the film cooling holes was at the highest and lowest value, increasing the channel velocity ratio decreased the film cooling effectiveness. At a middle mass flux, the outcome was opposite such that an increase in channel velocity ratio resulted in increased effectiveness.Item Effects of hole pitch variation on overall and internal effectiveness in the leading edge region of a simulated turbine blade with heat flux measurements(2010-05) Dyson, Thomas Earl; Bogard, David G.; Moser, RobertIn this study, the cooling of a simulated blade under increasing pitch between holes was examined. The change in non-dimensional surface temperature, phi, was measured experimentally to quantify this performance loss. This critical quantification of the sensitivity of cooling to pitch between holes has not been studied previously. A range of blowing ratios and angles of attack were tested. Data are presented in terms of the laterally averaged phi, and in terms of the minimum phi, arguably more important from a design perspective. Increasing the pitch 13% produced no measureable change using either parameter. An increase of 26% in pitch produced only a 4% loss in lateral averages, while some hot points dropped by 10%. These small changes are due to compensating effects of increased internal and through-hole convective cooling. A limit to these effects was shown when increasing pitch 53%. While performance loss in the average was still relatively small at 15%, the minimum phi decreased by 27%. Heat flux gauges were used to gather data on the internal and external surface. The internal impingement used in this study represents a more accurate representation of internal cooling for an actual engine part than has been previously studied, providing a starting point for exploring the differences between engine configurations and those generally investigated in the literature. External heat flux measurements were used to measure the ratio of heat flux with and without film cooling. These results call into question the use of the net heat flux reduction parameter, which is commonly used to quantify overall film cooling performance.Item Evaluation of CFD predictions using thermal field measurements on a simulated film cooled turbine blade leading edge(2010-12) Mathew, Sibi; Bogard, David G.; Ravelli, SilviaComputations and experiments were run to study adiabatic effectiveness and thermal field contours for a simulated turbine blade leading edge. The RKE and SST k-[omega] turbulence models were used for the computational simulations. Predictions of RKE model for laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness matched the experimental values. The computational simulations showed different flowfield for the coolant exiting the stagnation line row of holes. Both the experiments and SST k-[omega] simulations predicted coolant separation at the stagnation plane. Also, the downstream spreading of the coolant exiting the stagnation row of exit holes was better predicted by the SST k-[omega] model. At the stagnation plane, experimental thermal field measurements showed greater diffusion of the coolant into the mainstream than predicted by both turbulence models. Reasons for increased diffusion were examined. Thermal field comparison downstream of the offstagnation row of exit holes showed that the computational simulations and the experiments had the same general shape for the offstagnation coolant jet. But the computational simulations predicted greater diffusion of coolant in the direction normal to the surface than seen in the experiments.Item Experimental and computational investigation of film cooling on a large scale C3X turbine vane including conjugate effects(2012-12) Dyson, Thomas Earl; Bogard, David G.; Bradshaw, Sean; Murthy, Jayathi; Raman, Venkat; Shi, LiThis study focused on the improvement of film cooling for gas turbine vanes using both computational and experimental techniques. The experimental component used a matched Biot number model to measure scaled surface temperature (overall effectiveness) distributions representative of engine conditions for two new configurations. One configuration consisted of a single row of holes on the pressure surface while the other used numerous film cooling holes over the entire vane including a showerhead. Both configurations used internal impingement cooling representative of a 1st vane. Adiabatic effectiveness was also measured. No previous studies had shown the effect of injection on the mean and fluctuating velocity profiles for the suction surface, so measurements were made at two locations immediately upstream of film cooling holes from the fully cooled cooling configuration. Different blowing conditions were evaluated. Computational tools are increasingly important in the design of advanced gas turbine engines and validation of these tools is required prior to integration into the design process. Two film cooling configurations were simulated and compared to past experimental work. Data from