In the present thesis, a computational capability is developed for the prediction of film
cooling of turbine blades. This includes the development of two comprehensive numerical
codes and the associated methods. To address the difficulties associated with complex
configurations of turbine blades and convergence problems, several numerical techniques
are used, including curvilinear coordinate-based calculations, multigrid acceleration, do
main segmentation and grid generation. Investigation and validation of these methods
are carried out and novel techniques are proposed to achieve an efficient numerical solver.
Two computer codes have been developed. One is a 3D curvilinear coordinate-based
CFD code, called CMGFD, which can be used to calculate laminar/turbulent flows in
arbitrary geometries using non-structured curvilinear grids. The methods developed here
have been implemented into the codes. To support the application of the CMGFD code,
a multigrid elliptic grid generation code, MBEGG, was developed which can be used
to generate multi-block curvilinear grids for the CMGFD code. A multigrid method
is used to solve the three elliptic grid generation equations thus providing an efficient
grid generator. The developed computational codes are applied to study film cooling of
an experimental turbine blade model. The computational domain follows the physical
geometry which includes a curved blade surface and a number of injection holes. A block
structured curvilinear grid is generated by the MBEGG code which exactly represents the
inclined, round film-holes and the curved blade surface. The computational results show
that the developed numerical tool has the potential to accurately model the complex
cooling process in actual blade geometries.Science, Faculty ofMathematics, Department ofGraduat