Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Research Paper

Influence of simplifications of blade in gas turbine on film cooling

performance
Lingyu Zeng, Pingting Chen, Xueying Li, Jing Ren ⇑, Hongde Jiang
Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Influence of blade cascade simplification on film cooling performance (g) was studied.

The main difference between annular and linear cascade is in the area close to the hub.

Significant error of g caused by simplifying blade form is at the leading edge regions.

Rotation has little effect on the area averaged g, but large effect on the coolant distribution.

The simplification of blade form has the most significant effect on film cooling.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the development of gas turbine, twist blades are widely used in modern gas turbine designs. Under
Received 9 March 2017 working conditions of gas turbine, twist blades rotate in the annular cascade. Under laboratory condi-
Revised 24 July 2017 tions, it is often simplified by using linear cascade, or using straight blades, or using non-rotating state
Accepted 2 September 2017
to study film cooling performance. The influences of the three simplifications – annular cascade versus
Available online 5 September 2017
linear cascade, twist blade versus straight blade, rotation versus non-rotation on the film cooling perfor-
mance are investigated. Twist blades serve as the reference model of the paper. Three rows of cylindrical
Keywords:
film holes are arranged at the leading edge with a pitch-to-diameter ratio P/D = 8.0. One row of cylindri-
Film cooling
Rotating
cal film holes with a pitch-to-diameter ratio P/D = 8.4 is provided on the pressure side while two rows are
Annular provided on the suction side. The steady solutions are obtained by solving Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-
Twist blade Stokes equations with a finite volume method. The SST turbulence model coupled with c-h transition
model is applied for the present simulations. A film cooling experiment of a turbine vane was done
and the numerical results were in agreement with experimental data. It means the numerical methodol-
ogy is feasible and reliable. Besides the reference case, three cases each of which is different with the ref-
erence case either in cascade form, or in blade form, or in movement state are simulated. As for the
simplification of cascade form, the main difference between the annular cascade and linear cascade
appears in the area which is close to the hub, as the location of vortex core in annular cascade passage
is much lower than that in linear cascade passage near the hub because of curvature effect. As for the sim-
plification of blade form, there is a significant error of film cooling effectiveness at the leading edge
regions caused by the simplification of blade form. The pressure variety at the leading edge due to geo-
metric differences between the twist blade and straight blade coupled with rotation leads to lift off. As for
the simplification of movement state, there is little effect on the area averaged film effectiveness of the
whole blade, but quite a little effect on the coolant distribution. Overall, the simplification of blade form
from twist to straight has the most significant effect on film cooling. The film cooling characteristics of
twist blade need to be taken into consideration in the design.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction temperature. It is a challenge for the hot path components to work

In order to meet the increasing demand of the power output
and thermal efficiency, gas turbine operates at an increasing inlet
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: renj@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (J. Ren).
at a temperature which is much higher than the metal limit. Film
cooling is widely used as an important protection for the compo-
nents from being damaged. Cold air extracted from the compressor
injects into main flow through discrete film holes on blade surface
and forms a layer separating the blade from hot gas. Twist blades
rotate in the annular cascade under gas turbine working

