Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Computational study of lm cooling from single and two staggered rows of

novel semi-circular cooling holes including coolant plenum
F.H. Asghar 1, M.J. Hyder *
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), PO Nilore 45650, Islamabad, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Computational analysis of lm cooling effectiveness using novel semi-circular hole shapes with stream-
Received 10 November 2009 wise inclination of 30 has been carried out. Velocity proles from the separate coolant plenum geometry
Accepted 5 July 2010 are used for inlet condition to cooling holes. Realizable ke turbulence model with enhanced wall treat-
Available online 31 July 2010
ment is used for turbulence modeling in simulations. It is observed that coolant jet heights for one row
and two staggered rows of semi-circular holes are lower than that for one row of circular holes. The cen-
Keywords: terline and laterally averaged effectiveness values from a row of semi-circular holes are found almost
CFD
same as that from a row of circular holes due to the less jet lift-off in semi-circular case. Semi-circular
Film cooling
Effectiveness
hole utilizes half of the coolant mass required for full circular hole for producing the same blowing ratio,
Heat transfer so same level of effectiveness from semi-circular holes as that from full circular holes is great advantage.
Fluid ow The centerline and laterally effectiveness values from two staggered rows of semi-circular holes are
Turbine blade cooling found much higher than a single row of full circular hole case at all streamwise regions at all blowing
Gas turbine engines ratios tested. Along with centerline effectiveness and laterally averaged effectiveness values, the non-
dimensional temperature proles at (x/D, z/D) = (5.0, 0.0), non-dimensional temperature contours and
velocity vectors at plane x/D = 5.0 are also presented. Counter rotating vortex pairs from row of semi-cir-
cular holes are found to be weak and of lower size as compare to that from a row of full circular holes.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction are usually conducted on an adiabatic at plate so g in that case

Gas turbines are becoming the choice for current and future
power generation systems, because they offer efcient fuel conver-
sion and reduced cost-of-electricity [1]. Both of these advanta-
geous features are related to the development of gas turbines
with higher ring temperatures and pressure ratios. However,
turbine inlet temperatures cannot be increased without making
arrangements for effective cooling techniques to save turbine
materials from melting accidents. Film cooling is one technique,
which has being used widely in present high temperature gas tur-
bine engines to minimize high thermal gradients on turbine
components.
In lm cooling method, jets of cool air are ejected through row
of holes in the surface of the blade. This provides a thin layer of
cool air downstream of the lm cooling hole, which insulates the
blade from the hot mainstream ow and acts as a heat sink to cool
the blade surface.
Film cooling effectiveness (g) is used to express the lm cooling
phenomena quantitatively. As lm cooling experimental studies
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +92 051 2208025; fax: +92 051 2208070.
E-mail addresses: fac194@pieas.edu.pk, az512@yahoo.com (F.H. Asghar),
hyder@pieas.edu.pk (M.J. Hyder).
1
Tel.: +92 3425301768; fax: +92 051 2208070.
is called as adiabatic lm cooling effectiveness.
T aw  T 1
g 1
Tc  T1
Taw = adiabatic wall temperature; Tc = coolant inlet temperature,
and T1 = mainstream inlet temperature.
Non-dimensional temperature (h) of uid at temperature T is
dened here in the similar manner:
T  T1
h 2
Tc  T1
Film cooling effectiveness depends on many parameters like
cooling hole shape, cooling hole inclination, arrangement of row
of holes, properties of mainstream uid, coolant to mainstream
blowing ratio, density ratio and momentum ux ratio. There is a
continuous need of understanding the physics of lm cooling ows
and their effect on lm cooling effectiveness.
1.1. Previous works: experimental
The adiabatic effectiveness of a circular hole normal and at 35
to the surface was rst studied by Goldstein et al. [2], and there has
been a large amount of research into various congurations using

