Experimental and numerical investigation of ethanol film cooling

Within a Belgian-German GSTP project, an experimental setup was designed, manufactured and tested to provide data on the behaviour of a shear-driven liquid film. The tests were performed on a flat plate in a rectangular duct using ethanol as film coolant at DLR’s vitiated hot air facility M11. In addition to standard measurement equipment comprising thermocouples and pressure sensors, nonintrusive measurement techniques were applied to acquire additional data of the film. The Von-Karman-Institute for Fluid Dynamics provided in-situ film temperature measurement using a dedicated laser-induced fluorescence setup. DLR performed background-oriented Schlieren measurements to record information on the film thickness. The experimental data was used by ArianeGroup and Numeca International to validate different software tools to describe the heat flux to the film and its dry-out. While ArianeGroup used its film cooling model implemented in the Rocflam3 code, Numeca performed VOF simulations using its updated Fine™/Open flow solver.