Prior emphasis on isolated turbine cooling structures resulted in low coolant utilization, but research on coolant interactions of different components remains scarce. This paper experimentally and numerically investigates the interaction effects between two inherent coolant jets from the endwall slot and blade showerhead. Their combined effect on endwall aero-thermal performance is measured by an Infrared camera, and the secondary flows under coolant mix are analyzed. The results show that blade showerhead coolant can play secondary cooling effects on endwall through reattachment, and it can also influence the endwall cooling distribution through altering the secondary flow development near leading edge. At high slot mass flow ratio (MFR) of 2.3%, the showerhead jets lead to secondary endwall cooling effectiveness of up to 0.2 in pressure side junction and suction side hot ring when showerhead MFR is 0.36%. With a further increase in the showerhead coolant MFR to 0.77%, the showerhead jets push the horseshoe vortex to reattach on pressure side endwall, and thus a high cooling region is formed on pressure side endwall near the slot edge. At low slot MFR of 1.5%, the slot leakage mainly covers the suction side endwall with a large hot ring. The reattachment of showerhead coolant on endwall is weak when the showerhead MFR is 0.36%. When showerhead MFR increases to 0.77%, the showerhead coolant has an ideal secondary cooling effect on endwall suction side hot ring, pressure side upstream part endwall, and pressure side junction. The heat transfer coefficient within the pressure side hot ring and pressure side junction both reaches 400. This paper can guide the joint design of turbine blade and endwall cooling layouts.
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