The Influence of Film-Cooling on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Turbine Nozzle Guide Vane

The paper presents the results of an investigation on the aerodynamic performance of a full coverage film-cooled nozzle guide vane. The blading is a typical high pressure turbine vane of advanced design, working in the high subsonic regime.Tests have been carried out for a wide range of conditions, including variations in Mach number, coolant to mainstream mass flow rate ratio and location of the coolant injection. Both air and carbon dioxide at ambient conditions have been utilized, as coolant flow. Measurements have been performed in a plane located at 0.5 axial chord downstream of the trailing edge by means of a miniaturized five-hole pressure probe.Performances, in terms of losses, flow angles and profile pressure distributions, for different cooling mass flow rates are presented and compared to the results of the solid blade tests (i.e. with no cooling holes). The results showed a significant increase of the losses with blowing. Test with air and carbon dioxide provided almost equal losses if carried out at the same global momentum flux ratio; however the density ratio was found to influence slightly the share of the coolant fluid among the injection rows and the local momentum flux ratio as well.In order to define the individual contributions of groups of cooling rows on the performance of the blade, three different modes of injection have been tested, namely full, trailing edge and shower head injection. The main trend observed is that trailing edge injection produces the least amount of additional losses at high blowing rates. Full-coverage film-cooling injection did not lead to marked variations in the blade pressure distribution and/or outlet flow angle.Copyright © 1997 by ASME