An Infrared Technique for Evaluating Turbine Airfoil Cooling Designs

Abstract

An experimental approach is used to evaluate turbine airfoil cooling designs for advanced gas turbine engine applications by incorporating double-wall film-cooled design features into large-scale flat plate specimens. An infrared (IR) imaging system is used to make detailed, two-dimensional steady-state measurements of flat plate surface temperature with spatial resolution on the order of 0.4 mm. The technique employs a cooled zinc selenide window transparent to infrared radiation and calibrates the IR temperature readings to reference thermocouples embedded in each specimen, yielding a surface temperature measurement accuracy of ±4°C. With minimal thermocouple installation required, the flat plate/IR approach is cost effective, essentially nonintrusive, and produces abundant results quickly. Design concepts can proceed from art to part to data in a manner consistent with aggressive development schedules. The infrared technique is demonstrated here by considering the effect of film hole injection angle for a staggered array of film cooling holes integrated with a highly effective internal cooling pattern. Heated free stream air and room temperature cooling air are used to produce a nominal temperature ratio of 2 over a range of blowing ratios from 0.7 to 1.5. Results were obtained at hole angles of 90 and 30 deg for two different hole spacings and are presented in terms of overall cooling effectiveness. [S0889-504X(00)01901-2]