Film Cooling Effectiveness and Flow Structures of Butterfly-Shaped Film Cooling Hole Configuration

Abstract

Film cooling is applied to various high-temperature components of a gas turbine and greatly affected by the shape of the injection hole. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate various film cooling structures to increase the film cooling effectiveness by inducing coolants toward the surface. In this study, a butterfly-shaped film cooling hole configuration is proposed, which consists of a pair of asymmetric fan-shaped holes installed adjacently. This novel structure enhances film cooling effectiveness by utilizing the interaction between coolant jets from the asymmetrical film cooling holes. In this study, the film cooling effectiveness of the butterfly-shaped hole configuration was experimentally characterized under low-speed conditions on a flat plate, and was compared with that of widely used fan-shaped holes. Also, a numerical study was conducted to understand and visualize the flow structures generated by the butterfly-shaped film cooling configuration. As a result, an anti-vortex structure was observed near the hole exit. The film cooling effectiveness of the butterfly-shaped hole configuration was also compared with that of the fan-shaped hole. The film cooling effectiveness of the butterfly-shaped hole configuration was 1.9% higher than that of the optimized fan-shaped film cooling hole at its optimized condition. It was also found that the film cooling effectiveness increased with the blowing ratio for the butterfly-shaped hole configuration. It is expected that the film cooling effectiveness can be further improved by adjusting the shape parameters of the butterfly-shaped hole.