Heat Transfer for the Blade of a Cooled Stage and One-Half High-Pressure Turbine—Part II: Independent Influences of Vane Trailing Edge and Purge Cooling

Abstract

The independent influences of vane trailing edge and purge cooling are studied in detail for a one-and-one-half stage transonic high-pressure turbine operating at design-corrected conditions. This paper builds on the conclusions of Part I, which investigated the combined influence of all cooling circuits. Heat-flux measurements for the airfoil, platform, tip, and root of the turbine blade, as well as the shroud and the vane side of the purge cavity, are used to track the influence of cooling flow. By independently varying the coolant flow rate through the vane trailing edge or purge circuit, the region of influence of each circuit can be isolated. Vane trailing edge cooling is found to create the largest reductions in blade heat transfer. However, much of the coolant accumulates on the blade suction surface and little influence is observed for the pressure surface. In contrast, the purge cooling is able to cause small reductions in heat transfer on both the suction and pressure surfaces of the airfoil. Its region of influence is limited to near the hub, but given that the purge coolant mass flow rate is 1/8 that of the vane trailing edge, it is impressive that any impact is observed at all. The cooling contributions of these two circuits account for nearly all of the cooling reductions observed for all three circuits in Part I, indicating that the vane inner cooling circuit that feeds most of the vane film-cooling holes has little impact on the downstream blade heat transfer. Time-accurate pressure measurements provide further insight into the complex interactions in the purge region that govern purge coolant injection. While the pressures supplying the purge coolant and the overall coolant flow rate remain fairly constant, the interactions of the vane pressure field and the rotor pressure field create moving regions of high pressure and low pressure at the exit of the cavity. This results in pulsing regions of injection and ingestion.