Heat Transfer Measurements and Predictions for a Modern, High-Pressure, Transonic Turbine, Including Endwalls

This paper presents both measurements and predictions of the hot-gas-side heat transfer to a modern, 1 1/2 stage high-pressure, transonic turbine. Comparisons of the predicted and measured heat transfer are presented for each airfoil at three locations, as well as on the various endwalls and rotor tip. The measurements were performed using the Ohio State University Gas Turbine Laboratory Test Facility (TTF). The research program utilized an uncooled turbine stage at a range of operating conditions representative of the engine: in terms of corrected speed, flow function, stage pressure ratio, and gas-to-metal temperature ratio. All three airfoils were heavily instrumented for both pressure and heat transfer measurements at multiple locations. A 3D, compressible, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver with k-omega turbulence modeling was used for the CFD predictions. The entire 1 1/2 stage turbine was solved using a single computation, at two different Reynolds numbers. The CFD solutions were steady, with tangentially mass-averaged inlet/exit boundary condition profiles exchanged between adjacent airfoil-rows. Overall, the CFD heat transfer predictions compared very favorably with both the global operation of the turbine and with the local measurements of heat transfer. A discussion of the features of the turbine heat transfer distributions, and their association with the corresponding flow-physics, has been included.