Estimation of internal heat transfer coefficients and detection of rib positions in gas turbine blades from transient surface temperature measurements

Abstract

This paper describes a non-invasive, non-destructive, transient inverse measurement technique that allows one to determine internal heat transfer coefficients and rib positions of real gas turbine blades from outer surface temperature measurements after a sudden flow heating. The determination of internal heat transfer coefficients is important during the design process to adjust local heat transfer to spatial thermal load. The detection of rib positions is important during production to fulfill design and quality requirements. For the analysis the one-dimensional transient heat transfer problem inside of the turbine blade's wall was solved. This solution was combined with the Levenberg-Marquardt method to estimate the unknown boundary condition by an inverse technique. The method was tested with artificial data to determine uncertainties with positive results. Then experimental testing with a reference model was carried out. Based on the results, it is concluded that the presented inverse technique could be used to determine internal heat transfer coefficients and to detect rib positions of real turbine blades.