Analysis of Film Cooling and Full-Coverage Film Cooling of Gas Turbine Blades

Film cooling has become a standard method for the protection of the skin of gas turbine blades against the influence of the hot gas stream. The cooling air is usually injected into the boundary layer covering the skin through one or two rows of holes. A calculation method to predict heat transfer to the skin of a film cooled wall based on two parameters—the film effectiveness and a heat transfer coefficient defined with the adiabatic wall temperature—has been widely accepted. More recently, those sections of a turbine blade skin requiring intensive cooling are covered over its entire area with holes through which cooling air is ejected. A different method to predict the temperature of this section by this “full coverage film cooling” has been proposed which is based on two different parameters θ and K. The air used for the cooling of the perforated section of the skin also provides protection to a solid section located downstream in the normal film cooling process. The two methods are reviewed, and it is discussed under what conditions and in which way results obtained with one method can be transformed to the parameters used in the other one. Published data [8, 9] are used to calculate film cooling effectiveness values and Stanton numbers based on the adiabatic wall temperature for a perforated wall and a solid surface downstream of 11 rows of holes with coolant injection. The results demonstrate the advantage of this method which has been shown in previous experiments with ejection through one or two rows of holes, for film cooling of a solid surface. For full-coverage film cooling, there is still the advantage that a heat transfer coefficient defined with the adiabatic wall temperature is independent of temperature difference within the restrictions imposed by the superposition model.