Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

The effect of start-up cycle in ceramic coating used as thermal barrier

for a gas turbine bucket
Alejandro Hernández Rossette a,*, Zdzislaw Mazur C a, Alain Demeulenaere b, J.A. Roque López Hernández b
a
Electrical Research Institute, Av. Reforma 113, Col. Palmira, 62490 Cuernavaca Morelos, Mexico
b
NUMECA-USA, Inc. 2141 Mission Street, Suite 201, San Francisco, CA-94110

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The unsteady aerodynamic and aero-thermal performance of a first stage gas turbine bucket with thermal
Received 10 March 2008 barrier coating (TBC) and internal cooling configuration were investigated by application of a three
Accepted 1 April 2009 dimensional Navier–Stokes commercial turbomachinery oriented CFD-code. Convection and conduction
Available online 9 April 2009
were modeled for a super alloy blade with TBC.
The CFD simulations were configured with a mesh domain including the nozzle and bucket interstage
Keywords: in order to accurately predict the fluid parameters at inlet and outlet of bucket. Comparisons to the gas
CFD
turbine manufacturer data have permitted validation of the flow conditions at the inlet of the rotor.
Conjugate heat transfer
Gas turbine blade
The effects of blade TBC surface temperature changes during a start-up cycle were simulated by means
Thermal barrier coating of an unsteady simulation, with unsteady inlet/outlet boundary conditions specified according to test
Convection and conduction data. The calculations include not only the fluid but also the solving of conduction within the blade,
Numerical simulation and temperature allowing for a correct modeling of the large difference of thermal inertia between the fluid and solid.
prediction The role of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) is, as their name suggests, to provide thermal insulation of
Transient analysis the blade. A coating of about 100–400 lm can reduce the temperature by up to 200 °C. A TBC can be used
either to reduce the need for blade cooling (by about 36%) increasing the turbine efficiency, while main-
taining identical creep life of the substrate; or to increase considerably the creep life of the blade while
maintaining level of blade cooling (and therefore allowing the blade to operate at a lower temperature for
an identical turbine inlet temperature).
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Blades and vanes of the high-pressure turbine stages of aero-en-
gines are the most highly stressed parts in engineering compo-
nents. Internally cooled airfoils of state-of-the-art nickel-based
super-alloys operate at temperatures of about 1000 °C, with
short-term peaks above 1100 °C, close to 90% of the alloys melting
points. These temperatures are maintained in service due to a
sophisticated cooling technology by which thermal energy is with-
drawn from the airfoils in the order of 1 MW/m2. The necessity of
close control of the material’s surface temperatures can be ex-
pressed by the simple rule that blade life in creep is halved for
every 10–15° increase in temperature. Further increase in the
thrust to weight ratio of advanced aero-engines will require even
higher gas turbine inlet temperatures passing well beyond 1600 °C.
These high gas turbine temperatures can only be maintained
through advanced cooling techniques and the introduction of elec-
tro-beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) or thermal barrier
coatings (TBCs). Such TBCs consist of thin ceramic layers of low
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 777 362 3811; fax: +52 777 362 3834.
E-mail address: ahr@iie.org.mx (A.H. Rossette).
thermal conductivity, yttrium stabilized zirconia (YSZ) that are ap-
plied on airfoil surfaces that have a metallic corrosion resistance
coating. The coating imparts good adhesion of the ceramic to the
substrate. The application of the TBCs increases the engine perfor-
mance by either increasing the gas turbine inlet temperature, or by
reducing the required air cooling flow which is beneficial from the
standpoint of reduction of NOx production and as mean of improv-
ing cycle efficiency. Previous works [1] have shown that reducing
from 10% to 5% off main-stream air can lead to NOx reductions of
nearly 25% while maintaining the same rotor inlet temperature.
Alternatively, the life time of the turbine blades can be extended
by decreasing the metal temperature.
Besides high turbine inlet temperature (TIT), it is well known
that start-up and shut-down cycles affect blade life through ther-
mal fatigue of the structural material, because of variations of ther-
mal loads. The impact of these cycles mainly depends on the three
dimensional behavior of the temperature distribution of the blade,
which is influenced by inlet gas flow conditions, blade rotation,
internal cooling and ejected flow of cooling flow from the blade
tip, etc., depending on the time in operation.
The present authors have studied the temperature distribution
of a first stage TBCs bucket for a rated condition [2], by means of

