Turbine Airfoil Minicore Sloped Diffuser Orifice
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current gas turbine engine designs face challenges in efficiently cooling turbine airfoils, particularly in densely packed configurations where traditional cooling passage designs may compromise cooling performance due to uneven spacing and packaging constraints.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates radially-elongated cooling passages with sloped diffuser orifices and a rhomboid shape, which enhances cooling coverage by maintaining equidistant diffuser orifices from the trailing edge and allows for close radial spacing, facilitating better thermal management within a compact airfoil section.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional cooling passages are used in densely packed turbine airfoil configurations, then packaging constraints are met, but cooling performance deteriorates due to uneven spacing
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling system is segmented into multiple independent cooling passages, each with its own diffuser orifice. This segmentation allows each passage to be independently optimized for uniform spacing and cooling distribution, resolving the contradiction between packaging constraints and cooling performance by dividing the complex cooling system into manageable, optimizable units
Solution Approach 2:
Each cooling passage is designed with specific local characteristics including sloped diffuser orifices and tailored passage geometries. This local quality optimization ensures that cooling is uniformly distributed across the airfoil surface despite the densely packed configuration, allowing each local region to achieve optimal cooling performance while maintaining overall compactness
2Volume of moving object
If cooling passages are closely spaced radially to accommodate short airfoil span, then packaging efficiency improves, but cooling uniformity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling passages are oriented radially through the airfoil span, utilizing the radial dimension to achieve close spacing while maintaining cooling uniformity. By arranging passages in the radial direction rather than only axially, the design accommodates short airfoil spans while ensuring uniform cooling distribution through the thickness of the airfoil
Solution Approach 2:
The diffuser orifices are designed with specific slope angles and geometric parameters that change along the passage length. This parameter variation compensates for the close radial spacing, ensuring that cooling uniformity is maintained despite the compact configuration by adjusting flow distribution parameters throughout the passage
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 configuration improves cooling performance by ensuring effective film cooling coverage over the exterior surfaces while accommodating the packaging challenges of a short airfoil span, thereby enhancing the overall thermal management of the turbine airfoil.
Implementation Method 1
cooling passages (74a-f) extending through the airfoil outer wall (66) from the leading end to the trailing end
Implementation Method 2
ensuring effective film cooling coverage over the exterior surfaces
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
A turbine airfoil (60) includes an airfoil outer wall (66) that defines leading and trailing ends (LE,TE) and first and second sides (68a,68b) that join the leading and trailing ends (LE,TE). At least one cooling passage (74) is embedded in the airfoil outer wall (66) and has a radially-elongated entrance manifold (76), a radially-elongated diffuser orifice (78) that opens to an exterior surface of the airfoil outer wall (66), and a bank of sub-passages (80) fluidly connecting the radially-elongated entrance manifold (76) with the radially-elongated diffuser orifice (78). The radially-elongated diffuser orifice (78) is sloped relative to the radially-elongated entrance manifold (76).