Numerical Investigation on the Cooling Effectiveness and Pressure Loss of a Novel Laminated Cooling Configuration With Cellular Partition

The laminated cooling is believed to be a promising cooling scheme for the next generation of advanced gas turbines. In order to build a cooling system with high performance, it is necessary to develop a more revolutionary cooling configuration for hot components in gas turbines. In this study, a novel laminated cooling configuration with cellular partition has been proposed. The local/average heat transfer parameters and pressure loss coefficient have been evaluated by comparing with traditional laminated cooling configurations with and without circular pin. Different adiabatic and conjugate cooling configurations are explored numerically to investigate the external film coverage and internal heat transfer. Seven different flow conditions with blowing ratios ranging from 0.2 to 1.4 are investigated for all numerical models. Results indicate that the novel laminated cooling configuration exhibits a higher cooling advantage. With the blowing ratios investigated, the cooling effectiveness of laminated cooling configuration with cellular partition increased by 4.5–13.4% and 10.8–23.4% compared with the cases with and without circular pin, respectively. With higher cooling performance, the pressure loss coefficient only increased by 4.4%. Two mechanisms have been identified for heat transfer enhancement of the novel laminated cooling configuration: (1) the cellular partition increases the transverse diffusion of film cooling outflow resulting in an increased external film cooling effectiveness and (2) the film hole area and partition area have been increased in the new structure, which enhances the internal heat transfer. The proposed structure has the potential for cooling the high-pressure turbines in the future.