1359-4311/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2009.04.011
 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065
Nomenclature
t time, s
K thermal conductivity, W/m K
TIT turbine inlet temperature, K
Cp specific heat, J/kg K
G mass flow rate, kg/s
RO time of rated operation, s
PI, PO time of Parallel In and Parallel Off, s
LE, TE leading edge, trailing edge
Nr rotor speed, rpm
steady-state conjugated heat transfer simulations. The predicted
temperatures showed that TBC decreased the bucket surface tem-
perature by up to 65 K.
The main objective of the present paper is to predict the tem-
perature behavior of the first stage TBC Bucket in a start-up cycle
by means of a transient analysis using a multi-block three dimen-
sional Navier–Stokes commercial turbomachinery oriented CFD
code. The behavior of TBC depending on time will be discussed
and compared with results from previous works [3].
2. Numerical method
The numerical analyses were conducted by using the commer-
cial CFD code FINETM/Turbo of NUMECA [4]. The numerical code
solves the 3D Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations.
External sub-models were built in the code in order to create the
numerical conditions for computations of flow and heat transfer
around the blade in the TBC and the internal cooling in the bucket
at each time step. These models have permitted that the mass flow,
exit pressure or cooling temperatures would be updated as a func-
tion of the time.
The numerical scheme solves the 3D (RANS) on general struc-
tured non-orthogonal, multi-block grids. The flexibility of the
structured grids is greatly enhanced by used of the so called ‘‘Full
Non-matching Connections”, a technique which allows to arbi-
trarily connect grid blocks of different grid topologies or densities.
This permits for instance to independent meshing of the solid and
fluid domains, the only condition being that the two meshes con-
nect onto a common surface (the blade surface).
The numerical algorithm incorporated in the solver is an expli-
cit four stage Runge–Kutta scheme [6]. A variety of convergence
acceleration techniques are employed, such as implicit residuals
smoothing and MultiGrid, Space integration is performed using a
second order cell centered finite volume discretization with second
and fourth order artificial dissipation. Coarse grid calculations can
be carried out in an automatic way during the computation
initialization.
In the present work the one equation turbulence model Spalart–
Allmaras has been chosen. This model can be considered as a
bridge between the Baldwing Lomax algebraic model and the
two-equation models such as k–eps. This model has the ability to
deal with complex fluids as it provides a continuous turbulent
Eddy viscosity field. This model is based on one additional trans-
port equation for the eddy viscosity. Previous works have shown
that provided the mesh is sufficiently refined along the blade sur-
face, the temperature and heat transfer can be very accurately pre-
dicted with this model [18].
The conjugated heat transfer (CHT) module included in the sol-
ver the conduction equation in the solid parts of the domain. The
conduction equation can be seen as the energy equation of the Na-
vier–Stokes system, where all velocities are set to zero. This equa-
tion can be numerically solved similarly as the flow equations,
3057
P, Po static pressure, relative total pressure, Pa
y+ dimensionless wall distance
TBC thermal barrier coating
q density, kg/m3
Tair compressor outlet temperature, K
Gair compressor inlet mass flow, kg/s
Pout turbine output, W
SA Spalart–Allmaras turbulence model
with a finite-volume approach, allowing for the use of the same
acceleration techniques such as MultiGrid. The CFL time step calcu-
lation needs an adaptation, being exclusively based on diffusion.
The major advantage of this module is that it permits elimination
of the question of determining appropriate boundary conditions
along the blade surface, these conditions being generally unknown.
One just needs to specify the temperature of the cooling flow prop-
agating in the inner channels, and the boundary conditions come
naturally from the solving of CHT. This module has been exten-
sively validated for gas turbines [5].
As mentioned in this Ref. [5], the CHT module uses an original
formulation based on the following boundary condition along the
fluid/solid interfaces:
kfl ðT in  T w Þ=Dnfl ¼ ksol ðT ins  T w Þ=Dnsol
At each iteration this equation is used to update the wall tempera-
ture TW, which is then imposed as a boundary condition on both
sides. The great advantage of this approach is that it guarantees
continuity of the temperature and conservation of the energy, but
also provides natural stability, due to the fact that the wall temper-
ature is always bounded between the solid and fluid temperature
levels.
The unsteady version of the solver is based on the dual-time
stepping approach of Jameson [19], where every instantaneous
flow solution is considered as a ‘‘pseudo-steady” state problem,
the unsteady terms being treated as source terms. The same ap-
proach is applied to both the Navier–Stokes and the pure conduc-
tion equation.
The primary object of this study is to predict the unsteady evo-
lution of temperature distribution on bucket base material and TBC
caused by the start-up process.
2.1. Numerical domain and grid
This analysis includes the CFD model of first stage nozzle vane
with cooling holes. The CFD modeling of cooling holes for the nozzle
was set by means of local source terms. For the bucket, the cooling
holes were completely meshed and merged within the solid model.
The nozzle and the bucket were reverse-engineered using Coor-
dinate Measurement Machines, then digitally created using com-
mercial CAD Software. The bucket configuration includes a TBC of
0.4 mm thick YSZ. The thermal properties which contain viscosity,
specific heat and thermal conductivity of the fluid, base material
and TBC, were obtained through literature review and set up while
taking into account the dependency upon temperature.
The CFD simulations were configured with a mesh domain
including the nozzle and the bucket inter-stage space, in order to
accurately predict the fluid parameters at inlet and outlet of buck-
et. The flow conditions at the inlet of the rotor have been validated
with turbine inter-stage parameter data test of gas turbine manu-
facturer in base load. It would have been possible to perform the
simulations separately for the nozzle and the rotor (and then afford
3058 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065