matched Biot number experiments was used to validate the overall effectiveness from conjugate simulations in addition to adiabatic effectiveness. A simulation of a single row of cooling holes on the suction side also gave additional insight into the interaction of film cooling jets with the thermal boundary layer. A showerhead configuration was also simulated. The final portion of this study sought to evaluate the performance of six RANS models (standard, realizable, and renormalization group k-ε; standard k-ω; k-ω SST; and Transition SST) with respect to the prediction of thermal boundary layers. The turbulent Prandtl number was varied to test a simple method for improvement of the thermal boundary layer predictions.Item Experimental investigation of film cooling and thermal barrier coatings on a gas turbine vane with conjugate heat transfer effects(2013-05) Kistenmacher, David Alan; Bogard, David G.In the United States, natural gas turbine generators account for approximately 7% of the total primary energy consumed. A one percent increase in gas turbine efficiency could result in savings of approximately 30 million dollars for operators and, subsequently, electricity end-users. The efficiency of a gas turbine engine is tied directly to the temperature at which the products of combustion enter the first stage, high-pressure turbine. The maximum operating temperature of the turbine components’ materials is the major limiting factor in increasing the turbine inlet temperature. In fact, current turbine inlet temperatures regularly exceed the melting temperature of the turbine vanes through advanced vane cooling techniques. These cooling techniques include vane surface film cooling, internal vane cooling, and the addition of a thermal barrier coating (TBC) to the exterior of the turbine vane. Typically, the performance of vane cooling techniques is evaluated using the adiabatic film effectiveness. However, the adiabatic film effectiveness, by definition, does not consider conjugate heat transfer effects. In order to evaluate the performance of internal vane cooling and a TBC it is necessary to consider conjugate heat transfer effects. The goal of this study was to provide insight into the conjugate heat transfer behavior of actual turbine vanes and various vane cooling techniques through experimental and analytical modeling in the pursuit of higher turbine inlet temperatures resulting in higher overall turbine efficiencies. The primary focus of this study was to experimentally characterize the combined effects of a TBC and film cooling. Vane model experiments were performed using a 10x scaled first stage inlet guide vane model that was designed using the Matched Biot Method to properly scale both the geometrical and thermal properties of an actual turbine vane. Two different TBC thicknesses were evaluated in this study. Along with the TBCs, six different film cooling configurations were evaluated which included pressure side round holes with a showerhead, round holes only, craters, a novel trench design called the modified trench, an ideal trench, and a realistic trench that takes manufacturing abilities into account. These film cooling geometries were created within the TBC layer. Each of the vane configurations was evaluated by monitoring a variety of temperatures, including the temperature of the exterior vane wall and the exterior surface of the TBC. This study found that the presence of a TBC decreased the sensitivity of the thermal barrier coating and vane wall interface temperature to changes in film coolant flow rates and changes in film cooling geometry. Therefore, research into improved film cooling geometries may not be valuable when a TBC is incorporated. This study also developed an analytical model which was used to predict the performance of the TBCs as a design tool. The analytical prediction model provided reasonable agreement with experimental data when using baseline data from an experiment with another TBC. However, the analytical prediction model performed poorly when predicting a TBC’s performance using baseline data collected from an experiment without a TBC.Item Experimental investigation of overall effectiveness and coolant jet interactions on a fully cooled C3X turbine vane(2013-05) McClintic, John W; Bogard, David G.This study focused on experimentally measuring the performance of a fully cooled, scaled up C3X turbine vane. Experimental measurements focused on investigating row-to-row interactions of coolant jets and the contributions of external film cooling and internal impingement cooling to overall cooling effectiveness. Overall effectiveness was experimentally measured using a thermally scaled, matched Biot number vane model featuring a realistic internal impingement scheme and had normalized surface temperatures that were representative of those found on engine components. A geometrically identical vane was also constructed out of low conductivity polystyrene foam to measure the normalized