Browsing by Subject "Turbine cooling"
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Item Additively manufactured porous geometries for hybrid turbine blade cooling(2020-06-29) Fier, Nathan David; Bogard, David G.Traditional film cooling holes are limited by subtractive manufacturing techniques and experience depreciating performance when operating above critical velocity ratios. This study presents an alternative method of bringing coolant to the surface of the blade, via finite regions of porous material integrated throughout the blade, made possible by advances in additive manufacturing. Both experimental and computational studies were performed on the hybrid configuration to characterize downstream and off-wall performance. Downstream adiabatic effectiveness values of the hybrid configuration indicate similar performance to slots while providing better structural stability. Results from the hybrid configuration were also directly compared to film cooling holes, producing scenarios with equivalent spatially-averaged effectiveness while using 50% less coolant per unit width, and doubling spatially-averaged effectiveness values while requiring twice the coolant mass flow rate of film cooling. Finally, the RANS computational model accurately predicted downstream effectiveness values, at low velocity ratios, within experimental uncertainty.Item CFD evaluation of internal flow effects on turbine blade leading-edge film cooling and overall cooling with shaped hole geometries(2021-06-18) Easterby, Christopher Conway; Bogard, David G.In gas turbine engines, the highest heat loads occur at the leading-edge areas of turbine blades and vanes. To protect the blades and vanes, a “showerhead” configuration of film cooling holes is often used for this location, in which several rows of holes are configured closely together to maximize film coverage. Typically, these film cooling holes are fed by impingement cooling jets, helping to cool the leading edge internally, but also changing the internal flow field. The effects of these internal flow fields on film cooling are not well known, and experimental research is very limited in its ability to analyze them. Because of this, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations using RANS were used as a way to analyze these internal flow fields. To isolate the effects of the impingement jet, results were compared to a pseudo-plenum internal feed, and rotation in the hole caused by the impingement was found to be a key factor in performance. Computational results from both coolant feed configurations were compared to experimental results for the same configurations. The CFD RANS results were found to follow the same trends as the experimental results for both the impingement-fed and plenum-fed cases, suggesting that RANS is able to accurately model some of the important physics associated with leading-edge film cooling. Additionally, the effects of the impingement feed on overall cooling effectiveness were analyzed and found to be significant at lower blowing ratios but less significant at higher blowing ratios.Item Evaluation of the cooling performance for adjoint optimized film cooling hole geometries(2022-05-26) Gutierrez, Daniel, M.S. in Engineering; Bogard, David G.; Oliver, ToddAdvancement in additive manufacturing (AM) methods along with the application to gas turbine component manufacturing has expanded the feasibility of creating complex hole geometries to be used in gas turbines. The design possibilities for new hole geometries have become unlimited as these improved AM methods allow for the creation of holes with complex hole geometries such as rounded inlets, protrusions in the surface of the inlet and outlet of holes, among others. This advancement in such technology has sparked interest among turbine research groups for the design and creation of optimized versions of holes that showcase sophisticated geometries, which would otherwise not be possible to be manufactured using conventional manufacturing methods. Recently, a computational adjoint based optimization method by a past student in our lab (Fraser B. Jones) was used to design shaped film cooling holes fed by internal co-flow and cross-flow channels. The CFD simulations for said hole geometries predicted that the holes optimized for use with cross-flow (X-AOpt) and co-flow (Co-AOpt) would significantly increase adiabatic effectiveness. However, only the X-AOpt hole was tested experimentally in this previous study. In this study, adiabatic and matched Biot number models were built for 5X engine scale models of the X-AOpt and Co-AOpt shaped holes and tested experimentally in a low speed wind tunnel facility. The optimized shaped holes are experimentally evaluated using measurements of adiabatic effectiveness and overall cooling effectiveness. Coolant was fed to the holes with an internal co-flow channel and tested at various blowing ratios (M=0.5-4). For reference, experiments were also conducted with 5X engine scale models for the baseline 7-7-7 sharp inlet (SI) shaped hole, and a 15-15-1 rounded inlet (RI) shaped hole (shown in a previous parametric optimization study by Jones to be the optimum expansion angles for a shaped hole). Discharge coefficient, C [subscript d], measurements for the Co-AOpt geometry are analyzed in greater detail and compared against the other hole geometries tested for the study. In addition, computational predictions of C [subscript d] for a 15-15-1 RI hole will be compared against experimental measurements from this study. Results from the experiments performed at the low speed facility for 5X scale models confirmed that the X-AOpt hole had a 75% increase in adiabatic effectiveness compared to the 7-7-7 SI shaped hole. However, the Co-AOpt hole had only a 30% increase in adiabatic effectiveness, which is substantially less than had been computationally predicted.Item Experimental investigation of film cooling and thermal barrier coatings on a gas turbine vane with conjugate heat transfer effects(2013-05) Kistenmacher, David Alan; Bogard, David G.In the United States, natural gas turbine generators account for approximately 7% of the total primary energy consumed. A one percent increase in gas turbine efficiency could result in savings of approximately 30 