denser meshes), but several iterations may have been needed be-
fore to get converged solution to the right boundary conditions
to be applied at the nozzle–rotor interface.
Compared to an unstructured tetrahedral approach, structured
grids usually present the advantage of providing a higher numeri-
cal accuracy. Therefore, the numerical domain was discretized
using a structured multi-block grid meshed with IGGTM and Auto-
GridTM NUMECA software.
The boundary layer is discretized by several finite volume cells,
so that the first cell dimensionless y+ value approximates 2, as re-
quired for Spalart–Allmaras turbulence modeling and allowing a
correct determination of the local heat flux for the coupling
condition.
The entire domain is composed by nozzle and bucket rows for
the first stage as seen in Fig. 1. Thirteen radial cooling holes were
meshed in the bucket as well as the solid domains for the bucket
Fig. 3. Fluid mesh topology and boundary conditions.
blade and TBC. Emphasis was put on a high grid quality in order
to minimize numerical dissipation, particularly inside the cooling
holes and their immediate vicinity. The nozzle also includes some cooling, which is has been mod-
A multi-block butterfly topology was applied to the cooling eled through local source terms, the advantage being that the
holes drastically, improving cells orthogonality, as shown in Fig. 2. meshing of the holes is not required. Cooling holes are located at
the leading edge (two rows of 46 cooling channels), along the pres-
sure side (one row of 20 cooling channels) and at the trailing edge
(one row of 33 cooling channels). This approach adds local source
terms to the mass, momentum, energy and turbulence equations.
The data provided are the cooling mass flow, velocity direction,
temperature and turbulence, whereas the pressure is extracted
from the interior field. It should be mentioned that the mass flow
and temperature have been updated during the transient analysis,
the mass flow being proportional to the current core mass flow,
and the temperature following the data.
Fig. 3 shows the fluid mesh domain which has an O4H topology.
The O4H topologies permit reaching a high level of orthogonality,
especially along the blade surface where a hyperbolic mesh gener-
ation technique is used. The mesh has three MultiGrid levels that
can be used to accelerate convergence.
The mesh is composed of 2.79 million nodes for fluid domain
and 1.43 million nodes for solids. Those configurations are the
same as a previous study [2].

