Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2012
GT2012
CALIBRATION OF GAS TURBINE BLADE TEMPERATURE PREDICTIONS USING
SURROGATE MODELS
John M. McFarland
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX 78238
Sung Yong Chang
Korea Electric Power Research Institute
Daejeon, Korea 305-380
ABSTRACT
Actual gas turbine performance and component life at
specific engine installations is highly dependent on the actual
operating conditions, since not all engines are operated in the
same manner. Due to the variability in turbine operation, it
may be prudent to evaluate the operation of hot section
components for turbine inlet conditions that are specific to a
single installation. However, determining the actual turbine
inlet conditions can be a difficult and expensive process that is
usually only done on test bed gas turbines. This paper
presents a method to determine turbine inlet conditions using a
model calibration approach. Two-stage CFD and thermal
analyses are developed to predict blade temperature. By
varying the model inputs, computational predictions of blade
temperature are calibrated to blade interdiffusion zone
thickness measurements. In order to speed up calculations,
surrogate models are used in place of the full-scale analysis
codes during the calibration analysis. The result of the study
is a prediction of the turbine inlet profile necessary to obtain
the best agreement between predicted and measured blade
temperatures.
NOMENCLATURE
A constant (Eqn 2)
kp interdiffusion zone parabolic growth rate constant
(Eqn 1)
PRcool ratio of coolant source pressure to flow path static
pressure
Q activation energy (Eqn 2)
R gas constant
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June 11-15, 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark
GT2012-69601
Grant O. Musgrove
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX 78238
David L. Ransom
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX 78238
s radial span measured from hub
S radial span distance between hub and shroud
t interdiffusion zone thermal exposure time (Eqn 1)
T temperature; absolute temperature (Eqn 2)
Tavg inlet profile average temperature
W interdiffusion zone width [µm] (Eqn 1)
W0 initial interdiffusion zone width (Eqn 1)
Greek
φ dimensionless absolute temperature, φ = T / Tavg
θ vector of model calibration parameters
Subscripts
0 inlet profile value at hub location
1 inlet profile value at shroud location
h radial span of inlet profile peak value
p radial distance of inlet profile peak value evaluated
from the hub
peak inlet profile peak value
INTRODUCTION
During the design of the hot section of a gas turbine, a
range of operating conditions is taken into consideration for
achieving both maximum part life and maximum performance.
It is difficult, however, to predict all operating conditions for a
turbine fleet due to differences such as fuel composition and
operational history. Due to the variability in turbine operation,
it may be prudent to evaluate the operation of hot section
components for turbine inlet conditions that are specific to a
single installation. Determining the actual turbine inlet
conditions can be a difficult and expensive process that is
usually only done on specific test bed gas turbines.
 This paper demonstrates the use of a model calibration
approach to determine inlet conditions based on blade
temperature measurements. Turbine blade temperature is
modeled using two-stage CFD and blade thermal analyses.
The model inputs are then systematically adjusted in order to
maximize the agreement between the analysis predictions and
the blade temperature measurements. However, the total run
time for the sequence of analysis models used to predict blade
temperature is on the order of 10 hours for one case, rendering
direct use of the analysis models within an iterative search
algorithm prohibitive due to computational cost. Thus,
surrogate models, also referred to as Response Surface
Approximations (RSA’s), are employed in order to develop a
fast-running approximation of the full analysis model in order
to facilitate the calibration study.
One of the advantages of using surrogate models is their
flexibility: once constructed, the surrogate model may be used
for different studies, such as sensitivity analysis, optimization,
calibration, and uncertainty quantification. In fact, a large
amount of recent work in the turbomachinery community has
addressed the use of surrogate models for these types of
studies. The majority of these studies have focused on design
optimization (see, for example [1,2,3,4]). Multi-objective
design optimization using response surface approximations
has also been of particular interest (see [5,6,7,8,9,10]).
The use of surrogate models for model calibration studies
has not been as widespread in the gas turbine industry. Wang
et al. [11] gives an overview of the current state of the art,
with an emphasis on the Kennedy and O’Hagan framework
[12], which is a comprehensive Bayesian approach that makes
use of Gaussian Process (a.k.a. Kriging) surrogate modeling.
