Numerical Analysis of Film Cooling Performance of Micro Holes and Compound Angle Sister Holes

In the present research, micro holes and compound angle sister holes have been numerically investigated as two different techniques to enhance the cylindrical hole cooling performance, which suffers from a low cooling performance at high blowing ratio. The numerical analysis is performed over a flat plate model to assess the film effectiveness and the associated flow field at low and high blowing ratios. The performance assessment of the discrete round micro hole with a 200 µm diameter reveals that the micro hole yields the best cooling performance at low blowing ratios, and there is nearly 30% increase in the overall film cooling effectiveness compared to that of the round macro hole. The flow field results demonstrate the presence of a Counter-Rotating Vortex Pair (CRVP) at a smaller size and less strength, thus, contributed to better spanwise spreading of the coolant jet and lateral film cooling effectiveness. Micro holes present an improvement in the lateral film cooling effectiveness at high freestream turbulence intensity and high blowing ratios. Computational evaluation of the CFD prediction capability of the sister holes cooling effectiveness using five RANS turbulence models has been carried out as well as an assessment of the effects of the near-wall modeling on the predicted lateral effectiveness. The turbulence models used are realizable k-epsilon, standard k-epsilon, RNG k-epsilon, Reynolds stress model, and Spalart-Allmaras model. It is generally found that realizable k-ε combined with the enhanced wall treatment provides the best prediction of the numerical results in comparison to the experimental measurements at a low blowing ratio while an underprediction of the lateral performance is found at a high blowing ratio from all examined turbulence models. The compound angle upstream sister holes (CAUSH) have been proposed as a novel and simple design of the cooling hole whereas the numerical results have shown a notable increase in both centerline and lateral effectiveness for all tested compound angles at all blowing ratios. The anti-counter rotating vortices pair (ACRVP) structure generated from the compound angle upstream sister holes has actively controlled the flow field and maintained the coolant jet fully attached to the plate surface while restraining the coolant lift-off at high blowing ratios. Finally, the influence of the compound angle sister holes streamwise location on the thermal and flow field performance has also been analyzed, whereas three locations: upstream, midstream, and downstream are examined. It is found that the midstream and downstream locations offered a considerable increase in the cooling effectiveness, which is very much dependent on the blowing ratio and the area downstream of the cooling holes. In addition, the optimum centerline effectiveness is obtained by the downstream location, while the best lateral effectiveness is attained through the midstream location.