Fig. 1. General view of the nozzle and bucket blades with cooling holes inside the
rotor.
3. Boundary conditions

The imposed Boundary Conditions (BC’s) were based on charac-

teristic diagrams that simulated a hot start-up process of (Daily
Start and Shut-Down) DSS operation of a GT based on Takahashi
work [3] as shown in Fig. 4.
According to this diagram there is a non-load operation region
before the Parallel In (PI). The load of the GT gradually increases
from the PI to the rated load operation (RL) point in the start-up
Output, T, G, Nr (Normarized by rated value)

0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1

IG PI HL RL
Non-Load Load Operation
1

0.75
Tit-Turbine Inlet
Tair-Compressor Outlet
0.5 Gair-Compressor Inlet
Nr
Tout- Gas Turbine Output

0.25

0
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
t* Start

Fig. 2. Top view of the rotor mesh including the radial holes, detail close-up near
TE. Fig. 4. Start-up diagram for a GT [3].
 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065 3059

curve. An interesting curve is the Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT), Inconel 738 LC Thermal Conductivity [W/mK]:
which rapidly increases since Ignition and Crossfire (0 s) to reach a
local maximum; then the temperature decreases, and restarts
K ¼ 1:5331  1008 T 3 þ 4:3688  1005 T 2  2:2064  1002 T
increasing at the PI point. This is a point of interest since thermal þ 14:72
fatigue duty is associated with the start-up process. When the run-
TBC-YSZ Thermal Conductivity [W/mK]:
ning speed is reached the load operation begins with a more stable
TIT rise, up to rated load. The compressor outlet flow and its tem- K ¼ 8:6072  1007 T 2  1:1651  1003 T þ 1:1708
perature are also presented in Fig. 4 diagram.
The model BC’s can be summarized as follows: Inconel 738 LC Specific Heat [J/kg K]:

C P ¼ 1:42  1009 T 4 þ 4:8269  1006 T 3  5:7607  1003 T 2

– The gas mass flow [G] and TIT, were imposed based on polyno-
mial equations depending on time that correspond with curves þ 3:066T  99:132
of Fig. 4. TBC-YSZ Specific Heat [J/kg K]:
– The TIT at nozzle was assumed as parabolic profile along span
height in order to obtain a more realistic temperature distribu- C P ¼ 4:4778  1004 T 2  0:5001T þ 324:29
tion along the nozzle and bucket bodies (see Fig. 5).
– The compressor outlet flow curve [Gair] was used to obtain the
3.1. Numerical parameter for unsteady
2% of cooling air mass flow. For a better fit, 5 polynomial sub
equations were used for the configuration during start-up.
As mentioned in the previous section the calculation of each
– The air cooling Temperature [Tair] and Outlet Static Pressure
instantaneous solution can be seen as a pseudo-steady state prob-
[OSP] were calculated both using the TIT start-up curve and
lem, and one needs to determine the number of solver iterations
thermodynamic equations that consider room atmospheric con-
required in order to reach convergence. Preliminary analyses have
ditions for inlet and outlet of domain, as well as, outlet gas tem-
shown that higher numbers of solver iterations (or smaller time
perature and typical efficiencies for the compressor and gas
step sizes) were needed during the first phase of the process. The
turbine.
time step for each transient calculation of the start-up were set
– The air cooling temperature for the bleeding simulation module
to Dt = 7 s for (0–780 s interval), and Dt = 15 s for (780–1024 s
of the nozzle was also treated in an unsteady way, the temper-
interval).
ature being identical for both the nozzle and rotor cooling.
– During CFD simulation the RPM was assumed constant.
3.2. Computations