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.09.008
1359-4311/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
878 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886
Nomenclature
D film hole diameter, mm
P hole pitch, mm
s surface length, mm
T temperature, K
Tu freestream turbulence intensity
g adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness
PS film holes on the pressure side
SS1/SS2 film holes on the suction side
SH1/SH2/SH3 film holes at the leading edge
conditions. It is often simplified by using linear cascade, or using
straight blades, or using non-rotating state to study the film cool-
ing performance under laboratory conditions.
A number of studies have been done on flat plate surface to
investigate the influencing parameters of film cooling perfor-
mance. Baldauf et al. [1] correlated the effect of single parameters
such as flow parameters and geometrical parameters and their
interactions using large matrix of measurements on a flat plate
surface using infrared thermography. As for the compound angle
holes, Schmidt et al. [2] measured the cooling effectiveness both
on round holes and holes with a diffusing expanded exit with a
compound angle of 60 degrees under different momentum flux
ratios in a flat plate test facility. It indicated that round and
expanded exit holes with compound angle had significantly greater
effectiveness at larger momentum flux ratios. The compound angle
holes with expanded exits had a much improved lateral distribu-
tion of coolant near the hole for all momentum flux ratios.
Saumweber et al. [3] studied the effects of free stream turbulence
on film cooling effectiveness with shaped holes. The effect of ele-
vated free-stream turbulence in terms of heat transfer coefficients
was found to be much more pronounced for the shaped holes.
Chang Han et al. [4] measured the film cooling effectiveness with
SYCEE film cooling on a plate using pressure sensitive paint
(PSP). They found that SYCEE film hole has a better film cooling
performance than shape-hole in the same conditions, and the
gap of the averaged film cooling effectiveness between them con-
tinuously enlarges as the blowing ratio increases. Hong et al. [5]
investigated the effect of side hole position and blowing ratio on
sister hole film cooling performance in a flat plate. They found that
the presence of side holes can restrain the counter rotating vortex
pair intensity of the main hole and reduce the coolant lift-off,
improving the film coverage and film cooling effectiveness. The
downstream sister hole can perform best in reducing the CRVP
intensity. Graf et al. [6] analyzed the anti-kidney vortex of film-
cooling flow in detail obtained by large eddy simulation (LES).
The anti-kidney vortex was tracked throughout the boundary layer
and it was showed how the kidney vortex arose by combination of
two subsequent compound-angle vortices.
Since film cooling is used on actual airfoils, the influence of main-
stream and surface variables on cooling performance need to be
considered. Qin et al. [7] studied the effects of streamwise pressure
gradient and wall curvature on film cooling. It was found that the
film cooling performance with different streamwise pressure gradi-
ent (SPG) and different wall curvature is quite different from the flat
wall case. Liu et al. [8] investigated the impingement and film
composite cooling in blade leading edge region, and the external
film cooling effectiveness distribution was found to be sensitive to
the blowing ratio. Nirmalan et al. [9] conducted an experiment with
the C3X cascade to study the influence of various flow parameters
on film cooling. They found that when the coolant-to-gas pressure
ratio exceeded 1.0, the pressure surface showed considerable
dependence on blowing strength, while the suction surface was
Subscripts and Superscripts
aw adiabatic wall
c coolant condition
r recovery
1 mainstream condition
– lateral/pitchwise average
insensitive to it. Liu et al. [10] studied the film cooling effectiveness
and aerodynamic loss in a gas turbine vane cascade. They found that
the influences of coolant reattachment on the film cooling effective-
ness were obviously increased with the outlet Mach number
increasing. The distributions of film cooling effectiveness on the suc-
tion surface and pressure surface were different as a result of local
surface curvature and pressure gradient. Colban et al. [11] studied
heat transfer and adiabatic film cooling effectiveness for a scaled-
up turbine guide vane with fan-shaped film cooling holes under
low-speed conditions. Adiabatic effectiveness measurements
showed that jets separated from the surface in regions of high con-
vex curvature, and impinged on the surface in regions of concave
curvature. Han et al. [12,13] measured the film cooling effectiveness
of fan-shaped holes with compound angle on a turbine blade using
PSP technique. Their study showed that the film cooling effective-
ness on the SS and PS was different. The coolant traces on the SS
were longer than that on PS, and the film coverage on the SS was
better as a result of the favorable pressure gradient. Li et al. [14]
conducted an experiment to investigate the film cooling perfor-
mance in a low speed annular cascade. The results showed that
the film coverage and cooling effectiveness scaled up with the
blowing ratio. The flow characteristics on the suction surface and
pressure surface are different, and usually dependent on aerody-
namic design. Fan et al. [15] simulated the effects of film cooling
geometry and mass flow on vortex cooling behavior for gas turbine
blade leading edge with a modeled leading edge as half-cylinder
shape. Their numerical results indicated that as the mass flow of
film holes increased, the mainstream velocity, the averaged pressure
coefficient and the globally averaged Nusselt number decreased.
Many researches were done using the simplified two-
dimensional linear cascade instead of three-dimensional annular
cascade, and there are some researches done using three dimen-
sional annular cascade. But there are few researches on the differ-
ence between the linear cascade and the three dimensional
annular cascade. As for the researches done using three dimen-
sional annular cascade, Alameldin et al. [16] simulated the flow
in an annular vane cascade both uncooled and cooled. They found
that the aerodynamic loss was less sensitive to increasing the
blowing ratio on the pressure side than on the suction side. Jiang
et al. [17] conducted an aero-thermal optimization on multi-
rows film cooling of a realistic marine high pressure turbine vane,
the vane cascade was annular. After their optimization, the film
cooling effectiveness was increased by 11.4%. As for the difference
between the linear cascade and the three dimensional annular cas-
cade, Zhang et al. [18] compared the static pressure distributions in
the annular cascade single channel with that in the plane cascade
single channel. The results indicated that the differences of the
pressure variation in axial downstream was under acceptable rela-
tive errors only in partial regions.
As for the influence of blade form simplification, Xu et al. [19]
investigated the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in a
3 D transonic turbine stage with a twist rotor through numerical
 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886 879