adiabatic wall temperature, or adiabatic effectiveness of the film cooling configuration. The vanes featured a full coverage film-cooling scheme with a five-row showerhead and 13 total rows of holes containing 149 total coolant holes. This study was the first study to make highly detailed measurements of overall effectiveness on a fully-cooled vane model and expands on previous studies of adiabatic and overall effectiveness on the showerhead and single rows of holes on a matched Biot vane by considering a fully cooled configuration to determine if the results from these previous studies also hold for a fully cooled configuration. Additionally, velocity and thermal fields were measured just upstream of two different suction side rows of holes in order to study the effect of introducing upstream coolant injection. The effects of mainstream turbulence and span-wise location were examined and at the downstream row of holes, the contributions of different rows of holes to the approach flow were compared. This study was the first to measure mean and fluctuating velocity data on the suction side of a turbine vane with upstream coolant injection. Understanding the effects of how upstream injection affects the performance of downstream rows of holes is critical to understanding the film cooling performance on a fully cooled turbine airfoil.Item Experimental investigation of the performance of a fully cooled gas turbine vane with and without mainstream flow and experimental analysis supporting the redesign of a wind tunnel test section(2013-12) Mosberg, Noah Avram; Bogard, David G.This study focused on experimentally determining the cooling performance of a fully cooled, scaled-up model of a C3X turbine vane. The primary objective was to determine the differences in overall effectiveness in the presence and absence of a hot mainstream flowing over the vane. Overall effectiveness was measured using a thermally scaled matched Biot number vane with an impingement plate providing the internal cooling. This is the first study focused on investigating the effect of removing the mainstream flow and comparing the contour and laterally-averaged effectiveness data in support of the development of an assembly line thermal testing method. It was found that the proposed method of factory floor testing of turbine component cooling performance did not provide comparable information to traditional overall effectiveness test methods. A second experiment was performed in which the effect of altering the angle of attack of a flow into a passive turbulence generator was investigated. Measurements in the approach flow were taken using a single wire hot-wire anemometer. This study was the first to investigate the effects such a setup would have on fluctuating flow quantitates such as turbulence intensity and integral length scale rather than simply the mean quantities. It was found that both the downstream turbulence intensity and the turbulence integral length scale increase monotonically with approach flow incidence angle at a specified distance downstream of the turbulence generator.Item Experimental measurement of overall effectiveness and internal coolant temperatures for a film cooled gas turbine airfoil with internal impingement cooling(2012-12) Williams, Randall Paul; Bogard, David G.; Berberoglu, HalilA scaled-up gas turbine vane model was constructed in such a way to achieve a Biot number (Bi) representative of an actual engine component, and experiments were performed to collect temperature data which may be used to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes used in the design of gas turbine cooling schemes. The physical model incorporated an internal impingement plate to provide cooling on the inner wall surface, and film cooling over the external surface was provided by a single row of holes located on the suction side of the vane. A single row of holes was chosen to simplify the operating condition and test geometry for the purpose of evaluating CFD predictions. Thermocouples were used to measure internal gas temperatures and internal surface temperatures over a range of coolant flow rates, while infra-red thermography was used to measure external surface temperatures. When Bi is matched to an actual engine component, these measured temperatures may be normalized relative to the coolant temperature and mainstream gas temperature to determine the overall cooling effectiveness, which will be representative of the real engine component. Measurements were made to evaluate the overall effectiveness resulting from internal impingement cooling alone, and then with both internal impingement cooling and external film cooling as the coolant flow rate was increased. As expected, with internal impingement cooling alone, both internal and external wall surfaces became colder as the coolant flow rate was increased. The addition of film cooling further increased the overall effectiveness, particularly at the lower and intermediate flow rates tested, but