The bucket base material is an Inconel 738 LC Superalloy and

The computation was executed in a CLUSTER arrangement of
the TBC is composed of 0.4 mm thick YSZ. Polynomial expressions
eight processors using HP XW6200 Work Stations and 2 GB of
for thermal conductivity and specific heat for both Inconel 738 LC
RAM per processor. The consumed time per time step was approx-
and TBC have been derived, taking into account the investigated
imately of 1.6 h. The total number of internal iterations per time
temperature range:
step was 300, and the total CPU time for the start-up calculation
was 193.6 h.
1
0.98 4. Validation
0.96
The validation of the mesh model was carried out comparing
Radial Distance

0.94
0.92 the fluid parameters results at bucket outlet with turbine inter-
0.9 stage parameter data test of gas turbine manufacturer at base load
0.88 in a steady state simulation, using the same inlet boundary condi-
0.86 tions [BC] that shown in Manufacturer Parameter Data. The inlet
0.84 BC’s were set at nozzle inlet, so the bucket inlets BC are the results
0.82 of nozzle outlet fluid parameters.
1000 1200 1400 In Table 1 are shown the main flow parameters results and the
Tem perature average errors obtained. The computation with SA turbulence
model shows a good convergence behavior with a RMS residual le-
Fig. 5. Parabolic profile for TIT arrangement along span height of nozzle. vel of 4 and the error on mass flow prediction of 0.17%. For tem-

Table 1
Main flow (base load) CFD results vs. parameter data of gas turbine manufacturer.

Variables Inlet BC for nozzle Parameter data of gas turbine manufacturer CFD mesh results
Bucket inlet Bucket outlet Bucket inlet Bucket outlet
Pressure (Pa) 472,980 (outlet) 621217.6 472,980 (static) 602302.5 (total relative) 472,980 (static)
(total relative) error  3.04% imposed BC’s
Relative velocity – 362.71 408.9 (0.638  640.9) 350.587(pitch max) 417.06(throat max)
(m/s) (0.557  651.2) (mach)  (sound vel.) error  3.34% error  1.99%
(mach)  (sound vel.)
Temperature (K) 1413 1216.11 1172.2 1233 error  1.39% 1206
error  2.9%
Axial thrust (N) – 36181.83 37,043 error  2.38%
Throat flow 218 + (4.5% of 227.81 227.414
(kg/s) bucket air cooling) error  0.17%
3060 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065

Fig. 6. Contours of temperature distribution at pressure and suction sides in steady state simulation versus 24,000 h exposed bucket specimen.

Fig. 7. Calculated Mach-number distribution (nozzle). Fig. 8. Points of analysis for temperature versus time during start-up curve.

perature prediction we have a 1.39% of error in bucket inlet and
2.9% for bucket outlet region. On the other hand, the contours of
temperature distribution at suction side of Bucket in steady state
simulation have very good similitude with oxidation traces of a
24,000 h bucket specimen (see Fig. 6).
the unsteady simulation was set almost 60 K lower than parameter
data of gas turbine manufacturer in order to be more congruent
with real operational conditions of power plant turbines.

4.1. External aerodynamics

Fig. 7 shows the contours of Mach-number distribution in

the nozzle passage at 50% vane span height. The flow is tran-
sonic. Due to a high pressure ratio and the passage cross section
large reduction, the flow is accelerated up to M = 1.1 on the
suction side. This behavior shows good agreement with litera-
ture review [7].

5. Results and discussion

The results were analyzed in eleven points of interest taking

into account the temperature and mass flow behavior during tur-
bine start-up. Fig. 8 shows points A–K, which correspond to peaks
on both curves, respectively. It should be notice that final TIT for Fig. 9. Variations of calculated temperature distribution on coated bucket surface.
 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065 3061

Fig. 9 (continued) Fig. 9 (continued)

3062 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065

Temperature Distribution at 90% Span

TE Suction Side LE Presion Side TE
0.95
t45s
0.9
t94s

Normalized Static Temperature

0.85 t248s

0.8 t283s

t318s
0.75
t500s
0.7
t535s

0.65 t563s

0.6 t654s

t855s
0.55
t1024s
0.5
-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
Normalized Axial Position

Temperature Distribution at 50% Span

TE Suction Side LE Presion Side TE
1
t45s
0.95
Normalized Static Temperature t94s

