OPEN ACCESS
To increase the thermal efficiency of industrial gas turbines, the performance of the internal cooling channels is of utmost importance. These cooling channels are often equipped with ribs on the top and bottom walls to increase the turbulence and the mixing of the flow. Depending on the position of the cooling channel in the turbine blade and the external heat load, the ribs have to be designed differently. Until now, the decision regarding the optimal design parameters was mainly based on the knowledge of the engineer. The present work investigates genetic algorithms as an optimization method to find optimal designs for the rib configuration in internal cooling channels. The main optimization targets are the enhancement of the heat transfer with a low increase in pressure drop. Results are presented for simplified 2D as well as realistic 3D cooling channel configurations.
cooling channels, genetic algorithms, leading edge channel, turbulence generators
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