Recent work by Lin et al. [13] demonstrates a surrogate-based
calibration and bias detection case study on gas turbine
performance metrics. Other work in the gas turbine literature
has also demonstrated the use of surrogate models for design
space exploration [14,15] and probabilistic analysis [16].
One of the challenges faced in this calibration study is
that the temperature measurements are given at over 100
locations across two blades. Thus, if the model is to be
calibrated against all data, the surrogate model must be
capable of representing the model response for all of these
locations. In other words, the surrogate model must deal with
highly multivariate output. This is a typical challenge when
dealing with CFD applications, and a common approach for
developing surrogate models has been to represent the high-
dimensional output space in terms of a reduced set of
orthogonal variables using an approach such as Principal
Components Analysis (PCA) or Proper Orthogonal
Decomposition (POD) (for example, [17]). However, the
approach demonstrated here is to develop individual surrogate
models for each of the model outputs. While this increases the
computational burden somewhat because of the need to work
with a large number of surrogate models, it has the advantages
of not losing information due to order reduction as well as the
opportunity to identify the response surface goodness of fit as
a function of the output variables.
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COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH
A brief overview of the computational tools and approach
used to perform the calibration study is given here. The
calibration approach can be broken into the following steps:
• Develop analysis models to calculate blade temperatures
for a set of input parameters.
• Use the NESSUS software package to coordinate the
analysis models, define the inputs, and collect the training
data.
• Use custom Python scripts to collect and organize the
results generated by NESSUS based on the 106
temperature response locations of interest.
• Use the CENTAUR library to generate response surface
models from the training data and perform the calibration
analysis. CENTAUR (Collection of Engineering Tools
for Analyzing Uncertainty and Reliability) is a modular
library of probabilistic algorithms that facilitates the rapid
development of custom solutions. CENTAUR also
provides many of the algorithms used by NESSUS.
NESSUS (Numerical Evaluation of Stochastic Structures
Under Stress) [18] is a general purpose software tool for
probabilistic analysis and model integration. NESSUS
provides mechanisms for mapping input variables into text-
based numerical model input files, defining files that must be
copied between sequential evaluations, and quickly restarting
an analysis in the case of computer system failure or analysis
model errors.
For this study, NESSUS is used to exercise the analysis
models and collect the training data, as shown in Figure 1. The
NESSUS model coordinates a two-stage CFD simulation
using ANSYS CFX [19], a finite element thermal model of the
first stage blade using ANSYS Mechanical [20], and a finite
element thermal model of the second stage blade using
ANSYS Mechanical. The model includes definitions of how
input variables map into the numerical model input files, as
well as how output files from the CFD analysis must be copied
and used as input files for the thermal analyses. The Latin
Hypercube Sampling (LHS) probabilistic method in NESSUS
is used to define the design of computer experiments for the
input variables.
INPUT:
Temperature profile
Coolant pressure ratio
NESSUS
CFD Simulation
Thermal Simulation
Figure 1. The NESSUS software is used to execute the
deterministic models, define input data, and evaluate the
output data.
 NESSUS creates an organized set of directories
containing the data associated with each set of numerical
analyses. Custom Python scripts are then used to parse the
directory structure and organize the training data based on
each of the 106 temperature response quantities of interest.
The training data are then processed using custom scripts
written with the CENTAUR library. These scripts use
CENTAUR to create all surrogate models and conduct the
calibration analysis.
TURBINE MODELING
Blade temperatures are predicted for the first two stages
of a Westinghouse W501F gas turbine using ANSYS
Mechanical [20], a commercially available finite element
solver. Thermal models of the first and second stage blades
are used to solve for the steady-state temperature distribution
in the blade material. Because the finite element thermal
models are also used for stress predictions in Kim et al. [29], a
mesh size of one million nodes is required to produce mesh
independent results of stress. A large mesh size is required
because complex geometry features such as the squealer tip,
fillets, and internal cooling passages are included in the model.
The fine mesh size is applied in the platform and airfoil
sections of the blade, whereas the blade root has a coarse mesh
because it was not a focus of the study, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. A mesh independency study confirms that the
one million node mesh sizes for the first (left) and second
(right) stage blades is required for independent results.
