Session: 12-01: Additive Manufacturing in Film Cooling

Paper Number: 153337

Performance and Evaluation of a Thermally Optimized Gas Turbine Nozzle 

Components within the high-pressure turbine section are subject to extreme conditions, and as such, require active cooling to prevent premature failure. The objective of all cooling schemes is to maintain a surface temperature below the maximum allowable temperature while minimizing the coolant consumption needed for this aim. Multitudes of studies in literature evaluate the performance of cooling schemes. However, these schemes are often isolated for simplicity and not evaluated in conjunction with other configurations as is typical for gas turbine blades and nozzles. The present study is one part of a series of studies evaluating the overall cooling performance of an additively manufactured symmetric nozzle, or strut, in a hydrogen combustor testbed. This study investigates the adiabatic and overall cooling effectiveness of the strut at low temperature conditions in a wind tunnel facility, matching the mainstream Mach and Reynolds numbers of a hydrogen combustor test facility. For adiabatic effectiveness measurements, a low conductivity model was used; and for the overall cooling measurements, a model was constructed of Inconel 718 to match the Biot number for high temperature combustor test model. The laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness was found to be greater than 0.3 over the entire streamwise distance for velocity ratios ranging from VR = 1.2 – 3.0.  Little variation in the overall effectiveness distribution was observed in the same region of interest, with the laterally averaged overall effectiveness levelling out at nominally 0.55. RANS based computations simulating the mid-span region of the strut were validated against the experimental findings.

Presenting Author: Elise Flachs University of Texas at Austin

Presenting Author Biography: Elise Flachs is a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow and is pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Authors:

Elise Flachs University of Texas at Austin
David Bogard University of Texas at Austin