Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Impingement on a Rib-Roughened Leading-Edge Wall

Abstract

Effective cooling of the airfoil leading edge is imperative in gas turbine designs. Among several methods of cooling the leading edge, impingement cooling has been utilized in many modern designs. In this method, the cooling air enters the leading edge cavity from the adjacent cavity through a series of crossover holes on the partition wall between the two cavities. The crossover jets impinge on a smooth leading-edge wall and exit through the film holes, and, in some cases, form a cross flow in the leading-edge cavity and move toward the end of the cavity. It was the main objective of this investigation to measure the heat transfer coefficient on a smooth as well as rib-roughened leading-edge wall. Experimental data for impingement on a leading-edge surface roughened with different conical bumps and radial ribs have been reported by the same authors previously. This investigation, however, deals with impingement on different horseshoe ribs and makes a comparison between the experimental and numerical results. Three geometries representing the leading-edge cooling cavity of a modern gas turbine airfoil with crossover jets impinging on (1) a smooth wall, (2) a wall roughened with horseshoe ribs, and (3) a wall roughened with notched-horseshoe ribs were investigated. The tests were run for a range of flow arrangements and jet Reynolds numbers. The major conclusions of this study were: (a) Impingement on the smooth target surface produced the highest overall heat transfer coefficients followed by the notched-horseshoe and horseshoe geometries. (b) There is, however, a heat transfer enhancement benefit in roughening the target surface. Among the three target surface geometries, the notched-horseshoe ribs produced the highest heat removal from the target surface, which was attributed entirely to the area increase of the target surface. (c) CFD could be considered as a viable tool for the prediction of impingement heat transfer coefficients on an airfoil leading-edge wall.