Quantifying Blowing Ratio for Shaped Cooling Holes

Effusion cooling has been a popular technology integrated into the design of gas turbine combustor liners. A staggering amount of research was completed that quantified performance with respect to operating conditions and cooling hole geometric properties; however, most of these investigations did not address the influence of the manufacturing process on the hole shape. This study completed an adiabatic wall numerical analysis using the realizable k–ϵ turbulence model of a laser-drilled hole that had a nozzled profile with an area ratio of 0.24 and five additional cylindrical, nozzled, diffusing, and fileted holes that yielded the same hole mass flow rate at representative engine conditions. The traditional methods for quantifying blowing ratio yielded the same value for all holes that was not useful considering the substantial differences in film cooling performance. It was proposed to define hole mass flux based on the outlet y-cross-sectional area projected onto the inclination angle plane. This gave blowing ratios that correlated to better and worse cooling performance for the diffusing and nozzled holes, respectively. The diffusing hole delivered the best film cooling due to having the lowest effluent velocity and greatest amount of in-hole turbulent production, which coincided with the worst discharge coefficient.