provided little benefit at the highest flow rates. An optimal jet momentum flux ratio of I=1.69 resulted in a peak overall effectiveness, although the film effectiveness was shown to be low under these conditions. The effect of increasing the coolant-to-mainstream density ratio was evaluated at one coolant flow rate and resulted in higher values of overall cooling effectiveness and normalized internal temperatures, throughout the model. Finally, a 1-dimensional heat transfer analysis was performed (using a resistance analogy) in which overall effectiveness with film cooling was predicted from measurements of film effectiveness and overall effectiveness without film cooling. This analysis tended to over-predict overall effectiveness, at the lowest values of the jet momentum flux ratio, while under-predicting it at the highest values.Item Experimental measurements of conjugate heat transfer on a scaled-up gas turbine airfoil with realistic cooling configuration(2010-05) Dees, Jason Edward; Bogard, David G.; Clemens, Noel T.; da Silva, Alexandre K.; Ezekoye, Ofodike A.; Moser, Robert D.This study performed detailed measurements on and around scaled up conducting and adiabatic airfoils with and without film cooling. The conducting vane was a matched Bi airfoil, which accurately scaled the convective heat transfer and conduction through the solid, in order to produce non-dimensional surface temperatures and thermal boundary layers that were representative of an actual engine. Measurements made on all vane models included surface temperature measurements and thermal profiles above the walls. Separate measurements on non-film cooled and film cooled conducting models allowed for the individual contributions of the internal convective cooling and external film cooling to the overall cooling scheme to be quantified. Surface temperature and thermal field measurements above the wall were also performed on a film cooled adiabatic model. For the conducting model with internal cooling only, strong streamwise temperature variations were seen. The surface temperature variations were highly dependent on the local external and internal heat transfer coefficients. Spanwise temperature variations also existed, but were modest in comparison to streamwise variations. Comparing the thermal fields above the film cooled adiabatic and conducting walls allowed for the assumption that the conducting wall would not significantly affect the thermal field in the film cooling jet to be tested. Near the edge of the film cooling jet the developing thermal boundary layer had a clear effect on the overlying gas temperature, suggesting that the common assumption that the adiabatic wall temperature is the appropriate driving temperature for heat transfer to a film cooled wall was invalid. On the jet centerline thermal boundary layer effects were less influential, due to the development of a new, thin boundary layer. This suggested that the adiabatic wall temperature as driving temperature for heat transfer was a reasonable assumption on the jet centerline for most cases tested. As film cooling momentum flux ratio increase, thermal boundary layer effects became more influential on the jet centerline. Additionally, the high resolution surface temperature measurements and thermal field measurements above the wall presented in the current study represent a significant improvement in the data available for validation of computational simulations of conducting turbine airfoils.Item Experimental simulation and mitigation of contaminant deposition on film cooled gas turbine airfoils(2011-05) Albert, Jason Edward; Bogard, David G.; da Silva, Alexandre K.; Ezekoye, Ofodike A.; Webber, Michael E.; Wenglarz, Richard A.Deposition of contaminant particles on gas turbine surfaces reduces the aerodynamic and cooling efficiency of the turbine and degrades its materials. Gas turbine designers seek a better understanding of this complicated phenomenon and how to mitigate its effects on engine efficiency and durability. The present study developed an experimental method in wind tunnel facilities to simulate the important physical aspects of the interaction between deposition and turbine cooling, particularly film cooling. This technique consisted of spraying molten wax droplets into the mainstream flow that would deposit and solidify on large scale, cooled, turbine airfoil models in a manner consistent with inertial deposition on turbine surfaces. The wax particles were sized to properly simulate the travel of particles in the flow path, and their adhesion to the surface was modeled by ensuring they remained at least partially molten upon impact. Initial development of this wax spray technique was performed with a turbine blade leading edge model with three rows of showerhead film cooling. It was then applied to turbine vane models with showerhead holes and row on pressure side consisting of either standard cylindrical holes or similar holes situated in a spanwise, recessed