Optimized Winglet Design for Blade Tip to Counter Vortex Induced Thermal Gradient for Improved Component Life
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract High-efficiency gas turbines are the preferred solution for addressing power demand due to their high-power density and reduced emissions. Achieving higher efficiency requires operating the turbine at elevated inlet temperatures, which consequently subjects the hot gas path components to extreme thermal loads. Turbine blades are among the most critical components of a gas turbine, experiencing significant centrifugal, pressure and thermal loads. These operational conditions make turbine blades susceptible to various failure modes such as low cycle fatigue, creep, high cycle fatigue, TBC spallation and metal oxidation. A further increase in inlet temperature can reduce the operational lifespan of the turbine blades. In this work winglet design configuration was evaluated to reduce the vortex formation at the blade tip resulting in reduced thermal gradient even at higher turbine inlet temperature. These thermal gradients create uneven temperature distributions, resulting in localized thermal stresses that limit the component life for higher gas turbine inlet temperatures. The designs exemplified in this study significantly reduce this adverse effect by counteracting vortex induced thermal gradients. Through a comprehensive approach leveraging advanced conjugate heat transfer (CHT) simulations, the complex interaction between vortex flow patterns and heat transfer at the blade tip is thoroughly investigated. Various winglet configurations are analyzed to assess their influence on vortex strength and heat dissipation, with focus on promoting a more uniform temperature distribution. Computational results demonstrate a significant reduction in thermal gradients leading to more evenly distributed temperature profile across blade surface (near tip). The more uniform thermal field contributes directly to an increase in the life of these turbine blade designs, thereby demonstrating the opportunity for enhancing reliability and operational lifespan for future generation gas turbines. The result of this study provides valuable insight into the design of advance winglet configurations that not only optimize thermal performance but also improve the durability of turbine blades. This works offers a promising pathway for the development of more robust and efficient turbomachinery components, with direct application in turbine design and operation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".