A Numerical Study On Active Film Cooling Flow Control Through The Use Of Sister Holes

Abstract

The research contained herein studied the effect of sister holes on film cooling. This novel technique surrounds a primary injection hole by two or four smaller sister holes to actively maintain flow adhesion along the surface of the blade. A numerical evaluation using the realizable κ-ε turbulence model led to the determination that the use of sister holes significantly improves adiabatic effectiveness by countering the primary vertical flow structure. Research was performed to determine the optimal hole configuration, arriving at the conclusion that placing sister holes slightly downstream of the primary injection hole improves the near-hole effectiveness, while placing sister holes slightly upstream of the primary hole improves downstream effectiveness. Similar results were found in evaluating both long and short hole geometries with a significantly less coherent flow field arising form the short hole study. However, on the whole, the sister hole approach to film cooling was found to offer viable improvements over standard cooling regimes.