The present work focuses on the flame–wall interaction (FWI) based on direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a head-on premixed flame quenching configuration at the statistically stationary state. The effects of FWI on the turbulent flame temperature, wall heat flux, flame dynamics and flow structures were investigated. In turbulent head-on quenching, particularly for high turbulence intensity, the distorted flames generally consist of the head-on flame part and the entrained flame part. The flame properties are jointly influenced by turbulence, heat generation from chemical reactions and heat loss to the cold wall boundary. For the present FWI configuration, as the wall is approached, the ‘influence zone’ can be identified as the region within which the flame temperature, scalar gradient and flame dilatation start to decrease, whereas the wall heat flux tends to increase. As the distance to the wall drops below the flame-quenching distance, approximately where the wall heat flux reaches its maximum value, chemical reactions become negligibly weak inside the ‘quenching zone’. A simplified counter-flow model is also proposed. With the reasonably proposed relation between the flame speed and the flame temperature, the model solutions match well with the DNS results, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, near-wall statistics of some important flame properties, including the flame dilatation, reaction progress variable gradient, tangential strain rate and curvature were analysed in detail under different wall boundary conditions.

Recent studies have demonstrated that the aerothermal characteristics of turbine rotor blade tip under a transonic condition are qualitatively different from those under a low-speed subsonic condition. The cooling injection adds further complexity to the over-tip-leakage (OTL) transonic flow behavior and aerothermal performance, particularly for commonly studied shroudless tip configurations such as a squealer tip. However there has been no published experimental study of a cooled transonic squealer. The present study investigates the effect of cooling injection on a transonic squealer through a closely combined experimental and CFD effort. Part I of this two-part paper presents the first of the kind tip cooling experimental data obtained in a transonic linear cascade environment (exit Mach number 0.95). Transient thermal measurements are carried out for an uncooled squealer tip and six cooling configurations with different locations and numbers of discrete holes. High-resolution distributions of heat transfer coefficient and cooling effectiveness are obtained. ansysFluent is employed to perform numerical simulations for all the experimental cases. The mesh and turbulence modeling dependence is first evaluated before further computational studies are carried out. Both the experimental and computational results consistently illustrate strong interactions between the OTL flow and cooling injection. When the cooling injection (even with a relatively small amount) is introduced, distinctive series of stripes in surface heat transfer coefficient are observed with an opposite trend in the chordwise variations on the squealer cavity floor and on the suction surface rim. Both experimental and CFD results have also consistently shown interesting signatures of the strong OTL flow–cooling interactions in terms of the net heat flux reduction distribution in areas seemingly unreachable by the coolant. Further examinations and analyses of the related flow physics and underlining vortical flow structures will be presented in Part II.

A basic attribute for turbine blade film cooling is that coolant injected should be largely passively convected by the local base flow. However, the effective working of the conventional wisdom may be compromised when the cooling injection strongly interacts with the base flow. Rotor blade tip of a transonic high-pressure (HP) turbine is one of such challenging regions for which basic understanding of the relevant aerothermal behavior as a basis for effective heat transfer/cooling design is lacking. The need to increase our understanding and predictability for high-speed transonic blade tip has been underlined by some recent findings that tip heat transfer characteristics in a transonic flow are qualitatively different from those at a low speed. Although there have been extensive studies previously on squealer blade tip cooling, there have been no published experimental studies under a transonic flow condition. The present study investigates the effect of cooling injection on a transonic squealer tip through a closely combined experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) effort. The experimental and computational results as presented in Part I have consistently revealed some distinctive aerothermal signatures of the strong coolant-base flow interactions. In this paper, as Part II, detailed analyses using the validated CFD solutions are conducted to identify, analyze, and understand the causal links between the aerothermal signatures and the driving flow structures and physical mechanisms. It is shown that the interactions between the coolant injection and the base over-tip leakage (OTL) flow in the squealer tip region are much stronger in the frontal subsonic region than the rear transonic region. The dominant vortical flow structure is a counter-rotating vortex pair (CRVP) associated with each discrete cooling injection. High HTC stripes on the cavity floor are directly linked to the impingement heat transfer augmentation associated with one leg of the CRVP, which is considerably enhanced by the near-floor fluid movement driven by the overall pressure gradient along the camber line (CAM). The strength of the coolant-base flow interaction as signified by the augmented values of the HTC stripes is seen to correlate to the interplay and balance between the OTL flow and the CRVP structure. As such, for the frontal subsonic part of the cavity, there is a prevailing spanwise inward flow initiated by the CRVP, which has profoundly changed the local base flow, leading to high HTC stripes on the cavity floor. On the other hand, for the rear high speed part, the high inertia of the OTL flow dominates; thus, the vortical flow disturbances associated with the CRVP are largely passively convected, leaving clear signatures on the top surface of the suction surface rim. A further interesting side effect of the strong interaction in the frontal subsonic region is that there is considerable net heat flux reduction (NHFR) in an area seemingly unreachable by the injected coolant. The present results have confirmed that this is due to the large reduction in the local HTC as a consequence of the upstream propagated impact of the strong coolant-base flow interactions.

Flame–wall interaction (FWI) in premixed turbulent combustion has been analysed based on a counter-flow like configuration at the statistically stationary state. For the present configuration, the two FWI sub-zones, i.e the influence zone and the quenching zone, can be identified from the DNS results. Detailed analysis of the important quantities, such as the flame temperature, flame–wall distance, wall heat flux, flame curvature and dilatation (including the flame normal and tangential strain rates), and some orientation relations between the flame normal and the principal strain rate directions, have been reported, together with the physical explanations. All these statistical results are determined by the relative strengths of the wall heat flux, thermal expansion and the flame–turbulence interaction.