A Low-Cost Undergraduate Test Rig for Heat Transfer in Turbine Blade Cooling

Although turbine blade cooling has consistently led to the use of higher turbine inlet temperatures leading to improved cycle efficiencies, very little of this technology has found its way into undergraduate laboratory work. The cost of modern blade heat transfer research rigs virtually rules out the possibility of introducing this topic in undergraduate teaching laboratories of Universities or Polytechnics in the UK operating within tight budgetary constraints. However, the underlying principles of blade cooling heat transfer may be demonstrated quite easily by using inlet temperatures about half those existing in the actual turbine and the paper describes the design and development of a low-cost blade cooling heat transfer rig. Test results obtained on the ‘model’ rig enable an appreciation of the problems encountered in turbine blade cooling to be made and may serve as a basis for the design and development of more complicated blade cooling systems.