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Abstract

This thesis presents a multi-grid scheme applied to the solution of transport equations in turbulent flow associated with heat transfer. The multi-grid scheme is then applied to flow which occurs in the film cooling of turbine blades. The governing equations are discretized on a staggered grid with the hybrid differencing scheme. The momentum and continuity equations are solved by a nonlinear full multi-grid scheme with the SIMPLE algorithm as a relaxation smoother. The turbulence k — Є equations and the thermal energy equation are solved on each grid without multi-grid correction. Observation shows that the multi-grid scheme has a faster convergence rate in solving the Navier-Stokes equations and that the rate is not sensitive to the number of mesh points or the Reynolds number. A significant acceleration of convergence is also produced for the k — Є and the thermal energy equations, even though the multi-grid correction is not applied to these equations. The multi-grid method provides a stable and efficient means for local mesh refinement with only little additional computational and.memory costs. Driven cavity flows at high Reynolds numbers are computed on a number of fine meshes for both the multi-grid scheme and the local mesh-refinement scheme. Two-dimensional film cooling flow is studied using multi-grid processing and significant improvements in the results are obtained. The non-uniformity of the flow at the slot exit and its influence on the film cooling are investigated with the fine grid resolution. A near-wall turbulence model is used. Film cooling results are presented for slot injection with different mass flow ratios.