method. Their results showed that the flow features in twist rotor
passage were strongly three dimensional. There is a large differ-
ence of the mean static pressure over one period at 10% and 90%
spanwise between the twist blades and straight blades. While at
50% span, the mean static pressure was much alike. It can be found
that the error induced by the simplification was not ignorable.
Rotation is one of the working conditions of turbine blades.
Dring et al. [20] studied the performance of film cooling from a sin-
gle hole on the rotor blade of a large scale model of a high pressure
turbine first stage. A strong radial component to the pressure sur-
face film coolant trajectory was observed in their experiment. They
concluded that the radial component of the free stream flow was
the main cause of the radial displacement. It was also concluded
that both the trajectories on pressure side and suction side were
insensitive to the density ratio (DR) and mass flow ratio (M).
Takeishi et al. [21] compared the film effectiveness between a
low-speed stationary cascade and a rotating blade. The overall con-
clusion was that the film cooling effectiveness on suction side sur-
face was similar with the stationary blade up stream, while the
film cooling effectiveness of LE on the pressure side decreased
more rapidly for the rotating blade. Yang et al. [22] conducted an
experiment to study the rotation effect on film covering. It was
found that the film trajectory could bend under the rotation condi-
tion. With the increase of the rotating speed, on the pressure side
the film trajectory inclines centripetally firstly and centrifugally at
last. On the suction side, the film trajectory bends centrifugally.
Twist blades are widely used in modern gas turbine, but when
designing film cooling experiments on turbine blades, the actual
turbine geometry is often simplified by using linear cascade, or
using straight blades, or using non-rotating state to study film
cooling performance. However, it may cause errors on film cooling
effectiveness by those simplifications. So, it is necessary for us to
know how and how much these simplifications impact the film
cooling performance. Unfortunately, there are few open literatures Fig. 2. Sketches of twist blade (a) and straight blade (b).
investigating the influence of these simplifications on the film
cooling performance of turbine blades. Therefore, this work is cooling holes and the coolant plenums. One row of film holes is
intended to investigate the error of film cooling induced during arranged on the pressure side named PS, three rows at the leading
the simplified design. The similarities and differences of film edge named SH1, SH2, SH3 and two rows on the suction side
cooling effectiveness between the annular cascade and linear cas- named SS1, SS2. All the film holes are round holes with a diameter
cade, between the twist blade and straight blade, as well as (D) of 0.6 mm. The pitch (P) of PS, SS1 and SS2 is 8.4 D, while the
between rotation state and non-rotation state are discussed in pitch of holes at the leading edge is 8 D.
the following. The reference model is a twist blade, which means that the pro-
file of blade varies along the radial direction. The straight blade is
2. Geometry and boundary conditions modeled by extruding the mid-span profile of the reference model.
The configuration of film holes is also a radial array of the holes in
A rotating blade cascade of an industrial F-class gas turbine the midsection. The axial chord of the midsection is 57 mm. It is
serves as the reference model of the paper. As seen in Fig. 1, the known to all cascades in real gas turbine are annular, but usually
computational domain contains the cascade flow passage, the film simplified as linear cascades in experiments. Fig. 2 shows the

Fig. 1. Schematic of computational domain and the turbine blade with film holes.
880 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886

Fig. 3. Sketches of annular cascade and linear cascade.

