This study presents the arrangement design of the cooling hole and the application of a fan-shaped hole to improve the cooling performance of the high-pressure turbine. To this end, the first stage nozzle vane of the energy efficient engine (E3) was selected as the base model, and for efficient design, the source term method, called the injection region, was applied for producing the effect of the cooling flow when the RANS analysis was performed. At this time, because the cooling flow rate also changed when the location of the cooling hole changed, a neural network model was constructed to predict the cooling flow rate for the location of the cooling hole. Design optimization was performed to improve the film cooling effectiveness and the temperature uniformity on the vane surface using the streamwise location of the cooling hole as a design variable, and then the cooling performance was investigated by applying several fan-shaped holes instead of cylinder holes on the pressure side. As a result, the final design was obtained, which improved the film cooling effectiveness by 4.1%p and temperature uniformity by 0.7% compared with the base model.
22 June 2021 in Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications
Large eddy simulations (LESs) on the well-known 7-7-7 fan shaped cooling hole were carried out. Like using a trip strip to create turbulent boundary layer in practical experiments, trip strips with different configurations were placed upstream of the cooling hole to investigate incoming turbulent boundary layer effect on the film cooling flow behavior. Without the trip, horseshoe vortex generated by laminar boundary layer induced laterally discharging cooling flow in the lateral direction. Meanwhile, the induced cooling flow formed high film cooling effectiveness region around the film cooling hole. When the incoming boundary flow was turbulent, laterally discharged cooling flow was influenced by the turbulent boundary layer to dissipate to the main flow and resultant high effectiveness region disappeared. Depending on the trip configuration, quantitative characteristics of boundary layer such as turbulent intensity, momentum thickness, and shape factor were strongly affected. Some trip configurations resulted in fully developed turbulent boundary layer just before leading edge of the film cooling hole. In such cases, distribution of the film cooling effectiveness showed a reasonable agreement with available experimental data where the quantitative properties of the turbulent boundary layer were similar. However, when the trip was located too close to the film cooling hole, the separated and reattached flow did not develop into the stabilized turbulent boundary layer. Then strong turbulence intensity in the main flow boundary layer stimulated break down of the cooling flow vortex structure and early dissipation to the main flow. It resulted in restricted film cooling flow coverage.
The plate-fin heat exchanger was designed for the liquid cooling thermal management system of the hybrid electric propulsion system for an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The offset-strip fin design was applied, and the performance of the heat exchanger was evaluated, particularly with respect to the inclination of the airflow entering the heat exchanger. The estimated performance during the design phase matched well with the experimental results. The inclination of the heat exchanger had a minimal effect on thermal performance, with a slight increase in performance as the inclination increased. However, the pressure difference along the airflow was affected, likely increasing as the inclination increased. The sensitivity of various parameters on coolant temperature was also investigated. The air inlet temperature had a significant effect on coolant temperature, followed by the coolant flow rate. Therefore, when designing the thermal management system, careful consideration should be given to the ambient air temperature and coolant flow rate.