A Novel Single-Passage Transonic Wind Tunnel for Turbine-Vane Film Cooling

Wind-tunnel testing of turbines cascade is an important technique for quantifying the realistic conditions of turbine-vane film cooling. However, the complex and expensive facilities needed for the multipassage design of such wind tunnels have prompted the introduction of the single-passage design strategy. In this contribution, detailed procedures for building a novel single-passage transonic wind-tunnel using additive manufacturing are presented. In addition, the detailed flow structure caused by the passage was investigated. The proposed design was evaluated step-by-step using an integrated model that successively comprised two-dimensional (2D) periodic passage simulation, 2D single-passage simulation, three-dimensional (3D) single-passage simulation, construction, and testing. The proposed design was found to achieve flow periodicity at transonic flow conditions with relatively low-flow consumption. The results were validated by comparison to the available literature data. In addition, an endwall-cooling configuration was successfully deployed using fast-response pressure-sensitive paint (fast-PSP). This study, combined with the help of commercial software and 3D printing, shed light upon strategies for time- and cost-reduction in linear cascade design, which could benefit the turbomachinery community.