Gas turbines play an extremely important role in fulfilling a variety of power needs and are mainly used for power generation and propulsion applications. The performance and efficiency of gas turbine engines are to a large extent dependent on turbine rotor inlet temperatures: typically, the hotter the better. In gas turbines, the combustion temperature and the fuel efficiency are limited by the heat transfer properties of the turbine blades. However, in pushing the limits of hot gas temperatures while preventing the melting of blade components in high-pressure turbines, the use of effective cooling technologies is critical. Increasing the turbine inlet temperature also increases heat transferred to the turbine blade, and it is possible that the operating temperature could reach far above permissible metal temperature. In such cases, insufficient cooling of turbine blades results in excessive thermal stress on the blades causing premature blade failure. This may bring hazards to the engine's safe operation. Gas Turbine Blade Cooling, edited by Dr. Chaitanya D. Ghodke, offers 10 handpicked SAE International's technical papers, which identify key aspects of turbine blade cooling and help readers understand how this process can improve the performance of turbine hardware.

An experimental study was made to obtain quantitative information on heat transfer, flow, and pressure distribution in a branched duct test section that had several significant features of an internal cooling passage of a turbine blade. The objective of this study was to generate a set of experimental data that could be used for validation of computer codes that would be used to model internal cooling. Surface heat transfer coefficients and entrance flow conditions were measured at nominal entrance Reynolds numbers of 45 000, 335 000, and 726 000. Heat transfer data were obtained by using a steady-state technique in which an Inconel heater sheet is attached to the surface and coated with liquid crystals. Visual and quantitative flow-field data from particle image velocimetry measurements for a plane at midchannel height for a Reynolds number of 45 000 were also obtained. The flow was seeded with polystyrene particles and illuminated by a laser light sheet. Pressure distribution measurements were made both on the surface with discrete holes and in the flow field with a total pressure probe. The flow-field measurements yielded flow-field velocities at selected locations. A relatively new method, pressure sensitive paint, was also used to measure surface pressure distribution. The pressure paint data obtained at Reynolds numbers of 335 000 and 726 000 compared well with the more standard method of measuring pressures by using discrete holes.

Abstract: Local and average blade temperatures were calculated for two stationary air-cooled turbine blades with 10 tubes and 13 fins forming the internal heat-transfer surfaces. These temperatures were calculated using previously published NACA temperature-distribution equations and the most recent theories for determining heat-transfer coefficients, including for the first time the allowance for effects of variable wall temperature on gas-to-blade heat-transfer coefficients at the leading and trailing sections of turbine blades. Comparison of calculated and experimental blade temperatures, for gas temperatures of 300° and 1000°F, resulted in good agreement.