FILM COOLING FROM CIRCULAR AND ELLIPTICAL EXIT SHAPED HOLES WITH SISTER HOLE INFLUENCE

In traditional film cooling configuration, coolant is injected through a cylindrical pipe with an inclined angle (0<alpha<90), which results in an elliptical exit shaped hole (EESH) at the blade surface. The present study makes use of an elliptical injection coolant pipe that leads to a circular exit shaped hole (CESH). The film cooling effectiveness and the associated flow for both cases of circular and elliptical shaped holes are numerically investigated. A comparison between the predicted results and the available experimental results from the literature for blowing ratios of M=0.5 and 1, clearly indicated a better agreement with the experimental results when the realizable k-epsilon model was used. Further, the results indicate that the circular exit shaped hole improves the centerline and laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness, particularly, at a higher bowing ratio of 1. The analysis of the vortex generation downstream of the jet for both exit shaped holes, shows a considerable decrease in the jet lift-off where the coolant flow tends to adhere more to the surface and hence, provides a better film cooling protection for the circular exit shaped hole, in comparison with the common elliptical exit shaped hole. The influence of sister holes on film cooling performance tends to be more effective with circular exit shaped hole than that with elliptical exit shaped hole.