Heat transfer on a film-cooled rotating blade using different turbulence models

Abstract

A three-dimensional Navier–Stokes code has been used to compute the heat transfer coefficient on a film-cooled, rotating turbine blade. The blade chosen is the ACE rotor with five rows containing 93 film cooling holes covering the entire span. This is the only film-cooled rotating blade over which experimental data is available for comparison. Over 2.278 million grid points are used to compute the flow over the blade including the tip clearance region, using Wilcoxs k– ω model, Coakleys q– ω model, and the zero-equation Baldwin–Lomax (B–L) model. A reasonably good comparison with the experimental data is obtained on the suction surface for all the turbulence models. At the leading edge, the B–L model yields a better comparison than the two-equation models. On the pressure surface, however, the comparison between the experimental data and the prediction from the k– ω model is much better than from the other two models. Overall, the k– ω model provides the best comparison with the experimental data. However, the two-equation models require at least 40% more computational resources than the B–L model.