A Detailed Investigation of the Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer Related to Injection from a Compound Angled Shaped Film Cooling Hole

Open Access
- Author:
- Haydt, Shane Elliott
- Graduate Program:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- January 24, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Stephen P Lynch, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Karen Ann Thole, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Jacqueline Antonia O'Connor, Committee Member
Savas Yavuzkurt, Committee Member
Robert Francis Kunz, Outside Member - Keywords:
- film cooling
heat transfer
fluid dynamics
gas turbines
turbomachinery
heat transfer augmentation
particle image velocimetry
ir thermography - Abstract:
- Gas turbines are used around the world to provide thrust for airplanes and to generate electricity. Designers and operators are constantly chasing higher thermal efficiency, and even an incremental increase is considered an achievement. Higher thermal efficiency begets higher turbine inlet temperatures, and the parts that are exposed to these temperatures require sophisticated cooling technologies. One such cooling method is shaped film cooling, which ejects low momentum coolant with the goal of it staying attached to the wall, spreading laterally, and providing a lower driving temperature for convection. In some film cooling manufacturing processes, the meter and diffuser are created in separate steps with separate machines, and an offset can occur in that process. A study was designed to quantify the change in adiabatic effectiveness for five offset directions: fore, fore-left, left, aft-left, and aft. All offset directions caused a detriment to film cooling performance, except for the fore offset, which improved adiabatic effectiveness relative to a no offset case. CFD helped show that the fore offset created a separation in the region of the film cooling metering section where jetting occurs, which decreased the high momentum and made the cooling jet more likely to remain attached to the surface. This study resulted in a patent. A large range of area ratios and blowing ratios were examined in a study designed to isolate the effect of area ratio by lengthening the diffuser of a shaped hole. Very high area ratios were generated that resulted in significant cooling potential. It was shown that at each area ratio there is an optimal blowing ratio beyond which the effectiveness will decrease or plateau. This was reduced to an optimal effective blowing ratio, M/AR, which was shown through CFD to be the condition when the coolant jet core has similar velocity magnitude to the mainstream flow. This results in a weak shear layer and a weak counter-rotating vortex pair. In an axially oriented hole, the mainstream flows over the top of a cooling jet and around the sides, in equal measure, creating a symmetric flowfield. In a compound angled shaped hole, the mainstream flows primarily around the leeward side, creating a strong shear layer and an asymmetric streamwise vortex. Compound angled shaped holes are used commonly in gas turbines, but there has been no work examining the adiabatic effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient augmentation at a range of compound angles, and there are no flowfield measurements. A comprehensive study of the flowfield, cooling effectiveness, and heat transfer coefficient were obtained for compound angled shaped holes for compound angles ranging from 0°-60° in 15° increments. It is shown that asymmetry and vorticity magnitude increase with increasing compound angle and increasing blowing ratio. Holes with high compound angles can maintain jet attachment at high blowing ratios because the streamwise component of blowing ratio is reduced, which leads to high effectiveness. The most important contribution of this work was showing that the streamwise vortex increases heat transfer coefficient in a region adjacent to the jet, where very little coolant coverage exists. For this reason, compound angled shaped holes can cause local regions of increased heat flux relative to an uncooled surface, which may be an issue for some designs if not properly accounted for. Heat transfer coefficient augmentation increases as compound angle and blowing ratio increase. Designs that promote jet interaction, such as holes with a smaller pitchwise spacing or holes with significant lateral motion, cover the entire endwall in coolant and lessen the negative effects of high heat transfer coefficient augmentation.