An Investigation of Convective Cooling of Gas Turbine Blades Using Intermittant Cooling Air

The objective is to demonstrate that a pulsed or intermittant flow has the potential to increase the convective heat transfer coefficient. In particular, the application to convection cooling of gas turbine blades and vanes is demonstrated in a test facility designed to simulate the first-stage turbine blade of the AGT1500 gas turbine engine which powers the Army's M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.

The data shows an increase in heat transfer as high as thirty percent over the steady-flow case when air flow is held constant. The change in heat transfer increases with increasing frequency. The magnitude of change increases and decreases due to harmonics in the system, but at no time is lower than the steady flow case.