3-D Numerical Simulation of the Flow Through a Turbine Blade Cascade With Cooling Injection at the Leading Edge

Abstract

High process efficiencies and high power-weight ratios are two major requirements for the economic operation of present day gas turbines. This development leads to extremely high turbine inlet temperatures and adjusted pressure ratios. The permissible hot gas temperature is limited by the material temperature of the blade. Intensive cooling is required to guarantee an economically acceptable life of the components which are in contact with the hot gas. Although film-cooling has been successfully in use for a couple of years along the suction side and pressure side, problems occur in the vicinity of the stagnation point due to high stagnation pressures and opposed momentum fluxes. In this area basic investigations are necessary to achieve a reliable design of the cooled blade. In the present calculations, a code for the coupled simulation of fluid flow and heat transfer in solid bodies is employed. The numerical scheme works on the basis of an implicit finite volume method combined with a multi-block technique. The full, compressible 3-D Navier-Stokes equations are solved within the fluid region and the Fourier equation for beat conduction is solved within the solid body region. An elliptic grid generator is used for the generation of the structured computational grid, which is a combination of various C-type and H-type grids. Results of a 3-D numerical simulation of the flow through a turbine blade cascade with and without cooling ejection at the leading edge through two slots are presented. The results are compared with 2-D numerical simulations and experimental results. It is shown that the distribution of the coolant on the blade surface is influenced by secondary flow phenomena which can not be taken into account by the 2-D simulations. Further coupled simulations with non-adiabatic walls in the leading edge region are performed with realistic temperature ratios and compared to the same case with adiabatic walls. It is shown that in the case of non-adiabatic walls the temperature on the blade wall is significantly lower than in the case of adiabatic walls.