Convective Heat Transfer Through Film Cooling Holes of a Gas Turbine Blade Leading Edge
Studies of film cooling performance for a turbine airfoil predominately focus on the reduction of heat transfer to the external surface of the airfoil. However, convective cooling of the airfoil due to coolant flow through the film cooling holes is potentially a major contributor to the overall cooling of the airfoil. This study used experimental and computational methods to examine the convective heat transfer to the coolant as it traveled through the film cooling holes of a gas turbine blade leading edge. Experimental measurements were conducted on a model gas turbine blade leading edge composed of alumina ceramic which approximately matched the Biot number of an engine airfoil leading edge. The temperature rise in the coolant from the entrance to the exit of the film cooling holes was measured using a series of internal thermocouples and an external traversing thermocouple probe. A CFD simulation of the model of the leading edge was also done in order to facilitate the processing of the experimental data and provide a comparison for the experimental coolant hole heat transfer. Without impingement cooling, the coolant hole heat transfer was found to account for 50 to 80 percent of the airfoil internal cooling, i.e. the dominating cooling mechanism.