Leading edge film cooling enhancement for an inlet guide vane with fan-shaped holes

This paper describes the improvement of leading edge film cooling effectiveness for a turbine inlet guide vane by using fan-shaped film cooling holes. The modification details are presented in comparison with the base-line configuration of cylindrical holes. Numerical simulations were carried out for the base-line and modified configurations by using CFX, in which the κ-ɛ turbulence model and scalable wall function were chosen. Contours of adiabatic film cooling effectiveness on the blade surfaces and span-wise distributions of film cooling effectiveness downstream the rows of cooling holes interested for the different cooling configurations were compared and discussed. It is showed that with the use of fan-shaped cooling holes around the leading edge, the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness can be enhanced considerably. In comparison with the cylindrical film cooling holes, up to 40% coolant mass flow can be saved by using fan-shaped cooling holes to obtain the comparable film cooling effectiveness for the studied inlet guide vane.