"Higher the turbine inlet gas temperature, higher the turbine efficiency" is the classic rule in gas turbine design. The limit then becomes the material durability for turbine blades at these extreme temperatures. Over many years, high temperature resistant materials and cooling methods have been researched and developed for this goal.
A typical design solution is to have cooling passages inside the turbine blades with relatively cooler air inside and then use the same air to lay a cooling film on the blade surfaces. This cooling scheme is illustrated below.
The geometry is clearly highly complex with multiple flow paths and requires optimization to provide sufficient cooling on the entirety of the blade. This where an accurate and speedy software like Ansys comes in for the rescue. Rather than prototyping and testing hundreds of design variations at a high cost, modeling is typically used to design and optimize turbine blades.
Benefits of using Ansys tools are:
- Early assessment and fast optimization of key cooling concepts to achieve higher inlet temperatures and efficiency
- Accurate and detailed assessment of cooling concept to ensure durability and safety
