Corrugated Suction Wall Cooling for Gas Turbine Blades
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cooling systems for gas turbine engine components, particularly high-pressure turbine blades and vanes, are inefficient, leading to reduced component life and increased cooling air usage, which affects engine efficiency and thrust output.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a turbine blade with a pressure wall and suction wall, featuring internal webs that define main coolant passages and a corrugated suction wall with angled surfaces and impingement holes to enhance cooling effectiveness, utilizing a multi-pass cooling arrangement and impingement cooling to efficiently distribute coolant and reduce temperature gradients.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Temperature
If conventional cooling systems with impingement plates and multi-pass coolant flow are used, then cooling coverage is improved, but cooling effectiveness is insufficient and film cooling penalties occur
Solution Approach 1:
The invention replaces conventional flat impingement plates with a corrugated impingement surface featuring undulating three-dimensional geometry. The corrugations create curved surfaces that redirect coolant flow at multiple angles, enhancing impingement cooling effectiveness. The peaks and troughs of the corrugations generate vortex flows that improve heat transfer, while eliminating the need for separate flat impingement plates and their associated mounting complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from two-dimensional flat impingement surfaces to three-dimensional corrugated surfaces with peaks and troughs. This dimensional enhancement creates additional flow paths and impingement zones, allowing coolant to strike the surface at varying angles and positions. The corrugations extend the impingement area into the third dimension, improving cooling coverage without increasing the planar footprint.
2Reliability
If more cooling air is used to improve cooling effectiveness, then component life increases, but engine efficiency decreases due to reduced propulsive efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The invention modifies the physical parameters of the impingement surface by introducing corrugations with specific geometric characteristics (amplitude, wavelength, orientation). These parameter changes enhance the heat transfer coefficient and cooling effectiveness, allowing achieving the same or better cooling performance with reduced coolant flow rates. The corrugated geometry optimizes the interaction between coolant and surface, improving thermal management efficiency.
3Temperature
If conventional flat surfaces are used in cooling passages, then manufacturing is simpler, but cooling effectiveness is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The invention combines the impingement plate function and the cooling passage surface into a single integrated corrugated structure. The corrugated impingement surface serves dual purposes: it provides the impingement cooling function traditionally requiring separate plates, while simultaneously forming part of the cooling passage geometry. This merging eliminates the need for separate impingement plate components and their associated mounting hardware, reducing assembly complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design improves cooling effectiveness, allowing higher gas temperatures, increased engine efficiency, and extended component life while minimizing cooling air usage, thereby enhancing overall engine performance.
Implementation Method 1
the corrugations comprise a peak, a trough, a downstream facing surface and an upstream facing surface with respect to coolant flow and a coolant flow received therefrom and coolant hole inlets defined in the downstream surface; the coolant hole inlets pass to impingement hole which passes a portion of the main gas flow into the cavity
Implementation Method 2
Coolant enters one main passage via the root and flows radially outwards towards the tip before turning and flowing radially inwardly towards the root along another main passage
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3~5
AI summary
An aerofoil typically for a blade or vane for a gas turbine engine comprises a pressure wall and a suction wall, at least one of the pressure and suction walls comprise corrugations and a coolant hole on an inner surface, the corrugations define a downstream surface and the coolant hole having an inlet defined in the downstream surface.