0.9 t248s

0.85 t283s

t318s
0.8
t500s
0.75
t535s
Fig. 9 (continued) 0.7 t563s

0.65 t654s

Fig. 9 shows the sequenced variations of calculated temperature t855s

0.6
distribution on coated bucket surface for each point of interest in
t1024s
both suction and pressure sides. 0.55
The variations of blade external surface temperature are -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
Normalized Axial Position
shown in Fig. 10. The cross sections taken at 10%, 50% and
90% of bucket span height are indicated in Fig. 9 (left profile). Temperature Distribution at 10% Span
It can be appreciated that temperature distribution on blade TE Suction Side LE Presion Side TE
0.9
external surface pattern during all start-up cycle is similar for ana- t45s
lyzed blade sections. In the graphs, the superimposed temperature 0.85 t94s
distributions are in accordance with the start-up temperature and
Normalized Static Temperature

BC levels (Figs. 4 and 8). It can be observed as well that at start-up 0.8 t248s
initialization phase the temperature range on bucket suction and t283s
pressure sides are similar. At a later start-up cycle phase the tem- 0.75
perature range on the bucket suction side is higher than the pres- t318s
sure side; the temperature plot in pressure side decreases (from LE 0.7 t500s
to TE). This can be explained by the blade rotation effect making
t535s
the heat transfer in suction side more important. 0.65
The radial temperature difference from hub to tip of bucket t563s
body DTb and the difference of temperature along the bucket pro- 0.6 t654s
file at 50% span height during start-up are shown in Fig. 10.
0.55 t855s
From Fig. 11 it can be seen that during all start-up cycle the
bucket section gradients (for S = 0.5) and the bucket airfoil gradi- t1024s
ents (within all bucket length), has similar behavior that corre- 0.5
-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
sponds to inlet main gas flow temperature variation during the Normalized Axial Position
same cycle.
The maximum differences of the bucket airfoil and the bucket Fig. 10. Bucket external surface base material normalized temperature distribution
section gradients are presented in points B and C of the start-up at different cross section during the whole start-up.

curve (Fig. 8) and reach values of DT = 62 K and DT = 38 K, respec-

tively. At the end of the start-up cycle, point K, the bucket section
gradient is reduced to DT = 20 K. It means that the temperature In order to analyse the effect of cooling holes during the start-
distribution in the bucket airfoil body becomes stable and homog- up, the results were re-arranged to obtain the DT for base metal
enous since the start-up cycle is closer to RL point. of the bucket between blade external surface and cooling holes
 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065 3063

Δ Tb Bucket Delta Temperature in radial direction thru hub and tip S=0.5
130.00
Δ Tp Delta Temp in bucket Profile at S=0.5
ΔT_H1_PS
120.00 ΔT_H1_SS
150
ΔT_H3_PS
110.00 ΔT_H3_SS
ΔT_H5_PS

100 100.00 ΔT_H5_SS

Δ T [K]

ΔT_H7_PS
90.00 ΔT_H7_SS
ΔT_H9_PS
50 80.00 ΔT_H9_SS
ΔT_H11_PS

ΔT [K]
70.00 ΔT_H11_SS
ΔT_H13_PS
0 60.00
ΔT_H13_SS
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 ΔT_H13-TE
50.00
Time [s] ΔT_H1-LE

40.00
Fig. 11. DTp along the bucket profile in axial direction for S = 0.5 and the DTb for all
bucket in radial direction between hub and tip during start-up. 30.00