Table 1
Geometry parameters for studied cases.

Motion Blade form Cascade form

Case1 Rotating Twist Annular
Case2 Rotating Straight Annular
Case3 Stationary Twist Annular
Case4 Rotating Twist Linear

sketch of twist blade (a) and straight blade (b). And the difference
between annular cascade and linear cascade is shown in Fig. 3. In
this paper, four cases of different geometries and motion states
were studied as listed in Table 1. Case2, case3, case4 are compared
with case1separately to study the effects of blade simplification,
rotation and cascade simplification.
The turbine working condition is used for film cooling analysis.
A periodic boundary condition is applied to the blade-to-blade
interface to reduce the calculation domain. At the inlet of the com-
putational domain, the total pressure and temperature are
assigned as functions of relative radius. Average static pressure is
assigned at the outlet. At each inlet of coolant plenums, a coolant
mass flow rate is applied. Adiabatic no slip wall conditions are
applied to other surfaces including blade surface, film hole surfaces Fig. 4. Numerical grid of the blade surface and the film holes.
and the walls of plenums. The inlet turbulence intensity (Tu) is 10%
for the main stream and 5% for the coolant.
separation and strong adverse pressure gradient than other eddy
viscosity models.
3. Grid independency The grid independence of the numerical results is validated by a
comparison of the laterally averaged adiabatic film cooling effec-
The calculation grid is generated by a commercial software tiveness g of case 1. The adiabatic effectiveness g is a main param-
called ICEM (The Integrated Computer Engineering and Manufac- eter describing the performance of film cooling. As given by Eq. (1),
turing code for Computational Fluid Dynamics) using the unstruc- it is a non-dimensional variable evaluating the adiabatic wall tem-
tured mesh. As seen in Fig. 4, the tetrahedral grids exist in the perature (Taw), relating to the mainstream recovery temperature
majority area and the prism grids are adopted near the walls. Y+ (Tr) and coolant (Tc).
of the first mesh layer adjacent to the wall is less than 1.0, which T r  T aw
meets the SST model’s requirement of mesh size in the boundary g¼ ð1Þ
Tr  Tc
layer.
All the simulations were performed using the CFD software Three grid sizes (8.7 million, 14.7 million and 17.0 million) are
ANSYS CFX 14.0. The steady solutions are obtained by solving calculated using SST coupled with c-h transition model. As shown
Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with a finite in Fig. 5, the difference of laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness
volume method. The SST turbulence model coupled with c-h tran- between 14.7 million and 17.0 million is very small. Therefore, the
sition model was applied for the present simulations. The SST grid of 14.7 million is adopted in this study.
model uses k-x model near solid walls and the standard k-e model
(in a k-x formation) near the boundary layer and in the free-shear 4. Experiment method and numerical method validation
layers. A blending function ensures a smooth transition between
the two models. The study of Bardina et al. [23] showed that the To validate the numerical method, an experiment of an indus-
SST model provided a more accurate prediction of flows with trial gas turbine vane was carried out [24].
 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886
Fig. 5. Laterally averaged effectiveness of Case 1.
4.1. Experiment method
The experiment was conducted in the cascade film cooling test
rig illustrated in Fig. 6. The cascade test rig is composed of main-
stream channel, cooling gas system, test section and measurement
system. There are five vanes with four passages in the test section
and the test vane was in the middle. As for the mainflow, there is
Fig. 6. Schematic of the cascade film cooling test rig.
Fig. 7. The internal structure and the picture of the vane.
881
Table 2
Experimental test matrix of blowing ratio.
PS1 SS1&SS2
exp_1 0.5 0
exp_2 1.0 0
exp_3 0 0.25
exp_4 0 0.75
an 11 KW centrifugal blower and a honeycomb flow conditioner
rectifier. As for the secondary flow, there are heat exchangers to
meet the measurement requirements and flowmeters to control
the coolant mass flow rate. The inlet Mach number of the cascade
is 0.07 and the outlet Mach number of the cascade is 0.24.
The film cooling effectiveness distribution was measured by
pressure sensitive paint (PSP) measurement technique. It has been
widely used for film cooling studies by scholars in recent years and
proved to have high precision, stability and repeatability.
As shown in Fig. 7, four rows of film holes are arranged on the
pressure side, six rows at leading edge, and three rows on the suc-
tion side. Each row of film holes is controlled by mass flow con-
troller in separated cooling cavity except the showerhead and
SS1, SS2. There is one cooling cavity for the six rows of showerhead
and one cavity for SS1 and SS2. To validate the numerical method,
the cooling effectiveness of PS1, SS1 and SS2 are measured under
different blowing ratios as listed in Table 2. The blowing ratios
are 0.5, 1.0 on the pressure side and 0.25, 0.75 on the suction side.
The density ratio is 1.52 for all experimental tests.
4.2. Numerical method validation
The calculation grid of 8.9 million is shown in Fig. 8. The tetra-
hedral grids exist in the majority area and the prism grids are
Fig. 8. Numerical grid of the vane.
Fig. 9. Comparison of the laterally averaged effectiveness between CFD results and
experiments.
882 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886