0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2010.07.004
330 F.H. Asghar, M.J. Hyder / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334
Nomenclature
DR coolant to free-stream density ratio
VR coolant to free-stream velocity ratio
M blowing ratio
M DR  VR
D diameter of lm cooling hole (10 mm)
U uid velocity magnitude
U1 mainstream inlet velocity magnitude
Vc coolant inlet velocity magnitude
ReD Reynolds number based on hole diameter
x/D non-dimensional streamwise distance
y/D non-dimensional vertical distance
gc centerline effectiveness
g laterally averaged effectiveness (0.0 6 z/D 6 1.5)
g spatially averaged effectiveness
T uid temperature
holes since that time. A disadvantage of cylindrical holes is the jet
lifts off the surface, particularly at higher momentum ux ratios.
Ligrani et al. [3], Sen et al. [4], Ekkad et al. [5], Al-Hamadi et al.
[6], and Maiteh and Jubran [7] amongst other researchers investi-
gated the effect of ejecting the coolant at a compound angle to the
ow. In compound angles case the mainstream uid tends to ow
over the coolant jets and jets are forced towards the surface.
Film cooling performance from cylindrical cooling holes can be
increased by arranging them in double rows, with the holes either
inlined or staggered [8,9]. The presence of the upstream row of
holes discourages the downstream row from lifting off the surface,
thus increasing the effectiveness of this row. When the holes are
arranged in staggered rather than inline rows, the spanwise unifor-
mity of effectiveness and heat transfer coefcient is improved.
To further improve lm cooling performance, researchers tried
the holes with expansion (in the exit region) in either the spanwise
or forward direction, or both. Thole et al. [10], Gritsch et al. [11]
and Yu et al. [12] presented ow eld measurements, heat transfer
coefcient, and adiabatic effectiveness for ared or fan shaped
holes. Lateral shaping of the hole improves the lateral spreading
of the jet, which in turn increases the overall lm cooling
effectiveness.
Jovanovic et al. [13] investigated the effect of hole imperfection
on adiabatic lm cooling effectiveness. Half torus inside the cooling
hole is used as a discrete imperfection. Imperfection placed one
diameter from the hole leading edge is found to deteriorate the
effectiveness while the same imperfection xed at the hole exit im-
proved the effectiveness.
1.2. Previous works: computational
Along with experimental investigations, CFD simulations of lm
cooling are also getting importance. Guo and Li [14] numerically
investigated the mean velocity and turbulent kinetic energy elds
for lateral jet in crossow. Separation events are found in the lee of
the jet exit and behind the jet. Large eddy simulations are used by
Rozati and Tafti [15] to investigate the leading edge lm cooling
ow and heat transfer. They found decrease in adiabatic effective-
ness with an increase in blowing ratio due to the increased mixing
between coolant jet and the mainstream.
The effect of turbulent Prandtl number on the computation of
lm cooling effectiveness is investigated by Liu et al. [16]. Film
cooling effectiveness is found increasing under large blowing ratios
and reduced Prandtl number. A new laterally varying turbulent
Prandtl number model dependent on the lateral location and blow-
ing ratio is suggested by Liu et al. [16].
T1 mainstream temperature
Taw adiabatic wall temperature
Tc coolant temperature
h non-dimensional temperature
p pitch (distance between holes in a single row)
s distance between two rows
I momentum ux ratio
Units
velocity meter per second (m/s)
temperature Kelvin (K)
length millimeters (mm)
angle degree ()
pressure atmospheric (atm)
Effect of coolant to free-stream blowing ratios and boundary
layer thickness on adiabatic lm cooling effectiveness is investi-
gated computationally by Asghar and Hyder [17].
At present shaped holes are found to give best cooling effective-
ness. But shaped holes are constructed from the shaping of simple
cylindrical holes. However new hole shapes should also be tested
in comparison with simple cylindrical holes and then if new hole
shapes give better results then shaping of new hole shapes should
be adopted. In the present study, effectiveness from rows of semi-
circular holes is compared with row of cylindrical hole case. Cool-
ant property proles are generated separately from coolant ple-
num geometry. Motivation behind this work is the fact that
semi-circular holes utilize half of the blade volume as compare
to full cylindrical holes, thus giving more structural strength to
blade. Also semi-circular holes required only half mass ow rate
of coolant to achieve the same blowing ratio as in case of cylindri-
cal holes. In present work, computational study has been con-
ducted to understand the lm cooling ows with a single row
and two staggered rows of streamwise inclined semi-circular holes
with 30 streamwise angle of injection. Pitch to diameter ratio (p/
D) used is 3.0.
2. Methodology
2.1. Geometry construction
A cross-sectional view (as seen from z-direction) of the geomet-
rical model is shown in Fig. 1, while Fig. 2 shows top (as seen from
y-direction) view of test plate for different case studied. 2-D view
Fig. 1. Cross-sectional view of mainstream duct and hole geometry.
 F.H. Asghar, M.J. Hyder / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334 331

domain due to symmetry. Region bounded by dotted lines is the

computational domain. A same kind of symmetry is used for hole
and for plenum geometry.

