Analytical and numerical investigations of a new turbine blade cooling method

• Main Author: Chattuchai, Songphol
• Format: Others
• Published: FIU Digital Commons 1998
• Subjects: Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2115

The turbine blade cooling has been considered to be a unique solution to increase the efficiency of the gas turbine engine. There are many difference methods for turbine blade cooling which have received serious attention and research effort. Most of them use basically the same method that passes the amount of cooling air through the turbine blade. These methods can disturb the hot gas since the cooling air is injected into the main stream gas, which may reduce the turbine engine's efficiency. A new turbine cooling method is studied in this thesis. This method employs the cooling air that passes through the root and neck, and along with it uses the composite materials or heat pipes for the airfoil and root. The heat will be conducted from the airfoil to the root and will be carried away by the cooling air. The analytical investigations for the heat transfer in the turbine blade with various thermal conductivity and mass flow rates are made and closed-form solutions for the temperature distributions and heat transfer rates are obtained. The software FLUENT/UNS is used to investigate the effects of thermal and flow conditions on the turbine blade cooling. The comparison between the analytical results and the numerical results from FLUENT/UNS is made and recommendations for the future study are purposed in this thesis.