adopted near the wall. The simulation for the vane is taken under
the experimental condition of supplying coolant to PS1 and SS1,
SS2 separately. The blowing ratios are 0.5, 1.0 on the pressure side
and 0.25, 0.75 on the suction side.
The comparison of laterally averaged effectiveness between
simulation and experiment is shown in Fig. 9. It can be observed
that the trend of simulation results is in accord with that of the
experimental data. The disagreement of the numerical results
and experimental data is small. The simulation using SST coupled
with c-h transition model can provide an acceptable prediction
of the cooling performance of the vane. It indicates that the numer-
ical method is feasible and reliable for the following work.

5. Results and discussions

The results and discussions in this section are based on the four
cases described above. The influences of cascade form, blade form
and movement state are discussed. Both the laterally averaged adi-
abatic effectiveness (g
 ) and film coverage are considered.

5.1. Influence on film cooling effectiveness: Annular cascade vs. linear

cascade

Case 1 and case 4 are simulated to study the film cooling perfor-
mance under two different cascade forms. The mass flow rate sup-
plied to each rows of film cooling holes is kept the same in both
cases.
The laterally averaged film cooling effectiveness g  of the annu-
lar cascade and linear cascade is presented in Fig. 10. The values of
g under linear cascade are similar to those of annular cascade. Only
small difference appears in regions of 10–40% chord length on the
pressure side and regions downstream the film holes on the suc-
tion side. The contours of g distribution for the annular cascade
and linear cascade are presented in Fig. 11. The film trajectories
of linear cascade are deflected upwards to a greater extent than
Fig. 11. Effectiveness contours of annular cascade and linear cascade.
those of the annular cascade on the suction side in the region near
the hub.
In fact, pressure gradient plays a primary role in the evolution of
cascade passage (right) is much lower than that in linear cascade
the secondary vortices in the cascade. Different pressure gradient
passage (left) near the hub. There is no evident difference in the
levels near the two endwalls regions cause different vortices.
vortex near the shroud. It is also the same in the middle area of
Fig. 12(a) illustrates the endwall vortex secondary flow in the lin-
the passage.
ear cascade passage, while Fig. 12(b) presents the vortex secondary
Therefore, the laterally averaged effectiveness from 0% to 20%
flow superimposed with curvature effects of annular cascade. The
blade span is presented in Fig. 13 to investigate the difference of
airflow in the annular cascade passage is subjected to a radial pres-
film cooling performance at lower spanwise height near the hub.
sure gradient perpendicular to the central axis. On the suction side,
As a result of film trajectory deflection mentioned above, the film
this pressure gradient contributes to the migration of the fluid
cooling performance in linear cascade is better on the pressure side
from the tip to the middle of the blade and suppresses the sec-
and a bit worse on the suction side. It is worth mentioning that a
ondary flow near the hub. The streamlines on Plane 1 is shown
transition section from a small radius to a large one is placed in
in Fig. 12(c). It is obvious that the location of vortex core in annular
front of the leading edge and the junction of the blade and the end-
wall are rounded. The existence of the two structures which cover
more than half area of the endwall reduces the structural differ-
ence between the annular cascade and linear cascade. If these aux-
iliary structures are also abbreviated, the difference of the results
will be much more obvious.

