Simulations of Hot-Gas Flow in Internally Cooled Cascade of Turbine Vanes

Abstract

Abstract An experiment in cooling of gas turbine nozzle guide vanes was modelled numerically with a conjugate viscous-flow and solid-material heat conduction solver. The nozzle vanes were arranged in a cascade and operated in high-pressure, hot-temperature conditions, typical for first turbine stage in a flow of controlled-intensity, artificially-generated turbulence. The vane cooling was internal, accomplished by 10 channels in each vane with cooling-air flow. Numerical simulations of the experiment were conducted applying two turbulence models of the k-omega family: k-omega-SST and Transition SST implemented in the ANSYS Fluent solver. Boundary conditions for the simulations were set based on conditions of experiment: total pressures and total temperature on inlet to cascade, static pressure on the outlet of the cascade and heat flux on the surface of cooling channels. The values of heat flux on the surface of cooling channels were evaluated based on Nusselt numbers obtained from experiment and varied in time until steady-state conditions were obtained. Two test cases, one with subcritical outlet flow, and another one, with supercritical outlet flow were simulated. The result of experiment – distributions of pressure, surface temperature, and heat transfer coefficients on the vane external surface were compared to results of numerical simulations. Sensitivity of the vane surface temperatures and heat transfer coefficients to turbulence models and to boundary-condition values of parameters of turbulence models: turbulence energy and specific dissipation of turbulence energy was also studied.