Inputs to the thermal models are the internal and external
heat transfer boundary conditions in the form of convection
coefficients and driving temperatures. The external thermal
boundary conditions are calculated from the flow field results
of a two-stage CFD simulation of the turbine, as shown in
Figure 3. The steady-state simulation is solved using ANSYS
CFX [19], a commercially available CFD solver, for specified
turbine inlet temperature and pressure profiles. The model
utilizes rotationally periodic interfaces at the circumferential
faces and mixing plane interfaces in between components.
The mesh is generated using ANSYS ICEM v12.0 [19] to
create a hexahedral mesh with an O-grid around the airfoils.
The CFD model is a 1 million element mesh of the flow field
through the first two stages of the turbine with y+ values less
than 20. A mesh sensitivity study is completed to ensure that
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the results are independent of the mesh size. All solutions use
the k-ω turbulence model with automatic wall treatment,
whereby the convergence criteria is 10-6 residual values. The
flow field results from the CFD simulation are used to
calculate the heat transfer coefficients on the blade airfoil,
platform, and tip surfaces using widely accepted empirical
correlations for surface heat transfer coefficient.
Exit boundary
Mass flow rate
3,600 rpm
Inlet boundary
Pressure and Temperature
Figure 3. A steady-state CFD model of the first two turbine
stages is used with empirical heat transfer correlations to
generate the external boundary conditions for the thermal
blade models.
For the airfoil and platform surfaces, a correlation for a
turbulent flat plate [21] is used to calculate the heat transfer
coefficient along the surfaces. The stagnation region on the
blade leading edge is approximated as the plate leading edge
because the boundary layer on the airfoil begins to grow from
the stagnation point. A correlation from Glassman [22] is
used to calculate the heat transfer coefficient on the leading
edge region by approximating the leading edge as a cylinder in
cross flow. The results of both the flat plate and the cylinder-
in-cross flow correlations are blended to form a continuous
curve. Heat transfer coefficients are calculated on the blade
tip using the correlation developed in Metzger et al. [23]. The
blade tip leakage flow is calculated from the pressure ratio
between the pressure and suction sides of the blade near the
tip. The flow rate is calculated using the pressure ratio along
with loss coefficients to approximate the contraction and
expansion losses across the grooved blade tip.
Driving temperatures applied to the thermal models are
taken directly from the flow field solution, In the case of the
first stage blade, the thermal boundary conditions are adjusted
to account for the effects of film cooling on the airfoil surface
[24,25]. The effects of thermal barrier coating (TBC) are also
included by combining the thermal resistance of the external
convection and the TBC conduction. The coating thermal
conductivity is approximated as 2 W/m2/K [26].
The internal thermal boundary conditions are calculated
using empirical correlations found in the literature for the pin
fin [27] and ribbed cooling geometries [28]. Internal cooling
flow rates are calculated outside of the thermal model using a
one-dimensional flow network, whereby the flow rates can be
expressed as a function of the ratio of the coolant-to-flowpath
pressure (PRcool).
 Model Input Variables
The objective of the model calibration study is to
determine an appropriate inlet temperature profile and coolant
flow based on observed blade temperature. The average inlet
temperature value and the inlet pressure profile are held
constant. To perform the calibration study, the inlet
temperature profile is represented parametrically in terms of a
small set of variables as shown in the schematic of Figure 4.
For this study, φpeak is not treated as a variable but is instead
determined based on the constraint that the average inlet
temperature has a fixed, known value. The average
temperature of the inlet profile is represented as the area under
the profile curve, and is known from gas turbine operating
data. As a result, four variables are used to control the inlet
temperature profile: φ0, φ1, Sp, and Sh.
φ1
1
φpeak
s/S sh
sp
0 φ
φ0
Figure 4. Parametric Dimensionless Temperature (φ)
Profile Model. The Y-axis Represents Non-dimensional
Radial Span
In addition to the inlet temperature profile, the coolant
pressure ratio (PRcool) is a parameter used to determine the
coolant mass flow in the blade. Coolant pressure ratio is
considered as a model parameter because the actual mass flow
in the blade is a function of the coolant supply pressure and
the gas path pressure. Thus, a total of five inputs are
considered as variables for this study.
TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS
The objective of the model calibration study is to identify
the turbine inlet conditions so that the blade temperature
predictions agree with experimentally determined values. The
model is calibrated based on experimental measurements
obtained by the project sponsor. These measurements are of
the interdiffusion zone thickness values, from which
temperature values are determined.
Experimental temperature determination
Degradation of the coating during long-term service at
elevated temperatures is a result of the transformation of the
β-phase ((Ni and/or Cr)Al) in the coating into γ and an
increase in the interdiffusion zone width below the MCrAlY
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coatings. The β-phase in the coating acts as a reservoir for
aluminum and provides aluminum to form protective oxide
scale at the outer surface. Aluminum diffuses during service to
re-form continuous scale when the protective oxide layer
exfoliates. This results in depletion of aluminum in the
coating, which promotes transformation of β into γ. Aluminum
in the coating also diffuses into the substrate and nickel
diffuses from the substrate into the coating. Interdiffusion of
these elements during service is responsible for the
enlargement of the interdiffusion zone. The coating finally
fails to provide protection of the blade when the aluminum
content in the coating drops below 3 wt.% or β-phase
transforms into γ. The interdiffusion zone growth depends on
service time and temperature since it is a diffusion controlled
process.
The interdiffusion zone growth process can be expressed
by a parabolic relation:
(W − W0 )2 = k pt (1)
The parabolic growth rate constant, kp, is related to the
exposure temperature by the Arrhenius equation, since the
interdiffusion zone growth is a diffusion controlled process:
k p = (W − W0 ) t = A exp(− Q RT )
2
(2)
To estimate operating metal the constants need to be
determined for the blade coating/substrate system of interest.
The accuracy of operating temperature estimation depends on
the initial zone width, W0.
Temperature data
The temperature data provided by the project sponsor are
based on measurements of interdiffusion zone thickness as
described above and are plotted below in Figure 5 and Figure
6. Positive chord represents the pressure side of the airfoil and
negative chord represents the airfoil suction side. The blade
leading edge is located at chord location 0 and the trailing
edge at chord locations ±1.
Typically, the operating metal temperature of a blade
varies from location to location at a given airfoil height. The
blade (50 to 60% airfoil) mid height is exposed to the highest
temperature and the blade near the hub or blade platform is
exposed to the lowest temperature. As a result, the
microstructure of the coating and the interdiffusion zone width
near the blade platform is considered to represent the original
condition. In contrast, the interdiffusion data shown in Figure
5 and Figure 6 do not show a significant variation between the
blade hub, mid or tip locations. The maximum estimated
temperatures at the hub and mid height location were
comparable (differing by only φ = 0.03), suggesting that the
coating at the hub location was also significantly degraded.
Thus, future work may be done to verify the temperature
measurements, but the values are still used here as a
demonstration of the calibration analysis.
 Figure 5. Observed Temperature Distribution on Blade 1

Figure 6. Observed Temperature Distribution on Blade 2

interdiffusion zone thickness measurements, as described in

the previous section. This includes 106 total measurements
MODEL CALIBRATION ANALYSIS AND RESULTS across 18 locations on the tip, mid, and hub sections of two
The objective of the model calibration study is to adjust blades (measurements are missing at two locations for the tip
certain model parameters, referred to as the model calibration of Blade 1).
parameters, in order to achieve agreement between model
The model calibration analysis is formulated as a
predictions and experimentally observed data. In this case, the nonlinear least-squares problem. The objective is to identify
model is calibrated against the observed blade temperature
the values of the calibration parameters, θ, that minimize the
distribution, which is determined based on interdiffusion zone
sum of squared errors function, which measures the amount of
thickness measurements. For this study, the model calibration
mismatch between model prediction and experimental data:
parameters are those which determine the shape of the inlet n
temperature profile, as well as the coolant-to-flow path
pressure ratio, PRcool, as described above.
S(θ ) = ∑ [y
i =1
i − G (θ, x i )] ,
2
(3)
The bounds associated with the calibration parameters
are given in Table 1. where ( y1 ,  , y n ) denote the n available measurements and
G denotes corresponding model predictions, which are a
Table 1. Calibration Parameters and Bounds function of the calibration parameters, θ, and independent
Parameter Lower Bound Upper Bound variables, x. In this case x is just a conceptual indicator
variable so that there is a correspondence between the spatial
φ0 0.59 1.0 locations of the predictions and observations.