5.2. Influence on film cooling effectiveness: Twist blade vs. straight

blade

Case 1 and case 2 are compared in this section. The difference of

Fig. 10. Laterally averaged effectiveness of annular cascade and linear cascade.
the twist blade and straight blade is mentioned in the section of
‘‘geometry and boundary conditions”. The mass flow rate of cooling
air is kept the same for the two cases.
The laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness g  of the twist
blade and straight blade is shown in Fig. 14. It can be seen that
the difference of g on the suction side downstream the SS1 and
 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886
(a) Linear Cascade (b) Annular Cascade
(c) Streamlines on Plane 1
Fig. 12. Endwall vortex secondary flow of linear cascade (left) and annular cascade
(right).
Fig. 13. Laterally averaged effectiveness of 0–20% blade span of annular cascade
and linear cascade.
SS2 between the twist blade and straight blade is very small. While
on the pressure side, the effectiveness of the twist blade is slightly
higher than that of the straight blade downstream of the PS. And
more obvious difference between the two cases appears at the
leading edge. The film cooling effectiveness is much better in the
twist blade at the leading edge. Contours of the g distribution for
the twist blade and straight blade are presented in Fig. 15. The film
coverage of the leading edge on the straight blade is much worse as
883
Fig. 14. Laterally averaged effectiveness of twist blade and straight blade.
Fig. 15. Effectiveness contours of twist blade and straight blade.
the coolant from the middle film holes has almost no contribution
to the surface protection. And also, the film cooling effectiveness
downstream the leading edge is reduced in the straight cascade.
As shown in Fig. 16, the black lines in the two g contours repre-
sent the stagnation line correspondingly, and the purple line in this
picture on the straight blade represents the position where the
stagnation line should be based on the mid-span. As mentioned
above, the straight blade is modeled by extruding the mid-span
profile of the reference model. So, for the straight blade, the given
rotational speed is the design point for the mid-section, but is
884 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886
Fig. 16. Stagnation lines at the leading edge of twist blade and straight blade.
Fig. 17. Streamlines at the leading edge of twist blade and straight blade.
higher than the design point for area from mid-span section to
shroud and lower for area from hub to mid-span section. So, for
the straight blade, the stagnation line shifts toward the suction
side and the cooling flow is deflected toward the pressure surface
in upper area. As a consequence, some of the film cooling jets
blowing out from SH2 are deflected toward the pressure side. On
the contrary, for the lower area, some of the film cooling jets
blowing out from SH2 are deflected toward the suction side.
Fig. 17 shows the streamlines on blade cross section of 72%
blade height and the relative temperature on blade surface at the
leading edge. This region is where poor film coverage of the
straight blade appears. It can be seen that the stagnation point of
the straight blade shifts toward the suction surface as analyzed
above. The coolant coming out from film holes of the middle row
is deflected to the pressure side due to the shifting of stagnation
point. As a result, section A and section B illustrated in
Fig. 17 are barely covered by coolant in the straight blade. The film
cooling performance at the leading edge is sensitive to mainstream
stagnation.
The difference in blade profiles between the twist blade and the
straight blade leads to the different distribution of the mainflow
inevitably. Under the rotating condition, the difference between
the two cases is highlighted especially at the leading edge.
5.3. Influence on film cooling effectiveness: rotation vs. non-rotation
Case 1 and case 3 are used to analyze the effect of rotation on
the film cooling performance of the twist blade. The relative inlet
flow angle and the mass rate of cooling air are kept the same for
the rotating and stationary conditions.
Fig. 18. Laterally averaged effectiveness of rotating and stationary cases.
As shown in Fig. 18, the laterally averaged film cooling effec-
tiveness g
 for the rotating condition and stationary condition pre-
sents the same trend. The regions with distinct differences include
the area of 25–45% chord length on the pressure side and the area
of 10–40% chord length on the suction side. The difference of the
overall averaged film cooling effectiveness on the whole surface
