Session: 33-04: Particle Transport and Deposition in Gas Turbine Engines I

Submission Number: 178733

Numerical Investigation of Particle Transport and Deposition in Internal Cooling Passage With Pin Fins 

Aero-engines frequently operate in harsh environments and inevitably ingest substantial amounts of dust, sand, and other particulates. These particles may deposit inside the narrow internal cooling passages of turbine blades, leading to blockage and reduced heat-transfer performance, thereby compromising the overall reliability of the cooling system. To address this issue, this study employs the Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) method to resolve the flow field and a discrete phase model (DPM) based on the Euler–Lagrange framework to track particle trajectories. Numerical simulations are conducted to investigate particle transport and deposition characteristics in an internal cooling passage with pin fins, focusing on the influences of Reynolds number (8,000, 12,000, 16,000), particle diameter (5 μm, 10 μm, 20 μm), pin fin height-to-diameter ratio (0.75, 1.0, 2.0), and pin fin cross-sectional shape (diamond, circular, teardrop). Results show that the first two rows of pin fins experience the most particle collisions, and deposition is highly non-uniform along the streamwise direction. Within the investigated parameter range, channel wall deposition rates are significantly higher than those on pin wall. As the Reynolds number increases, deposition rates on both pin fin and channel walls decrease. With increasing particle size, inertial effects become dominant, causing particle trajectories to straighten and converge toward the mainstream flow, reducing the deposition rate. A larger height-to-diameter ratio also suppresses deposition, while pin fin shape significantly alters the flow pattern and particle trajectories, producing notable differences in deposition distribution. The findings provide important insights for the design of deposition-resistant cooling passages.

Presenting Author: Wenju Gao Northwestern Polytechnical University

Presenting Author Biography: M.S. Northwestern Polytechnical University, School of Power and Energy

Authors:

Wenju Gao Northwestern Polytechnical University
Weijiang Xu Northwestern Polytechnical University
Cunliang Liu Northwestern Polytechnical University
Ming Ren Northwestern Polytechnical University
Tao Guo Northwestern Polytechnical University
Li Zhang Northwestern Polytechnical University
Lin Ye Northwestern Polytechnical University
Haiyong Liu Northwestern Polytechnical University