Film Cooling With a Thermal Barrier Coating: Round Holes, Craters, and Trenches

Little work has been done to understand the interconnected nature of film cooling and thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) on protecting high temperature turbine components. With increasing demands for improved engine performance it is vital that a greater understanding of the thermal behavior of turbine components is achieved. The purpose of this study was to investigate how various film cooling geometries affect the cooling performance of a thermally conducting turbine vane with a TBC. The vane model used in this study was designed to match the thermal behavior of real engine components by properly scaling the convective heat transfer coefficients along with the thermal conductivity of the vane wall. This allowed for the measurement of temperatures at the interface of the TBC and vane wall which, when nondimensionalized, are representative of the temperatures present for actual engine vanes. This study found that the addition of a TBC on the surface of an internally cooled vane produced a near constant cooling performance despite significant changes in the blowing ratio. The craters, trench, and modified trench of this study were found to provide much better film cooling coverage than round holes; however, the improved film cooling coverage led to only slight improvements in temperature at the interface of the TBC and vane wall. These results suggest that there is minimal advantage in using more complicated cooling configurations, particularly since they may be more susceptible to TBC spallation. However, the improved film coverage from the trench and crater designs may increase the life of the TBC, which would be greatly beneficial to the long-term thermal protection of the vane.