Numerical study of the film cooling effectiveness and flow loss of a shark-skin-inspired composite structure

Abstract

In film cooling for thermal protection of turbine airfoils, the interaction of the cooling jet with the mainstream creates a counter-rotating vortex pair, causing the coolant to detach from the wall, particularly at high blowing ratios (BRs). Eight bionic composite cooling structures inspired by the shark skin structure are proposed to improve the film cooling effectiveness (FCE). The flow characteristics, adiabatic FCE and flow loss are numerically analyzed in detail by using RANS method and Realizable k-ε model, emphasizing the flow loss in the BRs range of 0.5–1.5. Because the cooling jets are separated towards both sides, the coolant near the centerline of the sine-wave and V-shaped trenches is relatively reduced, but the CRVP formed on both sides pushes the cooling fluid back to the cooled wall surface. The mechanism of improved FCE is revealed by the gas convergence to the centerline of the V-shaped, fan-shaped, and wave-shaped surface structures. The variation of blow ratio has a slight influence on the FCE of different cooling configurations. At 25 < X/D < 30, the spanwise-averaged FCE of the VT-WaveS increases significantly, (11.66 %–12.20 % when the BR is 1.0 and by 10.74 %–12.42 % when the BR is 1.5) compared to the sine-wave trench with V-shaped surface. The blade-shaped surface forms more uniform temperature distribution on the flat plate. The discharge coefficient of the VT-BladeS performs best at the BRs of 1.0 and 1.5. The total pressure loss coefficients of the cases are very close. This study revealed the mechanism of the composite structure to improve the FCE of the blade, and the proposed surface structure laid a foundation for the application of shark-skin-inspired surfaces in blade cooling.