Experimental Study on Flow Behavior and Heat Transfer Enhancement With Distinct Dimpled Gas Turbine Blade Internal Cooling Channel

Abstract The study presents the investigation on heat transfer distribution along a gas turbine blade internal cooling channel. Six different cases were considered in this study, using the smooth surface channel as a baseline. Three different dimples depth-to-diameter ratios with 0.1, 0.25, and 0.50 were considered. Different combinations of partial spherical and leaf dimples were also studied with the Reynolds numbers of 6,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and 50,000. In addition to the experimental investigation, the numerical study was conducted using a large eddy simulation (LES) to validate the data. It was found that the highest depth-to-diameter ratio showed the highest heat transfer rate. However, the deepest dimpled channel shows the highest pressure drop, which affects the overall thermal performance of the cooling channel. The results showed that the leaf dimpled surface is the best cooling channel based on the highest Reynolds number's heat transfer enhancement and friction factor. However, at the lowest Reynolds number, partial spherical dimples with a 0.25 depth-to-diameter ratio showed the highest thermal performance.