million dollars for operators and, subsequently, electricity end-users. The efficiency of a gas turbine engine is tied directly to the temperature at which the products of combustion enter the first stage, high-pressure turbine. The maximum operating temperature of the turbine components’ materials is the major limiting factor in increasing the turbine inlet temperature. In fact, current turbine inlet temperatures regularly exceed the melting temperature of the turbine vanes through advanced vane cooling techniques. These cooling techniques include vane surface film cooling, internal vane cooling, and the addition of a thermal barrier coating (TBC) to the exterior of the turbine vane. Typically, the performance of vane cooling techniques is evaluated using the adiabatic film effectiveness. However, the adiabatic film effectiveness, by definition, does not consider conjugate heat transfer effects. In order to evaluate the performance of internal vane cooling and a TBC it is necessary to consider conjugate heat transfer effects. The goal of this study was to provide insight into the conjugate heat transfer behavior of actual turbine vanes and various vane cooling techniques through experimental and analytical modeling in the pursuit of higher turbine inlet temperatures resulting in higher overall turbine efficiencies. The primary focus of this study was to experimentally characterize the combined effects of a TBC and film cooling. Vane model experiments were performed using a 10x scaled first stage inlet guide vane model that was designed using the Matched Biot Method to properly scale both the geometrical and thermal properties of an actual turbine vane. Two different TBC thicknesses were evaluated in this study. Along with the TBCs, six different film cooling configurations were evaluated which included pressure side round holes with a showerhead, round holes only, craters, a novel trench design called the modified trench, an ideal trench, and a realistic trench that takes manufacturing abilities into account. These film cooling geometries were created within the TBC layer. Each of the vane configurations was evaluated by monitoring a variety of temperatures, including the temperature of the exterior vane wall and the exterior surface of the TBC. This study found that the presence of a TBC decreased the sensitivity of the thermal barrier coating and vane wall interface temperature to changes in film coolant flow rates and changes in film cooling geometry. Therefore, research into improved film cooling geometries may not be valuable when a TBC is incorporated. This study also developed an analytical model which was used to predict the performance of the TBCs as a design tool. The analytical prediction model provided reasonable agreement with experimental data when using baseline data from an experiment with another TBC. However, the analytical prediction model performed poorly when predicting a TBC’s performance using baseline data collected from an experiment without a TBC.Item Experimental simulation and mitigation of contaminant deposition on film cooled gas turbine airfoils(2011-05) Albert, Jason Edward; Bogard, David G.; da Silva, Alexandre K.; Ezekoye, Ofodike A.; Webber, Michael E.; Wenglarz, Richard A.Deposition of contaminant particles on gas turbine surfaces reduces the aerodynamic and cooling efficiency of the turbine and degrades its materials. Gas turbine designers seek a better understanding of this complicated phenomenon and how to mitigate its effects on engine efficiency and durability. The present study developed an experimental method in wind tunnel facilities to simulate the important physical aspects of the interaction between deposition and turbine cooling, particularly film cooling. This technique consisted of spraying molten wax droplets into the mainstream flow that would deposit and solidify on large scale, cooled, turbine airfoil models in a manner consistent with inertial deposition on turbine surfaces. The wax particles were sized to properly simulate the travel of particles in the flow path, and their adhesion to the surface was modeled by ensuring they remained at least partially molten upon impact. Initial development of this wax spray technique was performed with a turbine blade leading edge model with three rows of showerhead film cooling. It was then applied to turbine vane models with showerhead holes and row on pressure side consisting of either standard cylindrical holes or similar holes situated in a spanwise, recessed trench. Vane models were either approximately adiabatic or had a thermal conductivity selected to simulate the conjugate heat transfer of turbine airfoils at engine conditions. These models were also used to measure the adiabatic film effectiveness and overall cooling effectiveness in order to better assess how the cooling design interacted with deposition. Deposit growth was found to be sensitive to the mainstream air and the model surface temperatures and the solidification temperature of the wax. Deposits typically grew to an equilibrium thickness caused by a balance between erosion and adhesion. The existence of film cooling substantially redistributed deposit growth, but changes in blowing ratio had a minor effect. A hypothesis was proposed and substantiated for the physical mechanisms governing wax deposit growth, and its applicability to engine situations was discussed.Item Film effectiveness performance for a shaped hole on the suction side of a scaled-up turbine blade(2018-06-26) Moore, Jacob Damian; Bogard, David G.Surface curvature has been shown to have significant effects on the film cooling performance of round holes, but the present literature includes very few studies dedicated to curvature’s effects on shaped hole geometries despite their prevalence in turbine blade and vane designs. Experiments were performed on two rows of holes placed on the suction side of a scaled-up gas turbine blade model in a low-Mach-number linear cascade wind tunnel. The test facility was set up to match a high-Mach-number pressure distribution without modifying the blade’s geometry or including contoured end walls to accelerate the flow. By adjusting the positions of the movable walls in the tunnel test section, the suction side pressure distribution could