An experimental technique for assessing film cooling performance is proposed which can determine both film effectiveness and heat transfer coefficient distributions from a single infrared experiment. First, the film effectiveness is determined in the experiment’s steady-state phase on a series of film-cooled nozzle guide vane leading edge geometries made of a low thermal conductivity foam. Then, the effectiveness is used to calculate the distribution of the transient phase driving gas temperatures, which is applied to a finite element conduction model. Heat transfer coefficients are guessed and iteratively refined until the surface temperature histories predicted by the finite element model match those which were experimentally observed. Unlike conventional methods based on one-dimensional analytical heat transfer solutions, this approach does not require assumptions about the material thickness underlying the test surface or the uniformity with depth of its initial temperature distribution. This relieves certain experimental constraints and reduces uncertainty in results.