20.00
surface in a cross sectional view for 10%, 50% and 90% spanwise
locations. Fig. 12 illustrates a typical cooled temperature distribu- 10.00

tion for the blade, and the sections used to compute DT’s.
DT_H represents the temperature difference between a cooling
hole wall and the bucket surface at both suction and pressure sides.
To simplify data analysis only the 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 13 cooling hole
positions were processed. Fig. 12 shows the results of DT_H for
bucket profiles at mid span cut during start-up cycle.
As can be interpreted from Fig. 13, the blade base metal tem-
perature gradients for all three cross sections have similar ten-
dency as gas main flow temperature varies during the start-up
cycle.
Also, it can be stated that temperature gradients variations be-
tween different reference points of the blade cross section is four
times lower during start up initialization (point A) than that found
during final phase of turbine start-up cycle (point K). The maxi-
mum temperature gradients of the blade body during all start-up
cycle are registered invariable at central body of blade cross sec-
tion. This zone corresponds to cooling holes surfaces 5 and 7, and
the blade external surface on the suction side (see Fig. 13,
DT_H7_SS, DT_H5_SS). This is relative to the blade wall thickness
which is thickest in this zone, thus generating the largest temper-
ature gradients. The leading edge (LE) and trailing edge (TE) zone
follows in the second largest temperature gradients (Fig. 13,
DT_H1_LE, DT_H13_TE).
This behavior has direct relation with blade metal external sur-
face temperature. The highest temperatures during all start-up
Fig. 12. DT’s sections used to sample maximum and minimum temperature
between the cooling hole walls, the blade surface and the coating external surface.
0.00
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100
Time [s]
Fig. 13. DT_H for bucket profiles at 50% spanwise for the start-up cycle.
cycle are exhibited by LE and TE as can be appreciated in Fig. 10.
It is important to notice that TE has a higher surface temperature
than LE surface, but has a smaller temperature gradient. This can
be explained because of the cooling hole in this zone (No. 13)
has the smallest diameter of all the other cooling holes, and the
smallest cooling flow. Therefore, related heat transfer generates a
smaller temperature gradient than LE surface.
The smallest temperature gradients during all start-up cycle are
registered between cooling hole No. 13 and suction side
(DT_H13_SS) of the blade surface, following cooling hole No. 13
and pressure side (DT_H13_PS); as well as cooling hole No. 1 in
both suctions and pressure sides (DT_H1_SS, DT_H1_PS), see
Fig. 13. These smallest temperature gradients distributions corre-
spond to the smallest blade wall thickness.
From the results presented here it can be expected that maxi-
mum thermal stresses and related thermal fatigue cracks will be
presented at the blade central section zone (cooling holes 5–7)
and at LE and TE.
These numerical results are in agreement with the metallo-
graphic investigation carried out in this area with a real bucket
after 24,000 h of operation. Thermal fatigue cracks in the surface
of cooling hole No. 7 are shown in Fig. 14 [8,9].
Fig. 14 shows the micro structural evaluation of the first stage
bucket from Mazur et al., works [8,9] where micro-cracks were
found at internal cooling holes at different sections of the bucket.
Cracks initiate in cooling holes coating and propagate into the sub-
strate following the trajectory of boundary grains. The crack sizes
reach up to 0.4 mm depth in cooling hole No. 7 and were present
also onto the surface of the bucket suction side. It was determined
that the start of cracks in the coating of the hole was due to ther-
mal fatigue mechanism and crack grain boundary propagation in
the substrate by creep mechanism. With this research we found
sound agreement with the maximum temperature gradients calcu-
lated which invariably corresponds for cooling holes surface No. 7
and suction surface profile (Fig. 13, DT_H7_SS).
In the same way, DT’s were obtained the TBC behavior in cross
sectional view for bucket profile at S = 0.5 (Fig. 15).
3064 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065

Fig. 14. Thermomechanical fatigue cracks at cooling hole No. 7.

S=0.5
100.00
ΔT_Coat_
H1_PS

90.00 ΔT_Coat_
H1_SS

ΔT_Coat_
80.00 H3_PS

ΔT_Coat_
H3_SS
70.00 ΔT_Coat_
H5_PS

ΔT_Coat_
60.00 H5_SS
ΔT [K]

ΔT_Coat_
H7_PS
50.00
ΔT_Coat_
H7_SS

ΔT_Coat_
40.00
H9_PS

ΔT_Coat_
H9_SS
30.00
ΔT_Coat_
H11_PS

20.00 ΔT_Coat_
H11_SS

ΔT_Coat_
10.00 H13_PS

ΔT_Coat_
H13_SS
0.00
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100
Time [s]
ΔT of TBC Along the Bucket Profile Depending on Time

Fig. 15. DT_H of TBC along the bucket profile at S = 0.5 for the start-up cycle.
Fig. 16. Streams lines for bucket tip at 500 s and 1024 s.

