Comparative Analysis of Gas Turbine Blades with and without Turbulators

In typical gas turbine engines nozzle guide vanes are (NGV) endure the highest operating temperatures. There exists a great drive in the turbine industry to increase the turbine entry temperature leading to higher thermal efficiency. The present gas turbine engines requires higher entry turbine entry temperatures as engines are operating at higher thrust and thermal efficiency at the same time by operating a turbine at higher temperature reduces the life of blades or vanes because of thermal stresses. Sometimes, the turbine entry temperatures may nearly equal to melting point turbine blade material. Therefore, it is required to cool the blades or vanes to a temperature which gives more life to blades or vanes. The present work aims to determine a better internal cooling configuration which gives optimal temperature distribution on blade surface. Conjugate heat transfer analysis has been carried out to find out the performance and thermal distribution on the existing blade with and without internal cooling on nozzle guide vane by using CFD code ANSYS CFX. In this work, CFD analysis has been carried out using Reynolds average Navier stokes equations. Comparative analysis was done with and without cooling channel on the Nozzle Guide Vane and average temperature on the nozzle guide vane surface will be estimated. Four cooling channels with Turbulators provided better cooling compared to all configurations, because the presence of turbulators provides additional turbulence and increases heat transfer surface area. Higher turbulence provides better heat transfer.