trench. Vane models were either approximately adiabatic or had a thermal conductivity selected to simulate the conjugate heat transfer of turbine airfoils at engine conditions. These models were also used to measure the adiabatic film effectiveness and overall cooling effectiveness in order to better assess how the cooling design interacted with deposition. Deposit growth was found to be sensitive to the mainstream air and the model surface temperatures and the solidification temperature of the wax. Deposits typically grew to an equilibrium thickness caused by a balance between erosion and adhesion. The existence of film cooling substantially redistributed deposit growth, but changes in blowing ratio had a minor effect. A hypothesis was proposed and substantiated for the physical mechanisms governing wax deposit growth, and its applicability to engine situations was discussed.Item An experimental study of film cooling, thermal barrier coatings and contaminant deposition on an internally cooled turbine airfoil model(2012-05) Davidson, Frederick Todd; Bogard, David G.; Kiehne, Thomas M.; Kohli, Atul; Ezekoye, Ofodike A.; Webber, Michael E.Approximately 10% of all energy consumed in the United States is derived from high temperature gas turbine engines. As a result, a 1% increase in engine efficiency would yield enough energy to satisfy the demands of approximately 1 million homes and savings of over $800 million in fuel costs per year. Efficiency of gas turbine engines can be improved by increasing the combustor temperature. Modern engines now operate at temperatures that far exceed the material limitations of the metals they are comprised of in the pursuit of increased thermal efficiency. Various techniques to thermally protect the turbine components are used to allow for safe operation of the engines despite the extreme environments: film cooling, internal convective cooling, and thermal barrier coatings. Historically, these thermal protection techniques have been studied separately without account for any conjugate effects. The end goal of this work is to provide a greater understanding of how the conjugate effects might alter the predictions of thermal behavior and consequently improve engine designs to pursue increased efficiency. The primary focus of this study was to complete the first open literature, high resolution experiments of a modeled first stage turbine vane with both active film cooling and a simulated thermal barrier coating (TBC). This was accomplished by scaling the thermal behavior of a real engine component to the model vane using the matched Biot number method. Various film cooling configurations were tested on both the suction and pressure side of the model vane including: round holes, craters, traditional trenches and a novel modified trench. IR thermography and ribbon thermocouples were used to measure the surface temperature of the TBC and the temperature at the interface of the TBC and vane wall, respectively. This work found that the presence of a TBC significantly dampens the effect of altering film cooling conditions when measuring the TBC interface temperature. This work also found that in certain conditions adiabatic effectiveness does not provide an accurate assessment of how a film cooling design may perform in a real engine. An additional focus of this work was to understand how contaminant deposition alters the cooling performance of a vane with a TBC. This work focused on quantifying the detrimental effects of active deposition by seeding the mainstream flow of the test facility with simulated molten coal ash. It was found that in most cases, except for round holes operating at relatively high blowing ratios, the performance of film cooling was negatively altered by the presence of contaminant deposition. However, the cooling performance at the interface of the TBC and vane wall actually improved with deposition due to the additional thermal resistance that was added to the exterior surface of the model vane.Item Film cooling on a flat plate: investigating density(2009-05-15) Grizzle, Joshua Peter FletcherThis study is an investigation of two specific effects on turbine blade film cooling. The effect of coolant to mainstream density ratio and upstream steps was studied. The studies were conducted on two flat plates with 4mm cylindrical film cooling holes, one with simple angle and the other with compound angle, in a low-speed suction type wind tunnel. Density effect was studied at ratios of 0.93 and 1.47 by using air and CO2 as coolant. An IR camera was used to record the temperature on the plate and T-type thermocouples were used to record the coolant and mainstream temperatures. During the study the nature of the conduction effect from the heated coolant was studied and found to be most prevalent along the plate surface not through the plate from the plenum. A methodology was presented by which conduction error free results were obtained. The results showed an increased effectiveness at