Session: Student Poster Competition

Submission Number: 187096

Infrared Thermography Evaluation of Overall Cooling Effectiveness and Uniformity for an Industrial Gas Turbine Blade With Baseline and Modified Geometries 

Infrared (IR) thermography is widely used to assess cooling performance on gas turbine blades under engine-relevant thermal conditions. This study experimentally investigates the overall cooling effectiveness (OCE) of an industrially relevant turbine blade using IR thermography, focusing on the effects of coolant mass flow ratio (MFR) and an industry-designed geometric modification. Experiments are performed for baseline and modified blades under identical mainstream conditions while varying MFR. Spatial OCE distributions are obtained on selected blade surfaces over a target chordwise region, and both line-averaged OCE and uniformity metrics are evaluated for comparison. The uniformity is quantified using profile-based statistics extracted along spanwise lines to capture distribution changes beyond mean values. For the baseline blade, OCE increases with increasing MFR over the measured regions. The modified blade produces a different OCE distribution relative to the baseline, resulting in location-dependent changes in both mean OCE and its uniformity. In particular, the modification can redistribute cooling effectiveness even when the net level changes modestly, which may be important for mitigating localized hot spots. Overall, the results demonstrate that geometric modification affects not only mean OCE but also spanwise distribution characteristics quantified using profile-based uniformity metrics, and provide an experimental benchmark dataset for an industrial blade and its modification across a controlled MFR sweep for model validation and design screening.

 

Presenting Author: Hee Jae Lee Yonsei Univeristy

Presenting Author Biography: Hee Jae Lee received the B.S. degree from Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 2020.
Since 2020, he has been pursuing a combined M.S.–Ph.D. degree at Yonsei University.
His research focuses on experimental heat transfer and cooling performance evaluation for gas turbine hot-section components, including turbine blades and vanes.

Authors:

Hee Jae Lee Yonsei Univeristy
Gyeongryun Kim Yonsei University
Ho Seop Song Yonsei University
Jaehyeong Kim Yonsei University
Ho-Seong Sohn Hanhwa Aerospace
Hee Seung Park Hanwha Aerospace
Hyung Hee Cho Yonsei University