An experimental approach is used to evaluate turbine airfoil cooling designs for advanced gas turbine engine applications by incorporating double-wall film-cooled design features into large scale flat plate specimens. An infrared (IR) imaging system is used to make detailed, two-dimensional steady state measurements of flat plate surface temperature with spatial resolution on the order of 0.4 mm. The technique employs a cooled zinc selenide window transparent to infrared radiation and calibrates the IR temperature readings to reference thermocouples embedded in each specimen, yielding a surface temperature measurement accuracy of ±4 °C. With minimal thermocouple installation required, the flat plate/IR approach is cost effective, essentially non-intrusive, and produces abundant results quickly. Design concepts can proceed from art to part to data in a manner consistent with aggressive development schedules.
The infrared technique is demonstrated here by considering the effect of film hole injection angle for a staggered array of film cooling holes integrated with a highly effective internal cooling pattern. Heated freestream air and room temperature cooling air are used to produce a nominal temperature ratio of 2 over a range of blowing ratios from 0.7 to 1.5. Results were obtained at hole angles of 90° and 30° for two different hole spacings and are presented in terms of overall cooling effectiveness.