Influence of Coolant Density on Turbine Blade Film-Cooling With Compound-Angle Shaped Holes

Adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness is examined systematically on a typical high pressure turbine blade by varying three critical flow parameters: coolant blowing ratio, coolant-to-mainstream density ratio, and freestream turbulence intensity. Three average coolant blowing ratios 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0; three coolant density ratios 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0; two turbulence intensities 4.2% and 10.5%, are chosen for this study. Conduction-free pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique is used to measure film-cooling effectiveness. Three foreign gases — N₂ for low density, CO₂ for medium density, and a mixture of SF₆ and Argon for high density are selected to study the effect of coolant density. The test blade features 45° compound-angle shaped holes on the suction side and pressure side, and 3 rows of 30° radial-angle cylindrical holes around the leading edge region. The inlet and the exit Mach number are 0.27 and 0.44, respectively. Reynolds number based on the exit velocity and blade axial chord length is 750,000. Results reveal that the PSP is a powerful technique capable of producing clear and detailed film effectiveness contours with diverse foreign gases. As blowing ratio exceeds the optimum value, it induces more mixing of coolant and mainstream. Thus film-cooling effectiveness reduces. Greater coolant-to-mainstream density ratio results in lower coolant-to-mainstream momentum and prevents coolant to lift-off; as a result, film-cooling increases. Higher freestream turbulence causes effectiveness to drop everywhere except in the region downstream of suction side. Results are also correlated with momentum flux ratio and compared with previous studies. It shows that compound shaped hole has the greatest optimum momentum flux ratio, and then followed by axial shaped hole, compound cylindrical hole, and axial cylindrical hole.