Film Cooling Effectiveness Distribution on First-Stage Vane Endwall With and Without Leading-Edge Fillets: Part I—Effect of Leading Edge Geometry

Abstract

The paper is focused on the effect of leading edge airfoil geometry on endwall film cooling. Fillets placed at the junctions of the leading edge and the endwall are used in investigation. Three types of fillet profiles are tested, and the results are compared with baseline geometry without fillet. The design of the fillet is based on the suggestion by previous literature data indicating that sharp is effective in controlling the secondary flow. Three types of sharp slope fillet with the length to height ratio of 2.8, 1.2 and 0.5 are made using stereo lithography (SLA) and assessed in the experiment. Distributed with the approximately inviscid flow direction, four rows of compound angle laidback fan-shaped holes are arranged on the endwall to form full covered coolant film. The four rows of fanshaped holes are inclined 30 deg to the endwall surface and held an angle of 0, 30, 45 and 60 deg to axial direction respectively. The fanshaped holes have a lateral diffusion angle of 10 deg from the hole-centerline and a forward expansion angle of 10 deg to the endwall surface. The Reynolds number based on the axial chord and inlet velocity of the free-stream flow is 3.5*105, and the testing is done in a four-blade cascade with low Mach number condition (0.1 at the inlet) while the blowing ratio of the coolant through the discrete holes varies from 0.4 to 1.2. The film-cooling effectiveness distributions are obtained using the PSP (pressure sensitive paint) technique, by which the effect of different fillet geometry on passage induced flow and coolant is shown. The present paper compares the film cooling effectiveness distributions in a baseline blade cascade with three similar blades with different leading edge by adding fillets. The results show that with blowing ratio increasing, the film cooling effectiveness increases on the endwall. For specific blowing ratio, the effects of leading edge geometries could be illustrated as follows. The baseline geometry provides the best film cooling performance near leading edge pressure side. As for the leading edge suction side, the best leading edge geometry depends on the blowing ratio. The longfillet is the more effective in controlling horseshoe vortex at low blowing ratio, but for the high blowing ratio shortfillet and mediumfillet are better.