Advanced Recirculating Total Impingement Cooling of Turbine Airfoils

ABSTRACT: The future of gas turbine engines needed for propulsion and power in small unmanned military aircraft will hinge on the ability to enhance the efficiency for low fuel burn while maintaining world-class performance. Florida Turbine Technologies, Inc. (FTT) is developing the Advanced Recirculating Total Impingement Cooling (ARTIC) technology to enable a revolutionary leap in gas turbine efficiency. During Phase I, the ARTIC cooling technology was demonstrated as feasible at small scales. The primary Phase II objective is to test the ARTIC technology in a subsystem test rig. The test rig will utilize hardware and facilities from the Core Demonstrator Engine developed by FTT under joint Air Force SBIR and FTT Internal Research and Development funding. The ARTIC vane will be tested in a relevant environment, using the original Core Demonstrator Engines test conditions as well as elevated temperatures to demonstrate the cooling and performance benefits of the ARTIC vane; successful testing will advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) to 6. BENEFIT: Development of this technology is expected to contribute to the achievement of VAATE program goals by significantly reducing turbine cooling requirements in future small turbomachinery systems. In addition to new power generation product offerings, commercial applications of this technology include retrofit into the host of small engines used for distributed power generation today.