Hybrid 1D-3D Turbine Blade Cooling

The design process for turbine blade cooling requires iteration on many parameters, such as the geometry, the size, the number of channels inside the blade, and the number and distribution of film cooling holes. During this phase, designers consider the mass flow rate distribution through film cooling holes, the total bleed air consumed, and the maximum wall temperatures. Due to the disparity in length scale between the blade itself, the internal cooling channel structures, and the cooling holes, meshing and solving the cooling flow inside a turbine blade using a full 3D CFD model is very time-consuming and costly.

1D CFD codes allow for detailed and efficient modeling of the internal cooling flow in the conceptual design stage since the effort to set them up, and their computational cost is orders of magnitude less than that of internal flow 3D CFD models. In contrast, the main-passage flow simulation is still well suited to a 3D CFD model. Therefore, the ideal solution for this problem is a hybrid 1D-3D simulation approach. 

In this webinar we will showcase a 1D flow and heat transfer network model of the internal blade cooling structures in Flownex with a 3D CFD model for the main passage flow in Ansys CFX. We will discuss the setup process and coupling of the codes and also review the results of the hybrid solution approach.