Numerical investigation of turbulent jet array impinging on smooth curved leading edge channel of gas turbine blade

Turbulent impinging jet array is one of the most efficient and popular techniques for cooling gas turbine blades. In the present paper, we numerically investigated how the geometrical design parameters affect the cooling performance for jet array impinged to a curved target. The influence parameters, including jet spacing (2.5≤Pj≤10), jet angle (-45°≤θ≤+45°), and off-center distance (0≤Ej≤6) on average Nusselt number (Nu), air pressure drop (Δp), and heat transfer uniformity index (UI) were identified through a parametric study at a constant total mass flow rate. Results show, increasing jet spacing improved heat transfer but lowered uniformity and required more compression power. Tilting the jets generally decreases the average Nusselt number but boosts the uniformity. Also, increasing the inclination angle reduces the pressure drop. Moving the jets off-center consistently lowered pressure drop until Ej=4 and average Nusselt number till Ej=2 without affecting uniformity much up to until Ej=3, and beyond those values, increased them. best performance based on average Nusselt number is achieved for the case of Pj=10, θ=0°, and Ej=0. Also, the uniformity index is maximized and pressure drop is minimized at Pj=5, θ=+45°, and Ej=0.