Chapters authored
Conjugate Heat Transfer of an Internally Air-Cooled Nozzle Guide Vane and Shrouds
The accurate evaluation of the aero-thermodynamic working environments of gas turbine critical components is essential in the development of advanced gas turbine engines, such as cooling flow arrangement and service life assessment. In this chapter, as a technology demonstration, the conjugate heat transfers of the internally air-cooled nozzle guide vane (NGV) and shrouds of a gas turbine engine at flight conditions are numerically examined. The simulations are performed with a high-fidelity CFD model and adequately defined boundary conditions. The effect of the non-dimensional distance from wall surfaces, y+, on the wall temperature is studied. The characteristics of the complex three-dimensional flow and temperature fields are revealed, and the heat fluxes between the hot gas, NGV body, and cooling airflow at selected cross sections are presented and discussed. It is clear that the traditional one-dimensional semiempirical approach is no longer suitable. Generally, the Mach number is higher, and the temperature is lower on the NGV suction side than on the pressure side. It is found that two high-temperature zones occur on the NGV pressure side and the temperature over the middle section is relatively low. These findings are related to where the cooling holes and outlets are located and consistent with the field observation of NGV damages.
Part of the book: Heat Transfer
An Effective Approach for Turbine Hot Component Failure Analysis
One advantage of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is its ability to reveal the physics or nature of practical engineering problems in detail, allowing engineers and scientists to develop rigorous, effective, and efficient solutions. In this chapter, an effective approach to investigate gas turbine hot component failure is demonstrated, and the mid-span cracking of nozzle guide vanes (NGVs) is used as an example. It is a two-step approach. In the first step, a 60° combustor sector with simplified NGVs and thermocouples attached is simulated; and in the second step, NGV sectors are simulated, where each NGV sector is comprised of one high-fidelity probe NGV and several dummy NGVs. The former identifies the NGV having the highest thermodynamic load and provides the inlet boundary conditions for the latter. The CFD analysis successfully identified the root causes of the NGV damage pattern and mid-span cracking, i.e., the hot streaks from the combustor and inadequate internal cooling.
Part of the book: Engineering Failure Analysis