Gas Turbine Guide Vane Cooling Channel Design
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The existing guide vanes in gas turbines face challenges in maximizing service life and cooling efficiency due to limitations in casting precision, particularly with thin walls and complex curvature, which affect cooling air consumption and distribution.
Innovation Solution
The guide vane design features a varying cross-sectional area of blade material in the radial direction, with a minimum area between 20% and 40% of the total height, and includes radially arranged cooling channels that follow the curvature, allowing alternating flow directions and improved casting precision.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Temperature
If guide vanes are designed with thin walls and complex curvature to improve cooling efficiency, then cooling effect is enhanced, but manufacturing precision deteriorates due to casting limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by varying the cross-sectional area of blade material along the radial height, creating different wall thicknesses at different locations. The cross-sectional area is designed to pass through a minimum in the range of 20-40% of total blade height, providing thinner walls where cooling is most needed while maintaining thicker sections for manufacturing feasibility and structural integrity.
2Temperature
If cooling channels are arranged in radial direction with alternating flow directions, then cooling efficiency is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling system is segmented into multiple radial cooling channels arranged one behind the other in the direction of hot gas flow. Each channel is connected to the next through deflection areas at the ends of the vane, creating a series of discrete cooling zones that collectively provide efficient cooling while maintaining manageable complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The cooling medium flows through the cooling channels in alternating directions, creating a periodic flow pattern. This alternating flow arrangement optimizes cooling efficiency by ensuring uniform heat extraction across different sections of the guide vane while maintaining a systematic channel structure.
3Reliability
If cross-sectional area of blade material is reduced to minimize porosity, then service life is improved, but cooling air consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent optimizes the cross-sectional area parameter of blade material as a function of radial height, creating a non-uniform distribution that passes through a minimum in the 20-40% height range. This parameter optimization reduces porosity formation during casting (improving service life) while strategically positioning thin sections to minimize overall cooling air requirements.
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 enhances service life, cooling efficiency, and reduces production costs by optimizing blade material distribution, minimizing porosities, and improving the cooling effect, especially in curved shapes.
Implementation Method 1
the cooling medium is sent through cooling channels (often running in serpentines) formed in the blade and/or through corresponding openings (bores, slits) to the outside in order to form a cooling film (film cooling), in particular on the outside of the blade
Implementation Method 2
the cooling medium flows through the cooling channels one after the other in alternating directions
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
The invention relates to a guide vane (20) for a gas turbine (10), in particular for a low-pressure turbine (18) of a gas turbine (10) with sequential combustion, comprising a vane (22) that extends in the radial direction between an inner platform (23) and an outer platform (21), extending in the inner cooling channel thereof (30, 31, 32), through which a cooling medium, in particular cooling air, for cooling the guide vane (20) can flow. In said type of guide vane, the desired service life and cooling, in relation to the used casting process is achieved such that the vane (22) comprises a transversal surface of the blade material in the radial direction, that varies about the height (h) of the vane (22).