This paper presents a method to improve the fllm-cooling effectiveness of cylindrical holes. A short crescent-shaped block is placed at the downstream of a cylindrical cooling hole. The block shape is defined by a number of geometric parameters including block height, length and width, etc. The single row hole on a flat plate with inclination angle of 30deg, pitch ratio of 3, and length-diameter ratio of 6.25 was chosen as the baseline test case. Film-cooling effectiveness for the cylindrical hole with or without the downstream short crescent-shaped block was measured by using the pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. The density ratio of coolant (argon) to mainstream air is 1.38. The blowing ratios vary from 0.5 to 1.25. The results showed that the lateral averaged cooling effectiveness is increased remarkably when the downstream block is present. The downstream short block allows the main body ofthe coolant jet to pass over the block top and to form a new down-wash vortex pair, which increases the coolant spread in the lateral direction. The effects of each geometrical parameter of the block on the film-cooling effectiveness were studied in detail.

The exhaust system in condensing steam turbines is used to recover leaving kinetic energy of the last stage turbine, while guiding the flow from turbine to condenser. The flows in the exhaust system and the turbine stage are fully coupled and inherently unsteady. The unsteady flow interactions between the turbine and the exhaust system have a strong impact on the blade loading or blade aerodynamic force. This paper describes the unsteady flow interactions between a single-stage axial turbine and an exhaust system. The experimental and numerical studies on the coupled flow field in the single-stage turbine and the exhaust hood model under different operational conditions have been carried out. Unsteady pressure at the turbine rotor blade, turbine outlet, and exhaust outcasing are measured and compared with the numerical prediction. The details of unsteady flow in the exhaust system with the whole annulus stator and rotor blade rows are simulated by employing the computational fluid dynamics software CFX-5. Results show that for the investigated turbine-exhaust configuration the influence of the flow field in the exhaust system on the unsteady blade force is much stronger than that of the stator and rotor interaction. The flow pattern in the exhaust system changes with the turbine operational condition, which influences the unsteady flow in the turbine stage further.

The current article describes the experimental and numerical studies on the flow field in a coupled turbine stage and exhaust hood model. The low subsonic stage with 22 stator blades and 30 rotor blades is especially designed for the hood model, which is a typical design for a 300/600 MW steam turbine. Velocity distributions at the inlet, outlet, and hood exit stages, in addition to static pressure distributions at the diffuser tip and hub end-walls and at the hood outer casing, are measured and compared with the numerical prediction. The flow details in the exhaust system with the whole annulus stator and rotor blade rows are simulated by employing the computational fluid dynamics software. Good agreements between numerical and experimental results are demonstrated. It is found that the swirl angle profile and total pressure profile due to the upstream turbine stage at the diffuser inlet have an unfavourable effect on the exhaust hood performance.