Conjugate heat transfer study of combined impingement and showerhead film cooling near NGV leading edge

A computational and experimental study is carried out on the leading edge region of a typical gas turbine NGV, cooled by a combination of impingement and showerhead film cooling. A detailed flow and conjugate heat transfer study has revealed the complex flow structure owing to the coolant-mainstream interaction and the influence of vane material thermal conductivity. The local effectiveness values obtained by the computations agreed well with the experimental data from IR thermography. The effect of blowing ratio on the overall effectiveness is found to be strongly dependent on the vane material conductivity. The effect of blowing ratio is also found to be different towards the pressure and suction sides of the stagnation region. However, the overall effectiveness is found to decrease by about 12% and 6% for low and high conducting materials, respectively, with an increase in mainstream Reynolds number from Re = 4.8 × 10 5 to 14.4 × 10 5.