Experimental study on transpiration cooling through additively manufactured porous structures

Abstract

Film cooling and thermal barrier coating are the most common external cooling techniques used for gas turbine components. In film cooling, coolant air is brought to the external surface via rows of discrete holes. This study investigates an alternative geometry, referred to as transpiration cooling. Here, the coolant air is brought to the external surface through an additively manufactured porous structure. An experimental study was performed to characterize the downstream cooling performance by obtaining film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient using thermochromic liquid crystals. The experimental setup was first validated using a cylindrical film cooling sample and the results were compared to results obtained from previously published film cooling studies. After validation, transpiration cooling samples were investigated. A total of three porous structure samples with different thicknesses were subjected to testing. The thickness of the porous structure had insignificant effect on both the heat transfer coefficient and the film cooling effectiveness. The samples were tested at blowing ratios ranging from 0.5 to 2.0. Results showed an increase in laterally averaged heat transfer coefficient with increasing blowing ratio and compared to cylindrical film cooling, transpiration cooling yielded significantly higher distributions. The spanwise averaged film cooling effectiveness displayed a similar trend with higher values for transpiration cooling, mainly due to a more even mixing in the lateral direction. Values of the heat flux ratio showed that the high heat transfer coefficient penalizes the porous cooling method and only for low blowing ratios may transpiration cooling be the beneficial choice. From visualizations with water and carbon dioxide, it could be concluded that the inclination angle is close to 90° which yields a chaotic flow field and, in turn, high values of the heat transfer coefficient. By changing the additive manufacturing's build direction, a more favorable inclination angle should be achievable and, thereby, an opportunity to utilize the porous structure's excellent mixing in the spanwise direction.