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Parametric study on heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop of an internal blade tip-wall with pin-fin arrays

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Abstract

One way to cool gas turbine tips is to design serpentine passages with 180° turns inside the blades to fully utilize the coolant potential. It is therefore a desire to improve the cooling of the blade tips to ensure a long durability and safe operation. In the present work, a two-pass channel with a 180° turn and various arrays of pin-fins mounted internally on the tip-cap is considered. The effects of pin-fin height, diameter and pitches on the heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop are investigated numerically. The nominal ratio of height to diameter (H/D) of the pin-fins is 2, and the ratio of tip clearance to pin-fin height is about 10. The inlet Reynolds numbers based on hydraulic diameter are ranging from 100,000 to 600,000. Details of the three dimensional fluid flow and heat transfer over the pin-finned tips are presented. The overall performances of various tips are compared. It is found that due to the combination of turning, impingement and pin-fin crossflow, the heat transfer coefficient of the pin-finned tips is up to a factor of 2.1 higher than that of the smooth tip. This augmentation is achieved at the expense of a penalty of pressure drop around 30%. Results show that the magnitude of the heat transfer enhancement depends upon pin-fin configuration and arrangement. It is suggested that pin-fins are suitable to enhance the blade tip heat transfer and thus to improve the tip cooling.

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Abbreviations

A :

Wall surface area

D :

Pin-fin diameter

D h :

Hydraulic diameter

f :

Fanning friction factor

H :

Pin-fin height

h :

Heat transfer coefficient

k :

Turbulent kinetic energy

N :

Number of pin-fins

L :

Two-pass channel length

Nu :

Nusselt number

p :

Pressure

Pr :

Prandtl number

q w :

Wall heat flux

Re :

Reynolds number, Re = ρu i D h/μ

S :

Spanwise/transverse pin-fin pitch

T :

Temperature

u i :

Inlet velocity

X :

Streamwise/longitudinal pin-fin pitch

\( \varepsilon \) :

Rate of energy dissipation

\( \Updelta p \) :

Pressure drop

μ :

Fluid dynamic viscosity

ρ :

Fluid density

\( \lambda \) :

Fluid thermal conductivity

0:

Fully developed flow channel

ave:

Averaged/overall

b:

According to Bunker’s definition

e:

Endwall of tip

i:

Inlet

o:

Outlet

p:

Pin-fin

s:

Smooth channel

w:

Wall

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the TURBO POWER consortium funded by the Swedish Energy Agency (STEM), Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB and Volvo Aero Corporation. The authors also acknowledge Dr R.S. Bunker (GE) for meaningful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Contemporary Design and Integrated Manufacturing Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, P.O. Box 552, 710072, Xi’an, China

    Gongnan Xie

  2. Division of Heat Transfer, Department of Energy Sciences, Lund University, P.O. Box 118, 221 00, Lund, Sweden

    Bengt Sundén

  3. Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB, 612 83, Finspang, Sweden

    Lieke Wang & Esa Utriainen

Authors
  1. Gongnan Xie
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  2. Bengt Sundén
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  3. Lieke Wang
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  4. Esa Utriainen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bengt Sundén.

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Xie, G., Sundén, B., Wang, L. et al. Parametric study on heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop of an internal blade tip-wall with pin-fin arrays. Heat Mass Transfer 47, 45–57 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-010-0671-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-010-0671-x

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