φ1 0.59 (2φavg-φ0*Sp) / (2-Sp) Because evaluation of the model predictions G(θ,x) is
Sh 0 1-Sp-0.001 extremely time-consuming, a surrogate-based approach is
Sp 0.05 0.95 used. For each input vector θ, evaluation of G involves a
series of 3 analysis models, requiring approximately 10 hours
PRcool 1.05 1.20
of computation time on an 8-core processor. The 3 analysis
models are the CFD model, thermal model of blade 1, and
The experimental data to which the model is to be thermal model of blade 2. Surrogate models (also known as
calibrated are the temperature values determined based on the

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 response surface approximations) are constructed to
approximate the relationship between temperature and the
model calibration parameters. A separate surrogate model,
Ĝi(θ), is constructed for each blade temperature location of
interest, resulting in a total of 108 surrogate models.
The surrogate models are trained by exercising the true
model, G, with various combinations of the calibration inputs,
θ, and observing the response values. The selection of the set
of inputs used to collect the training data is known as the
Design of Computer Experiments. The Latin Hypercube
Sampling (LHS) design [30] is commonly used for collection
of training data (for example [6,4,8,15]) because it possesses
space-filling properties that help achieve good coverage of the
design space [31].
The Latin Hypercube design is constructed by applying a
uniform probability distribution to each input, based on the
given lower and upper bounds. One challenge is that in some
cases, the bounds for one input depend on the values of one or
more other inputs. The approach used here is to introduce a
set of auxiliary variables that take values from (0,1). The
auxiliary variables define the location of the corresponding
input between its minimum and maximum value. Consider,
for example, Sh, whose upper bound depends on the value of
Sp. We introduce an auxiliary variable, say QSh and define Sh
as the minimum value plus a fraction of the range (upper
minus lower).
S h = 0 + QS h × 1 − S p − 0.001 − 0 (4)
  
Thus, a uniformly distributed Latin Hypercube design is
constructed on a set of auxiliary variables each having a range
(0,1). Based on the bounds given in Table 1, the auxiliary
variables are then converted into calibration parameter values.
A total of 25 training points are randomly generated using this
design. An additional training point is also collected at the
nominal values of the inputs (each input is set halfway
between the lower and upper bounds given in Table 1), which
gives a total of 26 training points. After specification of the
design, the turbine blade model is exercised for each of the 26
cases, which involves execution of the CFD model as well as
the blade 1 and blade 2 thermal models.
The temperature profiles predicted by each of the 26
training point runs are plotted in Figure 7 and Figure 8. Notice
that, as discussed above, the interdiffusion data show much
less temperature variation across the blade than is predicted by
the models. Based on these plots, it is clear that it will not be
possible, by adjusting only the parameters in Table 1, to
achieve a flat temperature profile that matches closely with the
interdiffusion data. Nevertheless, we can still search for the
optimal solution, which is the one that minimizes the error
given by Eq. (3).

Figure 7. Blade 1 temperature profiles predicted by the 26 calibration training point runs. For each curve, the input parameters
given in Table 1 were randomly chosen. The dots represent the experimental data.

Figure 8. Blade 2 temperature profiles predicted by the 26 calibration training point runs. each curve, the input parameters
given in Table 1 were randomly chosen. The dots represent the experimental data.

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 A variety of different surrogate modeling approaches
have been demonstrated in the literature, ranging from simple
polynomial regression models [6,7,13] to sophisticated neural
networks [14,3,4,8] and Gaussian Process (a.k.a Kriging)
models [5,1,2,3,9,10]. For this study, we first consider linear
regression models for each of the Ĝi(θ). If the linear models
represent the training data well, there would be no advantage
to using a more sophisticated approach. The form of the linear
model is given by:
5
Gˆ i ,linear (θ ) = β i , 0 + ∑ β i , jθ j
j =1
where for the ith surrogate model, β i , j , j = 0,  ,5 are
coefficients that are estimated based on the training data. To
assess the goodness of fit, the R-squared value (also known as
the coefficient of determination), is computed for each
surrogate model. The R-squared value is equal to the fraction
of the variance in the training data outputs that is explained by
the surrogate model. For regression models, the R-squared
value will always increase as higher order terms are added, so
over fitting is sometimes a concern. However, for this case,
over fitting is not a concern because the number of training
points (26) is significantly greater than the number of
coefficients (6). Figure 9 shows a plot of the R-squared values
for all 108 surrogate models (although there are only 106
experimental data points, since measurement data were
missing for two of the locations). The models are arranged on
the horizontal axis based on their spatial location in terms of
the “tip”, “mid”, and “hub” radial span locations of the blade.
