Impact of Cooling Fluid Temperature on the Structural Integrity of Gas Turbine Stator Blades

Abstract

The importance of gas turbine engines to the aviation industry cannot be overemphasized. Being a major part of aircrafts and jets, its reliability must be second to none. They are continuously subjected to extreme conditions during service making them the subject of constant studies. To produce the thrust and torque power required of them, they have to convert the intense heat and pressure inherent in hot combustion gases. To withstand the high combustion gas temperature without thermal failure, specialized materials and cooling are employed. This study numerically investigated the effect of cooling fluid temperature on the structural integrity of a (DS) GTD111 alloy gas turbine stator blade using COMSOL 5.5 software. Air was used as the cooling fluid in this study. The duct passages of the stator blade are significantly affected by the cooling fluid temperature values. Lower values of cooling fluid temperature proved beneficial for keeping the stator blade material below its metallurgical limit and is a positive for its total displacement, it however, negatively affects the yielding of the material. The cooling fluid temperature can be optimally selected to give optimal cooling effects in terms of total displacement and stress development. Based on this study, a cooling fluid (air) temperature of about 660 K will give optimal results. Internal cooling alone is not sufficient to produce the required cooling for turbine stator blades and this is evident in the output of the study, thus, coating and film cooling must be carried out to prevent thermal failure during service.