The present work has been an experimental investigation to evaluate the applicability of gas turbine cooling technology. With the temperature of the mainstream gas entering the turbine elevated above the melting temperature of the metal components, these components must be cooled, so they can withstand prolonged exposure to the mainstream gas. Both external and internal cooling techniques have been studied as a means to increase the life of turbine components. Detailed film cooling effectiveness distributions have been obtained on the turbine blade platform with a variety of cooling configurations. Because the newly developed pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique has proven to be the most suitable technique for measuring the film effectiveness, it was applied to a variety of platform seal configurations and discrete film flows. From the measurements it was shown advanced seals provide more uniform protection through the passage with less potential for ingestion of the hot mainstream gases into the engine cavity. In addition to protecting the outer surface of the turbine components, via film cooling, heat can also be removed from the components internally. Because the turbine blades are rotating within the engine, it is important to consider the effect of rotation on the heat transfer enhancement within the airfoil cooling channels. Through this experimental investigation, the heat transfer enhancement has been measured in narrow, rectangular channels with various turbulators. The present experimental investigation has shown the turbulators, coupled with the rotation induced Coriolis and buoyancy forces, result in non-uniform levels of heat transfer enhancement in the cooling channels. Advanced turbulator configurations can be used to provide increased heat transfer enhancement. Although these designs result in increased frictional losses, the benefit of the heat transfer enhancement outweighs the frictional losses.

This experimental study contains two points; part 1 - turbine blade heat transfer under low Reynolds number flow conditions, and part 2 - trailing edge cooling and heat transfer. The effect of unsteady wake and free stream turbulence on heat transfer and pressure coefficients of a turbine blade was investigated in low Reynolds number flows. The experiments were performed on a five blade linear cascade in a low speed wind tunnel. A spoked wheel type wake generator and two different turbulence grids were employed to generate different levels of the Strouhal number and turbulence intensity, respectively. The cascade inlet Reynolds number based on blade chord length was varied from 15,700 to 105,000, and the Strouhal number was varied from 0 to 2.96 by changing the rotating wake passing frequency (rod speed) and cascade inlet velocity. A thin foil thermocouple instrumented blade was used to determine the surface heat transfer coefficient. A Liquid crystal technique based on hue value detection was used to measure the heat transfer coefficient on a trailing edge film cooling model and internal model of a gas turbine blade. It was also used to determine the film effectiveness on the trailing edge. For the internal model, Reynolds numbers based on the hydraulic diameter of the exit slot and exit velocity were 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, and 30,000 and corresponding coolant-to-mainstream velocity ratios were 0.3, 0.6, 1.2, and 1.8 for the external models, respectively. The experiments were performed at two different designs and each design has several different models such as staggered / inline exit, straight / tapered entrance, and smooth / rib entrance. The compressed air was used in coolant air. A circular turbulence grid was employed to upstream in the wind tunnel and square ribs were employed in the inlet chamber to generate turbulence intensity externally and internally, respectively.

A comprehensive reference for engineers and researchers, Gas Turbine Heat Transfer and Cooling Technology, Second Edition has been completely revised and updated to reflect advances in the field made during the past ten years. The second edition retains the format that made the first edition so popular and adds new information mainly based on selected published papers in the open literature. See What’s New in the Second Edition: State-of-the-art cooling technologies such as advanced turbine blade film cooling and internal cooling Modern experimental methods for gas turbine heat transfer and cooling research Advanced computational models for gas turbine heat transfer and cooling performance predictions Suggestions for future research in this critical technology The book discusses the need for turbine cooling, gas turbine heat-transfer problems, and cooling methodology and covers turbine rotor and stator heat-transfer issues, including endwall and blade tip regions under engine conditions, as well as under simulated engine conditions. It then examines turbine rotor and stator blade film cooling and discusses the unsteady high free-stream turbulence effect on simulated cascade airfoils. From here, the book explores impingement cooling, rib-turbulent cooling, pin-fin cooling, and compound and new cooling techniques. It also highlights the effect of rotation on rotor coolant passage heat transfer. Coverage of experimental methods includes heat-transfer and mass-transfer techniques, liquid crystal thermography, optical techniques, as well as flow and thermal measurement techniques. The book concludes with discussions of governing equations and turbulence models and their applications for predicting turbine blade heat transfer and film cooling, and turbine blade internal cooling.