of the blade is only 0.0064, which indicates that film cooling
effectiveness is almost the same with the same amount of cooling
air under the rotation and non-rotation condition.
In general, the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness of rotating
condition is higher on the pressure side, but lower on the suction
side. On the one hand, the coolant of the three rows of film holes
at the leading edge is supplied from hub to shroud with a shared
plenum. In the rotation state, the direction of Coriolis force of the
coolant in the plenum points to the pressure side, resulting that
0.73% more coolant comes out from the holes of SH1. On the other
hand, the film holes at the leading edge have upward compound
angles. So, the coolant flows out of film holes with a velocity com-
ponent in the radial direction and is subjected to the Coriolis force
pointing to the pressure side. Therefore, more coolant from the
leading edge flows to the pressure side in the condition of rotating
than that of stationary. The amount of coolant flowing to the suc-
tion side becomes less correspondingly. Streamlines of coolant
from the leading edge are shown in Fig. 19. It is obtained that more
coolant flows to the suction side under non-rotation state such as
the marked hole1 and hole2.
Further comparisons between the rotating and stationary con-
ditions are shown in Fig. 20. The film cooling coverage of rotating
Fig. 19. Streamlines of rotating and stationary cases.
 L. Zeng et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 128 (2018) 877–886
Fig. 20. Effectiveness contours of rotation and non-rotation.
condition are longer than that of stationary condition on the pres-
sure side, but they are shorter on the suction side. This is because
under rotation state the coolant has the tendency of attaching to
the pressure surface with concave curvature, and the tendency of
lifting-off the suction surface with convex curvature. It also can
be found that the coolant jets are deflected by the mainstream.
Moreover, as a result of the superposition of centrifugal force and
Coriolis force, the film coverage on the suction side shows more
deflection to the shroud under rotation state.
6. Summary and conclusions
Twist blades are widely used in modern gas turbine designs
while the research of film cooling is usually carried out in a simpli-
fied condition. A validated numerical method was used to investi-
gate the influence on film cooling performance of three
simplifications of blade (annular cascade vs. linear cascade, twist
blade vs. straight blade, rotation vs. non-rotation) during design
process. Results show that:
a) The influence of cascade form on film cooling performance is
small when auxiliary structures are retained. The difference
between the annular cascade and linear cascade appears
mainly in the area which is close to the hub. The location
of vortex core in annular cascade passage is much lower
than that in linear cascade passage near the hub due to
curvature effect. This is why the film trajectories of linear
885
cascade are deflected upwards to a greater extent than those
of the annular cascade on the suction side.
b) The geometric differences between the twist blade and
straight blade coupled with rotation lead to the change of
stagnation line at the leading edge. The film cooling at the
leading edge is sensitive to mainflow stagnation. Significant
error is induced by the simplification of blade from twist to
straight.
c) The adiabatic film cooling effectiveness of rotating condition
is higher on the pressure side, but lower on the suction side,
because the coolant from film holes at the leading edge is
subjected to Coriolis force pointing to the pressure side in
the condition of rotating. As a result of the superposition of
centrifugal force and Coriolis force, the film coverage shows
more deflection to the shroud under rotation state on the
suction side.
Each simplification of blade in gas turbine working condition
has influence on film cooling performance. The influence of cas-
cade form is mainly in regions near the hub. The effect of blade
form is most notable at the leading edge. Rotation affects the dis-
tribution of coolant from leading edge. The simplification of blade
form from twist to straight shows the most significant effect on
film cooling effectiveness. These factors need to be considered in
film cooling fine design.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge the support from
the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51621062) and
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
51376099).
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