Based on Figure 9, we see that the R-squared values for
the linear models range from approximately 0.7 to 0.95. The
hub sections for both blades show the largest R-squared
values, indicating that the temperature responses are
approximately linear in the input variables in these sections of
the blade. However, the R-squared values are lower in other
sections, particularly on the mid-section of Blade 2, where it is
apparent that the linear models provide a fairly poor fit to the
training data. These results suggest that consideration of a
more sophisticated surrogate model is warranted.
Mid Tip
Hub
Hub
Mid
Tip
Blade 1 Blade 2
Figure 9. R-squared values based on linear surrogate
models fit to the 26 training points in five variables.
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One such model is the Gaussian process (GP) model, also
known as a Kriging model [32]. The GP model is capable of
representing more complex response functions, and has the
advantage that it is not restricted to a particular functional
form, like regression models. The form of the GP surface used
in this work is:
m
Ĝ i,GP (θ ) = β i + ∑κ i,j (θ )(Yi,j − β i ) , (6)
j=1
where m is the number of training points (26), βi is a
(5)
coefficient for each model, Yi,j is the jth training point
response value for the ith model, and κi,j(θ) is a weighting
function based on the spatial correlation function. Further
details of the modeling approach used here can be found in
references [33,34].
One of the desirable features of the GP model is that,
unlike regression models, the response surface directly
interpolates all of the training points. This makes model
assessment slightly more challenging, though. For this study,
model assessment for the GP model is based on the “leave-
one-out” cross-validation residuals [35]. The leave-one-out
residuals are obtained by computing the difference between
the observed and predicted response at each training point,
while each training point is removed from the model one at a
time. These residuals are then used to compute an R-squared
value, which is plotted for each GP surrogate model in Figure
10. The R-squared value computed in this fashion should be
slightly conservative, since one training point is removed
when computing each residual. As expected, the GP models
fit the training data much more accurately than the linear
regression models. However, the fit on the Blade 2 mid-
section could be improved with additional training points to
improve the accuracy of the surrogates. Nevertheless, the fit
of the surrogate models to the blade 2 mid section are likely
not significantly affecting the calibration results when
comparing the surrogate model results with other blade
locations.
Blade 2 Mid
Figure 10. R-squared show good fit except for the Blade 2
mid section when calculated based on “leave-one-out”
residuals for the Gaussian process surrogate models fit to
the 26 training points in five variables.
7 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
 Once the surrogate models have been constructed,
virtually any numerical optimization routine can be used to
solve for the optimal calibration parameters by minimizing Eq.
(3), since the surrogate models are not expensive to evaluate.
For this study, two different optimization algorithms are
considered: (1) the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm [36],
which is a specialized least-squares solver, and (2) the
DIRECT algorithm [37], which is a general-purpose global
optimization routine. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is
gradient-based, and so is capable of efficiently finding a good
solution, if given a good starting point. DIRECT is not
gradient-based and is more expensive (requires more function
evaluations), but it is less susceptible to finding a local
minimum instead of the global minimum. In each case, the
calibration algorithm is constrained to search over the
parameter bounds identified in Table 1. This is necessary
because exploration beyond these bounds would result in
surrogate model extrapolation, for which the accuracy of the
surrogate models has not been assessed.
In the end, the best solution is found by first running the
DIRECT algorithm to get an approximate globally-optimal
solution. This solution is then used as the starting point for the
Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, which is able to improve the
solution slightly. The calibration solution is given in Table 2
and Figure 11. Figure 12 and Figure 13 plot the temperature
profile predicted for the calibrated solution (based on the
surrogate models) against the experimental data. Total
computation time to arrive at the calibration solution is driven
by the cost of collecting the 26 training points, at roughly 10
hours each, for a total cost on the order of 260 hours.
