Heat Transfer in Film-Cooled Turbine Blades

Abstract

In order to study the effect of film cooling on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of actual turbine blades, a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code has been developed. An existing code (Chima and Yokota, 1990) has been modified for the purpose. The code is an explicit finite difference code with an algebraic turbulence model. The thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a general body-fitted coordinate system. The effects of film cooling have been incorporated into the code in the form of appropriate boundary conditions at the hole locations on the blade surface. Each hole exit is represented by several control volumes, thus providing an ability to study the effect of hole shape on the film-cooling characteristics. Comparison with experimental data is fair. Further validation of the code is required, however, and in this respect, there is an urgent need for detailed experimental data on actual turbine blades.