Effects of Deposits on Film Cooling of a Vane Endwall Along the Pressure Side

Film cooling is influenced by surface roughness and depositions that occur from contaminants present in the hot gas path, whether that film cooling occurs on the vane itself or on the endwalls associated with the vanes. Secondary flows in the endwall region also affect the film-cooling performance along the endwall. An experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of surface deposition on film cooling along the pressure side of a first-stage turbine vane endwall. A large-scale wind tunnel with a turbine vane cascade was used to perform the experiments. The vane endwall was cooled by an array of film-cooling holes along the pressure side of the airfoil. Deposits having a semielliptical shape were placed along the pressure side to simulate individual row and multiple row depositions. Results indicated that the deposits lowered the average adiabatic effectiveness levels downstream of the film-cooling rows by deflecting the coolant jets toward the vane endwall junction on the pressure side. Results also indicated that there was a steady decrease in adiabatic effectiveness levels with a sequential increase in the number of rows with the deposits.