higher density ratios, particularly near the holes and for the simple angle plate. Upstream step effect was studied using pressure sensitive paint and a coupled strobe light and camera. Steps of 0.5, 1 and 1.5mm were placed at the upstream edge of the holes. The steps were found to increase effectiveness significantly more than previous studies have shown when placing the step slightly upstream of the holes.Item Internal crossflow effects on turbine airfoil film cooling adiabatic effectiveness with compound angle round holes(2014-05) Klavetter, Sean Robert; Bogard, David G.Internal crossflow is an important element to actual gas turbine blade cooling; however, there are very few studies in open literature that have documented its effects on turbine blade film cooling. Experiments measuring adiabatic effectiveness were conducted to investigate the effects of perpendicular crossflow on a row of 45 degree compound angle, cylindrical film cooling holes. Tests included a standard plenum condition, a baseline crossflow case consisting of a smooth-walled channel, and various crossflow configurations with ribs. The ribs were angled to the direction of prevailing internal crossflow at 45 and 135 degrees and were positioned at different locations. Experiments were conducted at a density ratio of DR=1.5 for a range of blowing ratios including M=0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0. Results showed that internal crossflow can significantly influence adiabatic effectiveness when compared to the standard plenum condition. The implementation of ribs generally decreased the adiabatic effectiveness when compared to the smooth-walled crossflow case. The highest adiabatic effectiveness measurements were recorded for the smooth-walled case in which crossflow was directed against the spanwise hole orientation angle. Tests indicated that the direction of perpendicular crossflow in relation to the hole orientation can significantly influence the adiabatic effectiveness. Among the rib crossflow tests, rib configurations that directed the coolant forward in the direction of the mainstream resulted in higher adiabatic effectiveness measurements. However, no other parameters could consistently be identified correlating to increased film cooling performance. It is likely that a combination of factors are responsible for influencing performance, including internal local pressure caused by the ribs, the internal channel flow field, jet exit velocity profiles, and in-hole vortices.Item Numerical Investigations of Flow and Film Cooling with Endwall Contouring and Blade Tip Ejection under Rotating Turbine Conditions(2014-12-16) Lu, KunAn effort is made to numerically study the impact of rotating turbine conditions on the aerodynamic performance, film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer with the application of the endwall contouring and blade tip ejection. For this purpose, the three-stage HP turbine research facility at the Turbomachinery Performance and Flow Research Laboratory (TPFL), Texas A&M University, was newly designed and equipped. Using the geometry of this three-stage research turbine rig, comprehensive numerical simulations are performed to systematically study the impact of the rotation from the perspectives of both aerodynamics and heat transfer. Introducing endwall contouring has become a promising means to reduce the secondary flow losses. Thus TPFL developed a physics-based method which enables researchers and engineers to design endwall contours for any arbitrary blade types regardless of the blade loading, degree of reaction, stage load and flow coefficients. Using this approach, TPFL designed the new endwall contouring which was implemented on the platform of both the first-stage and second-stage rotors. The rotation impacts on the aerodynamics performance due to the endwall contouring were numerically studied using four different rotational speeds namely, 2000 rpm, 2400 rpm, 2600 rpm and 3000 rpm. Meanwhile, the influence on film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer caused by the endwall contouring was investigated for the first-stage rotor. Different purge-to-mainstream mass flow ratios of MFR = 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% were taken into account at the design rotational speed of 3000rpm. The effect of rotational speed (2400rpm, 2550rpm and 3000rpm) was investigated at typical MFR=1.0%. To investigate the flow characteristics and film cooling at high pressure turbine blade tips, four different rotor-blade tip configurations are designed and studied at TPFL: the plane and squealer tips with tip hole cooling and the plane and squealer tips with pressure-side-edge compound angle hole cooling. Seven perpendicular holes that are evenly distributed along the camber line are used for the tip hole cooling, whilst eight compound-angle holes for the pressure-side-edge cooling. The coolant was ejected through the cooling holes with low, medium and high global blowing