Effects of Pin-Fin Shapes on Mesh-Fed Slot Film Cooling for a Flat-Plate Model

Experimental and numerical research is performed to illustrate the effects of pin-fin shapes on mesh-fed slot film cooling performance on a flat-plate model. Three types of pin-fin shapes (such as circular, elliptical, and drop-shaped) with the same cross-sectional area are taken into consideration. The results show that a pair of counter rotating vortices is still generated for the mesh-fed slot film cooling scheme due to the strong “jetting” effect of coolant flow at the slot outlet. As the coolant jet ejecting from mesh-fed slot is capable of establishing more uniform film layer over the protected surface, the kidney vortices are illustrated to have weakly detrimental role on the film cooling performance. By the shaping of pin fins, the uniformity of coolant flow exiting mesh-fed slot is improved in comparison to the baseline case of circular shape, especially for the elliptical-shape pin-fin array. Therefore, the jetting effect of coolant flow is alleviated for the elliptical and drop-shaped pin-fin meshes when compared to the circular pin-fin mesh. In general, the pin-fin shape has nearly no influence on cooling effectiveness immediately downstream the film cooling-hole outlet. However, beyond x/s = 5, the elliptical and drop-shaped pin fins are demonstrated to be advantageous over the circular pin fins.