Table 2. Calibration Solution
Parameter Value
φ0 0.955
φ1 0.954
Sh 0.253
Sp 0.05
PRcool 1.05
Figure 12. Blade 1 temperature profile predicted for calibrated solution (green curve) and experimental data (blue points).
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1.0
0.8
0.6
s/S
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10
φ
Figure 11. Calibrated Inlet Profile
Comparing the predicted blade temperatures at the
calibrated inlet profile to the temperatures estimated using the
interdiffusion zone thickness measurements show a significant
difference. The differences lie in the temperature magnitude
and the distribution along the blade surface. As suggested
earlier, verification of the temperatures based on the
interdiffusion zone thickness measurements is suggested due
to the flat distribution of values across the blade surface in
both the chord-wise and radial directions. In contrast, the
predicted blade temperatures for the calibrated condition are
shown to vary in both the chord-wise and radial directions.
Nevertheless, the importance of having careful data to
calibrate to is highlighted by this work.
It is important to note that the agreement between the
surrogate model and the interdiffusion zone temperatures
could be improved by increasing the design space of the input
parameters. The design space, however, is not increased
because the upper and lower bounds on the input parameters
are set to ensure a realistic temperature profile. For example,
the average value of the temperature profile could be included
as an input variable to allow the magnitude of the surrogate
model predictions more closely match the interdiffusion zone
temperatures. However, the calibrated average temperature
would be much higher than the known operating temperature
of the gas turbine, which was held constant during the
calibration.
 Figure 13. Blade 2 temperature profile predicted for calibrated solution (green curve) and experimental data (blue points).
CONCLUSIONS
Hot section gas turbine design is normally conducted
with respect to a range of turbine operating conditions.
Because of differences in turbine operation, it may be
advantageous to evaluate the operation of hot section
components for inlet conditions that are specific to a particular
installation. However, measurement of turbine inlet
conditions can be a difficult and expensive process.
The goal of this paper is to present an approach for
determining inlet conditions using analysis models and
estimates of blade temperature from interdiffusion zone
thickness measurements. By using a model calibration
approach, model inputs are adjusted to optimize agreement
between the predicted and measured blade temperature values.
One of the primary challenges with using such an approach is
the computational expense associated with evaluating the
analysis model. Each individual analysis combines CFD and
heat transfer calculations to require 10 hours of run time.
Because the model calibration analysis requires a large
number of simulation runs with different combinations of the
inputs, direct use of the simulation within the calibration study
is not feasible.
To overcome the problem with computational cost, fast-
running surrogate models (also known as response surface
approximations) are developed. A total of 26 analyses are
made with the full simulations, and the resulting “training
data” are used to fit the surrogate models.
One of the challenges often faced when using surrogate
models for CFD applications is that the simulations typically
have a large number of outputs that are of interest. In this
work the calibration study is performed with respect to
temperature measurements at 106 blade locations, meaning the
surrogate models must describe all 106 temperature responses.
The issue with high-dimensional output is often addressed
using a dimension-reduction approach such as principal
components analysis. This study demonstrates a different
approach in which individual surrogate models are developed
for each response quantity of interest. One of the advantages
of this approach is that the goodness of fit of the surrogate
models can be analyzed with respect to blade location, making
9 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
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it possible to identify specific regions on the blade where the
surrogates are not fitting as well.
The final result of the analysis is the calibrated inlet
temperature profile. For this particular study, there were
significant differences between the predicted and measured
blade temperature distributions, and the calibration analysis
was limited to finding the best possible solution within the
constraints defined for the problem. Nevertheless, the
surrogate-based approach shows promise, and it would even
be possible to re-calibrate the inlet profile using a new set of
temperature data, without having to perform any additional
analysis runs with the full models. New temperature data is
suggested with verification of the calculation procedure from
the interdiffusion zone thickness measurements. Future work
from this study could also include an expansion of the input
parameters to study the uncertainty effects of the empirical
models.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Korea Electric Power
Research Institute for funding and sponsoring this research
effort including Woosung Choi, Bum Shin Kim, and Beom
Soo Kim.
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