From Fig. 15 it can be appreciated that TBC temperature gradi-
ents during start-up have similar behavior to inlet gas flow tem-
perature during the same cycle. As well, the TBC gradients
variation within bucket body during start-up initiation at different
cooling hole zones are quite smaller than at final step of turbine
start-up cycle. It means that TBC bucket protection is more effec-
tive at higher temperatures when main gas flow temperature and
the cooling air flow temperature become stabilized.
The maximum temperature gradients during all start-up cycle are
registered invariably between cooling hole surface No. 3 and suction
surface profile (Fig. 15, DT_Coat_H3_SS). Also, similar gradients levels
are registered at hole No.1 zone (DT_Coat_H1_SS) which slightly
reaches the highest value of the start-up cycle at its final point.
The maximum thermal stresses and maximum thermal fatigue
cracks and coating spallation can be expected in this TBC zone.
The temperature distribution and streamlines of cooling flow
mixing the main flow at tip of the bucket for two different time
steps (500 and 1024 s) are shown in Fig. 16. The streamlines of
cooling air incorporate into the main flow and roll up into a vortex
configuration for full load (point K). For 500 s the main flow shows
instabilities in last third of bucket height on pressure side and then
incorporates with stream lines of cooling holes 1, 2 and 3. This is
due to the reduced mass flow, when conditions are variable along
the gas path; creating zones of different pressure, radial flows,
counter flows, flow recirculation (flow instabilities).
6. Summary and conclusions
Numerical transient analyses of conjugate heat transfer of first
inter-stage internal cooled TBC Bucket were conducted in order
to predict the temperature distribution in start-up cycle. The
start-up cycle was simulated using the characteristic diagrams of
hot start-up cycle operation of a GT from Takahashi work [3].
The simulation of first stage stator-rotor includes the ejection of
internal cooling air into gas path, meshing 13 internal cooling
channels radially distributed along bucket body; the simulation
 A.H. Rossette et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 3056–3065
also included meshing of a 0.4 mm thick YSZ-TBC. During all com-
putation it was assumed a constant rotation of nominal speed, all
other BC’s varied as a function of time and temperature.
The solver was able to compute the heat transfer of the blade
bucket depending of variations of BC’s during the start-up cycle
simulation at an affordable computational cost.
The analyses of results were classified in two cases, main bucket
body temperature distribution and TBC temperature distribution
during all start-up cycle.
For the first case the analysis was done considering the effect of
the cooling holes. In this way temperature gradients could be ob-
tained as the temperature difference between the cooling hole wall
and the bucket surface at both suction and pressure sides (see
Fig. 12). To simplify data processing, only cooling hole positions
1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 13 were studied. The maximum temperature gra-
dients of the blade body during all start-up cycle were invariably
registered at the center of blade cross section. This zone corre-
sponds to cooling holes surfaces 5 and 7 and the blade external
surface on the suction side (see Fig. 13, DT_H7_SS, and DT_H5_SS).
For the second case the temperature gradients between TBC and
bucket base surface metal in the same points of interest were ana-
lyzed. The maximum temperature gradients during all start-up cycle
were registered invariably between cooling hole surface No. 3 and
suction surface profile (Fig. 15 DT_Coat_H3_SS). As well, similar gra-
dients levels were registered in hole zone No. 1 (DT_Coat_H1_SS)
which slightly reach the highest value at the final point of the
start-up cycle. With these results it could be possible to estimate
thermal stresses and residual life for the blade from the start-up
curve thru rated conditions. The inclusion of the unsteady terms to
3065
solve CHT in the solid domains (base metal and coating) of the bucket
resulted in a very good approximation of the thermal inertia that
plays an important role in thermal fatigue mechanisms.
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