Abstract Compressible direct numerical simulations are conducted to investigate how surface roughness affects the aero-thermal performance of a high pressure turbine vane operating at an exit Reynolds number of 0.59 × 106 and exit Mach number of 0.92. The roughness under investigation here was synthesized with non- Gaussian statistical properties and an amplitude that varies over its chord length — representative of what truly occurs on an in-service vane. Particular attention is directed towards how sys- tematically changing the axial extent of leading edge roughness affects convective heat transfer (Nusselt and Stanton numbers) and aerodynamic drag (skin-friction coefficient) on the pressure and suction surfaces. The results of this investigation demonstrate that moving the larger amplitude roughness further along the suc- tion surface can cause major changes in the blade boundary-layer state. In fact, towards the trailing-edge of one of the rough vanes investigated here, the local skin-friction coefficient increases by a factor of twenty-three (2, 300%) compared to smooth-vane lev- els, whereas the local Stanton number increases by a factor six (600%). The disproportionate rise of drag compared to heat transfer is explored in further detail by quantifying the Reynolds' analogy and by calculating the fractional contributions of pres- sure drag and viscous drag to the total drag force. The effect of varying the inlet turbulence intensity and integral length-scale for a fixed roughness topography is also investigated, along with the Reynolds-number scaling of heat transfer and drag.
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