Leading Edge Film Cooling: Computations and Experiments Including Density Effects

Abstract

The effect of varying coolant density on film cooling effectiveness for a turbine blade-model was numerically investigated and compared with experimental data. This model had a semi-circular leading edge with four rows of laterally-inclined film cooling orifices positioned symmetrically about the stagnation line. A curvilinear coordinate-based CFD code was developed and used for the numerical investigation. The code used a domain segmentation strategy in conjunction with general curvilinear grids to model the complex blade configuration. A multigrid method was used to accelerate the convergence rate. The time-averaged, variable-density, Navier-Stokes equations together with the energy or scalar equation were solved. Turbulence closure was attained by the standard k–ε model with a near-wall k model. Either air or CO2 was used as coolant in three cases of injection through single rows and alternatively staggered double raws of holes. Two different blowing rates were investigated in each case and compared with experimental data. The experimental results were obtained using a wind tunnel model, and the mass/heat analogy was used to determine the film cooling effectiveness. The higher density of the carbon dioxide coolant (approximately 1.5 times the density of air) in the isothermal mass injection experiments, was used to simulate the effects of injection of a colder air in the corresponding adiabatic heat transfer situation. Good agreement between calculated and measured film cooling effectiveness was found for low blowing ratio M ≤ 0.5 and the effect of density was not significant. At higher blowing ratio M > 1 the calculations consistently overpredict the measured values of film cooling effectiveness.