Film cooling is an essential method in gas turbine engines for protecting turbine blades from high temperatures. Zheng et al. proposed placing a micro-vortex generator (VG) upstream of the film cooling hole to improve film cooling performance. The current CFD study is conducted based on their reference paper entitled “ An experimental study on the improvements in the film cooling performance by an upstream micro-vortex generator “.

Figure 1: A blade with and without installation of VGs

Simulation Process

The vortex generator (VG) is placed before the film cooling system implemented on the blade`s suction side. Having appropriate blocking, structured mesh is produced using ANSYS Meshing (1401636 cells). The installed jet injects 300K air through the blade surface while it is placed in a scorching hot zone (600K).

Post-processing

The simulation compares turbine blade film cooling with and without micro vortex generators (VGs) upstream of the cooling holes. Before installation of VGs, the blade temperature was 545 K. After inserting VGs, the temperature reduced to 520 K, suggesting significant cooling improvement. The temperature contour plots indicate the cooling effect, with a blue-green region downstream of the cooling hole and a yellow-to-red region further along the blade surface. The velocity contour shows a high-velocity coolant jet escaping the hole and spreading across the blade. The invisible micro vortex generators appear to improve coolant flow distribution and attachment, resulting in a 25 K temperature drop.