2.2. Boundary conditions

An adiabatic wall boundary condition is used at all boundaries

except those denoted as main inlet, coolant velocity prole
inlet, and outlet in Fig. 1, and symmetry boundary conditions
are applied at symmetry planes z/D = 0.0 and z/D = p/2 = 1.5
(Fig. 4) for both the main lm cooling geometry and coolant geom-
etry. At the main inlet, a velocity-inlet boundary condition is
specied with x-velocity equal to 13 m/s and all other components
equal to zero. The temperature is given as 293.15 K at the main in-
let. At the coolant inlet, a velocity prole taken from the simula-
tions of coolant plenum is specied. These velocity proles also
include the information of temperature, turbulent kinetic energy
and dissipation rate from the coolant plenum. At inlet to coolant
Fig. 2. Top view of test plates from +y-direction.
plenum velocity-inlet boundary condition is varied from case to
case as specied in Table 1. The temperature of the coolant is
318.15 K to keep the coolant to free-stream density ratio of 0.92
as in the experimental study of Yuen and Martinez-Botas [9]. At
the outlet, a pressure-outlet boundary condition is specied with
gauge pressure equal to 0 (giving an absolute pressure of
101,325 Pa). Reynolds number based on free-stream velocity and
hole diameter is 10,364. For the case of without lm cooling the
boundary layer thickness is d = 0.62D at x/D = 0.0.

2.3. Grid generation

Computational domain selected for the simulations is shown in

Fig. 4, where z/D = 0.0 and z/D = p/2 = 1.5 are the symmetry planes.

Table 1
Plenum inlet velocities.

Case # Shape Blowing ratio Momentum Plenum inlet

Fig. 3. Cross-sectional view of plenum geometry.
(M) ux ratio (I) velocity (m/s)

of coolant plenum is shown in Fig. 3. Coolant plenum is simulated 1 Circular 0.5 0.271 0.246
2 Circular 0.67 0.487 0.330
separately and velocity prole at the hole inlet in Fig. 1 is taken
3 Semi-circular 0.5 0.271 0.123
from the hole inlet from coolant plenum (Fig. 3). Three geometric 4 Semi-circular 0.67 0.487 0.165
cases have been studied. First is the baseline case of single row
of circular holes with pitch to diameter ratio of 3.0, which is used
for validation of computational model. Second is the case of a sin-
gle row of semi-circular holes with pitch to diameter ratio of 3.0.
Third is the case of two staggered rows of semi-circular holes sep-
arated by 3.0D streamwise distance and the lateral separation be-
tween two neighboring holes from different rows is 1.5D while
lateral separation between holes of individual row is 3D. Upstream
row (in the case of two staggered rows) is at a distance (s) of 3.0D
from downstream row. Fig. 4 shows the selection of geometrical

Fig. 4. Computational domain of main duct. Fig. 5. Mesh independency.

332 F.H. Asghar, M.J. Hyder / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334

For multi-block grid generation, GAMBIT is used. Meshing for 2.4. Solver
mainstream duct is same for the cases of semi-circular and circular
holes. Grid independent study has been performed separately for In present work realizable ke turbulence model with enhanced
each blowing ratio (M = 0.50, 0.67). Similarly different meshes wall treatment is selected for simulations as recommended by
are used for coolant plenum for each blowing ratio. Fig. 5 shows Zhang and Hassan [18]. Discretization scheme used is 2nd order
the grid independent study for non-dimensional temperature (h) upwind [19] for momentum, turbulence kinetic energy, turbulence
at x/D = 5, and z/D = 0.0, it is clear that the results in case of med- dissipation rate and energy, whereas for pressure standard discret-
ium and ne meshes are almost similar and solution becomes ization scheme [20] is used. For pressurevelocity coupling SIMPLE
mesh independent after medium mesh. Hence medium mesh is algorithm [21] is used.
used for CFD simulation. Table 2 shows the grid sizes for different
meshes.
3. Results and discussion
Table 2
Grid sizes for different meshes. For validation purpose of CFD model, present computational re-
sults of centerline effectiveness (gc), laterally averaged effective-
Coarse mesh Medium mesh Fine mesh
ness (g), and spatially averaged effectiveness (g) are compared
Cells 480,430 954,244 14,28,430 with the previous experimental results available in literature.
Faces 14,88,490 29,16,700 43,42,577
Fig. 6 illustrate the comparison of centerline effectiveness results
Nodes 528,135 10,06,805 14,85,475
with previous investigations [9,12,22]. Computational results are
well in agreement with experimental results especially with Yuen
and Martinez-Botas [9] results because the boundary conditions
are taken similar to that of Yuen and Martinez-Botas. Figs. 7 and
8 show the comparison of laterally averaged (g) and spatially aver-
aged effectiveness (g) data respectively with the previous work.

Fig. 8. Comparison of g with literature.

Fig. 6. Comparison of gc with literature.

Fig. 7. Comparison of g with literature. Fig. 9. gc for all cases.

