CFD benchmark study: Leading edge film-cooling with compound angle injection

This paper presents a blind CFD benchmark of a simulated leading edge for a turbine airfoil. The geometry studied was relevant for current designs with two rows of staggered film-cooling holes located at the stagnation location (θ = 0°) and at θ = 25°. Both rows of cooling holes were blowing in the same direction which was 90° relative to the streamwise direction and had an injection angle with respect to the surface of 20°. Realistic engine conditions were simulated including a density ratio of DR = 1.8 and an average blowing ratio of M = 2 for both rows of cooling holes. This blind benchmark coincided with an experimental study that took place in a wind tunnel simulation of a quarter cylinder followed by a flat afterbody. At the stagnation region, the CFD calculation overpredicted the adiabatic effectiveness because the model failed to predict a small separation region that was measured in the experiments. Good agreement was achieved, however, between the CFD predictions and the experimentally measured values of the laterally averaged adiabatic effectiveness downstream of the stagnation location. The coolant pathlines showed that flow passed from the first row of holes over the second row of cooling holes indicating a waste of the coolant.