ratios at 3000 rpm to study the impact of the blowing ratio on both the cooling effectiveness and heat transfer. Effects of rotation on the cooling effectiveness and heat transfer were calculated at the rotational speeds of 2000rpm, 2550 rpm, and 3000 rpm.Item Numerical simulation of a film cooled turbine blade leading edge including heat transfer effects(2009-08) Dobrowolski, Laurene D.; Bogard, David G.; da Silva, Alexandre K.Computations and experiments were run to study heat transfer and overall effectiveness for a simulated turbine blade leading edge. Computational predictions were run for a film cooled leading edge model using a conjugate numerical method to predict the normalized “metal” temperatures for the model. This computational study was done in conjunction with a parallel effort to experimentally determine normalized metal temperatures, i.e. overall effectiveness, using a specially designed high conductivity model. Predictions of overall effectiveness were higher than experimentally measured values in the stagnation region, but lower along the downstream section of the leading edge. Reasons for the differences between computational predictions and experimental measurements were examined. Also of interest was the validity of Taw as the driving temperature for heat transfer into the blade, and this was examined via computations. Overall, this assumption gave reasonable results except near the stagnation line. Experiments were also conducted on a leading edge with no film cooling to gain a better understanding of the additional cooling provided by film cooling. Heat flux was also measured and external and internal heat transfer coefficients were determined. The results showed roughly constant overall effectiveness on the external surface.Item Parameters that affect shaped hole film cooling performance and the effect of density ratio on heat transfer coefficient augmentation(2014-05) Boyd, Emily June; Bogard, David G.Film cooling is used in gas turbine engines to cool turbine components. Cooler air is bled from the compressor, routed internally through turbine vanes and blades, and exits through discrete holes, creating a film of coolant on the parts’ surfaces. Cooling the turbine components protects them from thermal damage and allows the engine to operate at higher combustion temperatures, which increases the engine efficiency. Shaped film cooling holes with diffuser exits have the advantage that they decelerate the coolant flow, enabling the coolant jets to remain attached to the surface at higher coolant flow rates. Furthermore, the expanded exits of the coolant holes provide a wider coolant distribution over the surface. The first part of this dissertation provides data for a new laidback, fan-shaped hole geometry designed at Pennsylvania State University’s Experimental and Computational Convection Laboratory. The shaped hole geometry was tested on flat plate facilities at the University of Texas at Austin and Pennsylvania State University. The objective of testing at two laboratories was to verify the adiabatic effectiveness performance of the shaped hole, with the intent of the data being a standard of comparison for future experimental and computational shaped hole studies. At first, measurements of adiabatic effectiveness did not match between the labs, and it was later found that shaped holes are extremely sensitive to machining, the material they are machined into, and coolant entrance effects. In addition, the adiabatic effectiveness was found to scale with velocity ratio for multiple density ratios and mainstream turbulence intensities. The second part of this dissertation measures heat transfer coefficient augmentation (hf/h0) at density ratios (DR) of 1.0, 1.2, and 1.5 using a uniform heat flux plate and the same shaped hole geometry. In the past, heat transfer coefficient augmentation was generally measured at DR = 1.0 under the assumption that hf/h0 was independent of density ratio. This dissertation is the first study to directly measure the wall and adiabatic wall temperature to calculate heat transfer coefficient augmentation at DR > 1.0. The results showed that the heat transfer coefficient augmentation was low while the jets were attached to the surface and increased when the jets started to separate. At DR = 1.0, hf/h0 was higher for a given blowing ratio than at DR = 1.2 and DR = 1.5. However, when velocity ratios are matched, better correspondence was found at the different density ratios. Surface contours of hf/h0 showed that the heat transfer was initially increased along the centerline of the jet, but was reduced along the centerline at distances farther downstream. The decrease along the centerline may be due to counter-rotating vortices sweeping warm air next to the heat flux plate toward the center of the jet, where they sweep upward and thicken the thermal boundary layer. This warming of the core of the coolant jet over the heated surface was confirmed with thermal field measurements.