 F.H. Asghar, M.J. Hyder / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334
Again present results are in good agreement with previous exper-
imental studies, which validates the present computation model.
Fig. 9 shows the comparison of centerline effectiveness for three
geometric models for blowing ratios of 0.50 and 0.67. It is found
that centerline effectiveness from a row of semi-circular holes have
almost similar values as that for a row of circular holes. Although
semi-circular holes utilizes only the half mass ow of coolant than
that from full circular hole case, but comparatively same values of
effectiveness as that for single row of circular holes is due to the
lesser jet lift-off. Less jet lift-off keeps the coolant jet more towards
test wall and hence shows higher effectiveness values. Centerline
effectiveness for two staggered rows of semi-circular holes is found
to be much higher than that for one row of full circular holes at
Fig. 10. g for all cases.
Fig. 11. h-proles at x/D = 5.0, z/D = 0.0.
333
both blowing ratios (M = 0.5, and M = 0.67), although both cases
utilize same amount for coolant for same blowing ratio.
Comparison of laterally averaged effectiveness (g) is shown in
Fig. 10. Again, for each blowing ratio tested, the laterally averaged
effectiveness from a row of semi-circular holes is almost similar to
that from a single row of circular hole. Much higher laterally aver-
aged effectiveness values are found for two staggered rows of
semi-circular holes as compare to that for single row of circular
holes, while both cases utilizing the same amount of coolant and
providing same structural strength. In Fig. 10 jet reattachment is
very much prominent especially for the case of two staggered rows
of semi-circular holes. After early decreasing trend, effectiveness
keep on increasing in the region 4 6 x/D 6 25 due to jet
reattachment.
As semi-circular holes have less momentum (due to the half
mass ow as compare to circular hole) than that for full circular
holes for the same blowing ratio. Hence coolant jets are expected
to have lesser height as compare to coolant jets height from full cir-
Fig. 12. Velocity vectors at plane x/D = 5.0.
334 F.H. Asghar, M.J. Hyder / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 329334
cular hole. Fig. 11 shows the non-dimensional temperature proles
at x/D = 5.0 and z/D = 0.0. Mainstream uid has h = 0.0 as non-
dimensional temperature, while coolant has h = 1.0 as non-dimen-
sional temperature. Mean jet height at particular location is deter-
mined by maximum h-value at that location. It is seen that with
increasing blowing ratio coolant jet height increases which is clear
from increasing y/D distance with increasing blowing ratio to reach
maximum h-value. For all blowing ratios tested, coolant jet heights
for single and two rows of semi-circular hole case are found much
lower than that for single row of full circular hole case. This is the
one reason for higher effectiveness values for semi-circular holes
seen in Figs. 9 and 10. Lower jet height for semi-circular holes is
a great advantage; because along with more cooling of test plate
it is also required that coolant mixing with the mainstream uid
should be as less as possible (to avoid aerodynamic losses). Slightly
low jet height for two staggered rows of semi-circular holes than
for single row of semi-circular holes is due to the upstream row.
Mainstream uid is already weakened during its interaction with
upstream row before its interaction with downstream row result-
ing in slightly reduced jet height.
Fig. 12 shows the velocity vectors at plane x/D = 5.0 normal to
the mainstream ow at blowing ratio of 0.50. The counter rotat-
ing vortex pairs are clear. These counter rotating vortex pairs in-
creases the jet height and causes the mainstream to entrain into
the coolant jet. It is clear from Fig. 12 that the center of counter
rotating vortex pairs for a single row of circular hole case is high-
er (at approximately y/D = 0.5) than that for other cases. Also the
strength of counter rotating measured by the magnitude of veloc-
ity vectors is higher for single row of circular holes than that
from the single row of semi-circular holes or from the two stag-
gered rows of semi-circular holes. The weakest velocity vectors in
the counter rotating vortex pairs are found for the case of two
staggered rows of semi-circular holes case, which is the main
reason for highest effectiveness results (Figs. 9 and 10) for that
case.
4. Conclusions
(i) Computational model for circular lm cooling hole with p/
D = 3.0 case and blowing ratios of 0.50 and 0.67 is validated
well with the benchmark experimental works available in
literature, showing good qualitative agreement with the
experiments.
(ii) All pertinent ow structures like jet lift-off, reattachment,
and counter rotating vortex pair are observed.
(iii) Both centerline and laterally averaged lm cooling effective-
ness from a row of semi-circular holes is found almost sim-
ilar to that from a row of circular holes.
(iv) Two staggered rows of semi-circular holes provide much
higher effectiveness values than the one row of circular
and semi-circular holes.
(v) Mean height of coolant jet from semi-circular holes are
found smaller than that from the row of circular holes.
Acknowledgement
This work is sponsored by Higher Education Commission of
Pakistan under 5000 indigenous PhD scholarships program. Sup-
port of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan is highly
acknowledged.
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