Cooling System

The efficiency of the whole aircraft engine fundamentally depends on the entrance temperature of the flow into the turbine. This flow temperature at the entrance of the turbine lies far above the melting temperature of the applied materials. Hence, safe operation is only possible when making use of a sophisticated cooling concept. The fundamental research activities of the institute when it comes to cooling include high resolution numerical simulations and measurements on diverse test rigs.

The main research activity with regards to cooling cover highly resolving numerical simulations and experiments on several test rigs. Within the research projects innovative cooling concepts for internal and external cooling of turbine blades, as well as internal turbine casing cooling, are investigated. The influence of a rotating frame of reference due to the blade rotation is measured in detail at a specific test rig.

The rotation rig enables the analysis of the influence of rotation on different channel flows. The main interest is on the heat transfer between the channel walls and the flow.

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The Cyclone Cooling Test Rig serves the analysis of the effects of cyclone cooling on film cooling on the surface of a turbine blade. The main goal is to increase turbine blade cooling efficiency and hence improve the efficiency of the engine.

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The impingement cooling rig is dedicated to the analysis of the influence of different parameters on efficiency of impingement cooling. Open parameters are the distance between impingement plate and hole as well as the hole geometry.

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Unsteady Effects are becoming increasingly important in the analysis and evaluation of cooling concepts. Therefore, we investigate innovative cooling concepts for various turbine components, which result in enhanced heat transfer as a consequence of the pronounced flow unsteadiness.

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