Advanced Component Cooling Design and Evaluation for Gas Turbine Engines

ABSTRACT: Florida Turbine Technologies, Inc. (FTT), a small business located in Jupiter, Florida proposes the subject program to enable physics-based tools to be made more robust such that they can be used with confidence during the design process. With this program, FTT and AeroDynamic Solutions, Inc. (ADS) will cooperate to integrate conjugate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and heat transfer methods with rapid, low-cost experimental methods to permit Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) results to be validated quickly and with high accuracy. During Phase I, FTT will define current and advanced cooling technologies based on FTT intellectual property and/or other technology sources such as U.S. and foreign patent agencies. FTT will construct models of these geometries and perform baseline internal flow and pressure loss testing. ADS will perform CHT analyses of these configurations. Thermal performance will be determined based on the CHT results and will be compared with the results obtained from conventional prediction methods. Finally, a survey of low-cost, high quality test techniques needed to provide critical validation data will be performed and plans will be developed to implement these into component and rig tests in a follow-on Phase II SBIR program. BENEFIT: With the successful completion of Phases I & II of this program, FTT and ADS expect to offer a superior CHT analysis capability that is robust and gives increased accuracy and confidence of thermal predictions. With this, cooled turbine components can be designed with reduced cooling flow to improve overall engine performance while maintaining or improving durability. The technology is directly translatable from the military gas turbine design sector to commercial sector of jet engine designs for aircraft and to industrial gas turbine engines.