be matched to the design distribution. One row was placed in a region of high convex surface curvature; the other, in a region of low convex curvature. Other geometric and flow parameters near the rows were matched in the design of the experiment, including hole geometry and spacing. The hole geometry was a standard 7-7-7 shaped hole. In addition, local freestream conditions for the rows were measured and set to match as closely as possible. Comparison of the adiabatic effectiveness results from the two rows revealed trends similar to those seen in previous literature for round holes. The high curvature row outperformed the low curvature row at lower coolant injection rates, having wider jets and higher centerline effectiveness. But as the injection rate was increased, the low curvature row surpassed the high curvature row in effectiveness. The driver behind this behavior was the surface-normal pressure gradient that arose from the convex surface curvature. As flow traveled around the surface, centripetal acceleration produced a pressure gradient directed towards the surface, effectively pushing jets toward the blade wall. However, at higher blowing ratios, the jets’ high momenta overcame the effects of this pressure gradient. At these injection rates, the high curvature row’s jets’ trajectories did not follow the surface as it curved away. The high surface curvature exacerbated the adverse effects of jet separation on film cooling performance.Item Systematic study of shaped-hole film cooling at the leading edge of a scaled-up turbine blade(2020-05-14) Moore, Jacob Damian; Bogard, David G.; Oliver, Todd A; Ezekoye, Ofodike A; Ellzey, Janet LThe leading-edge regions of turbine vanes and blades require careful attention to their cooling designs because of the high heat loads. External cooling is typically accomplished with dense "showerhead" arrangements of film cooling holes surrounding the stagnation point at the airfoil leading edge. In modern film cooling studies, shaped holes are prevalent in downstream areas of turbine airfoils; however, the literature contains few studies of shaped holes in the showerhead. This leads to a lack of physics-based insight that would lead to the design of high-performing showerhead arrays. This study examined the performance and physical behavior of several showerhead arrangements at the leading edge of a scaled-up turbine blade. A low-speed linear cascade test section was used to simulate the blade environment, and experiments were conducted at scaled engine-realistic conditions. First, the cooling performances of baseline cylindrical and shaped hole designs were compared. The shaped hole design mimicked a standard design in the literature for flat plate studies but with some modifications expected to improve performance specifically at the leading edge. The result was a novel off-center, elliptically-expanding hole. Adiabatic effectiveness and thermal field measurements revealed that the baseline shaped hole had 20-100% performance due to better jet attachment, stemming from its diffuser, which effectively decreased the exit momenta of the coolant jets. The expansion area ratio was increased by 40% for a subsequent design to gauge sensitivity to this parameter; but, surprisingly, the performances of the new design and of the baseline one were nearly identical. A third shaped hole design with a 45% larger breakout area but an identical expansion area resulted in slightly worse performance than either, highlighting the detrimental effect of increasing breakout area and expansion angle. These experiments informed a new proposed scaling parameter incorporating both of these areas and their counteracting effects to predict shaped hole performance in the showerhead. The highest performing design of the group was then tested with an engine-realistic impingement coolant feed, for which performance was overall similar. Supplemental thermal fields using this configuration were performed to construct a 3D representation of the flow field in the showerhead region.Item Using contoured endwalls to achieve proper scaling for a gas turbine vane model using a low speed testing facility(2015-05) Vaclavik, Adam William; Bogard, David G.; Ezekoye, OfodikeThe testing of gas turbine vane and blade models is often performed in low speed, large scale infinite cascade facilities to allow for more precise machining of parts and more accurately measured data. However, flow in engine scale turbines reaches well into the compressible gas range while low speed facilities run in the incompressible fluid range, and engines have three dimensional flow effects due to having contoured endwall while traditional cascade testing has not accounted for three dimensional effects. This means that matching pressure distributions cannot be achieved between engine scale and experimental scale through simple geometric scaling of the model. In the past, these differences in pressure distributions were often overcome by changing the geometry of the test model. An alternate to this is to use contoured enwalls inside the test facility to allow the decreased area to correct for the differences in pressure distributions. In this work, the concept of using contoured endwalls in the test facility to achieve a matching pressure distribution on a vane was tested. Three dimensional computation fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to find the correct geometry for the contoured endwalls. The proposed endwalls and vanes were then built and tested in a low speed simulated infinite cascade testing facility. The pressure distribution was measured at low turbulence levels and Re = 1.1×10⁶. It was shown that the pressure distribution in the test model with contoured endwalls did match within uncertainty the pressure distribution predicted for the engine scale using CFD. Thus, contoured endwalls can be said to be a viable option to force the matching of pressure distribution of a model test vane to that of engine conditions. Additionally, a vane model with a constant heat flux surface was tested at the same conditions, and the heat transfer coefficient distribution for the vane was determined. It was shown that the endwalls had minimal effects on the spanwise uniformity of the heat transfer coefficient distribution.