Patent ID: 8616845

Claim:
A process for cooling a turbine rotor blade for use in an industrial gas turbine engine, the blade having a leading edge region and a trailing edge region, a pressure side wall and a suction side wall extending between the two edges, and a blade tip, the process comprising the steps of: passing a first cooling air through a serpentine flow path from the trailing edge region toward the leading edge region to provide cooling for the airfoil; bleeding off a portion of the first cooling air to provide cooling for the trailing edge region of the airfoil; passing the first cooling air from the serpentine flow path through the blade tip in a serpentine flow path to provide cooling for the blade tip along a suction side tip channel and then along a pressure side tip channel; discharging some of the cooling air along the suction side tip channel out from the blade to cool the suction side tip edge; discharging some of the cooling air along the pressure side tip channel out from the blade to cool the pressure side tip edge; and, passing a second and separate cooling air through the leading edge region to provide convection cooling and impingement cooling and film cooling for the leading edge region of the airfoil.