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Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Effusion Cooling Flow and Heat Transfer for a Gas Turbine Blade Leading Edge With an Internal Swirl Chamber and a Diamond-TPMS Structured Wall

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: To meet the increasing thermal load and efficiency demands of advanced heavy-duty gas turbines, enhanced cooling strategies for turbine blade leading edges are urgently required. In this study, a novel composite cooling concept integrating an internal swirl chamber with a diamond-type triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) effusion wall is proposed and systematically investigated. Four leading-edge cooling configurations are examined through a combined experimental and numerical approach: a baseline jet impingement-film cooling model, a ridged swirl-film cooling model, a ridged swirl-diamond TPMS effusion model with baseline porosity, and a ridged swirl-diamond TPMS effusion model with high porosity. Experiments based on infrared thermography are conducted to evaluate the overall cooling effectiveness under blowing ratios (BR) of 0.67, 1.34, and 2.0, while conjugate heat transfer simulations are performed to elucidate the underlying flow and heat transfer mechanisms. The results demonstrate that the introduction of ridge-induced swirl significantly enhances internal flow mixing and temperature uniformity, leading to improved overall cooling effectiveness compared with conventional jet impingement-film cooling. By further replacing discrete film holes with diamond-TPMS effusion structures, the cooling mechanism transitions from localized high-momentum jets to distributed low-momentum effusion, resulting in markedly enhanced surface coverage continuity and reduced temperature gradients. More importantly, the results indicate that the diamond-TPMS effusion configuration undergoes a transition in the dominant cooling mechanism with increasing porosity, shifting from internal–external synergistic heat transfer to externally effusion-dominated cooling. Among all configurations, the high-porosity ridged swirl-diamond TPMS effusion model exhibits the best overall cooling performance at moderate and high blowing ratios, achieving up to 21.5% improvement in area-averaged overall cooling effectiveness and more than 50% reduction in internal coolant pressure loss relative to the impingement-film baseline at a BR = 2.0. However, at low blowing ratios, the reduced exit momentum associated with high porosity introduces a potential risk of mainstream ingestion, indicating the necessity of carefully balancing porosity, cooling performance, and flow stability. The present results highlight the strong potential of TPMS-based effusion cooling combined with internal swirl cooling enhancement for next-generation turbine blade leading-edge thermal management.

Source: Journal of Turbomachinery

DOI: 10.1115/1.4072580

Authors: Qiuru Zuo, Kirttayoth Yeranee, Yu Rao, Ruitong Ling, Yuli Cheng, Bernhard Weigand

Institutions: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Stuttgart

Language: English

Topic: Turbomachinery Performance and Optimization

Subfield: Aerospace Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Affordable and clean energy

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality