State-of-the-art liner cooling technology for modern combustors is represented by effusion cooling (or full-coverage film cooling). Effusion is a very efficient cooling strategy based on the use of multiperforated liners, where the metal temperature is lowered by the combined protective effect of the coolant film and heat removal through forced convection inside each hole. The aim of this experimental campaign is the evaluation of the thermal performance of multiperforated liners with geometrical and fluid-dynamic parameters ranging among typical combustor engine values. Results were obtained as the adiabatic film effectiveness following the mass transfer analogy by the use of pressure sensitive paint, while the local values of the overall effectiveness were obtained by eight thermocouples housed in as many dead holes about 2 mm below the investigated surface. Concerning the tested geometries, different porosity levels were considered: such values were obtained by both increasing the hole diameter and pattern spacing. Then the effect of the hole inclination and aspect ratio pattern shape were tested to assess the impact of typical cooling system features. Seven multiperforated planar plates, reproducing the effusion arrays of real combustor liners, were tested, imposing six blowing ratios in the range 0.5–5. Additional experiments were performed in order to explore the effect of the density ratio ($DR=1;1.5$) on the film effectiveness. Test samples were made of stainless steel (AISI304) in order to achieve the Biot number similitude for the overall effectiveness tests. To extend the validity of the survey a correlative analysis was performed to point out, in an indirect way, the augmentation of the hot side heat transfer coefficient due to effusion jets. Finallyv,in order to address the thermal behavior of the different geometries in the presence of gas side radiation, additional simulations were performed considering different levels of radiative heat flux.

In modern lean-burn aero-engine combustors, highly swirling flow structures are adopted to control the fuel-air mixing and to provide the correct flame stabilization mechanisms. Aggressive swirl fields and high turbulence intensities are hence expected in the combustor-turbine interface. Moreover, to maximize the engine cycle efficiency, an accurate design of the high-pressure nozzle cooling system must be pursued: in a film-cooled nozzle, the air taken from last compressor stages is ejected through discrete holes drilled on vane surfaces to provide a cold layer between hot gases and turbine components. In this context, the interactions between the swirling combustor outflow and the vane film cooling flows play a major role in the definition of a well-performing cooling scheme, demanding for experimental campaigns at representative flow conditions. An annular three-sector combustor simulator with fully cooled high-pressure vanes has been designed and installed at THT Lab of University of Florence. The test rig is equipped with three axial swirlers, effusion-cooled liners, and six film-cooled high-pressure vanes passages, for a vortex-to-vane count ratio of 1:2. The relative clocking position between swirlers and vanes has been chosen in order to have the leading edge of the central airfoil aligned with the central swirler. In this experimental work, adiabatic film effectiveness measurements have been carried out in the central sector vanes, in order to characterize the film-cooling performance under swirling inflow conditions. The pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique, based on heat and mass transfer analogy, has been exploited to catch highly detailed 2D distributions. Carbon dioxide has been used as coolant in order to reach a coolant-to-mainstream density ratio of 1.5. Turbulence and five-hole probe measurements at inlet/outlet of the cascade have been carried out as well, in order to highlight the characteristics of the flow field passing through the cascade and to provide precise boundary conditions. Results have shown a relevant effect of the swirling mainflow on the film cooling behavior. Differences have been found between the central airfoil and the adjacent ones, both in terms of leading edge stagnation point position and of pressure and suction side film coverage characteristics.

Effusion cooling represents the state-of-the-art of liner cooling technology for modern combustors. The present paper describes experimental tests aiming at evaluating the cooling performance of a multi-perforated plate in real engine representative fluid- dynamic conditions. Adiabatic effectiveness maps were obtained following the mass transfer analogy by the use of Pressure Sensitive Paint. In addition, a CFD campaign was performed in order to benchmark the reliability in estimating the cooling performance of effusion cooling liners. In order to include anisotropic diffusion effects, the k − ω SST turbulence model was corrected considering a tensorial definition of the eddy viscosity with an algebraic correction to dope its stream-span components