in modern gas turbines, the turbine airfoil leading edge is currently protected from the hot gases by specific film cooling schemes, so-called showerhead cooling. The present paper shows an experimental study of different showerhead cooling geometries on a blunt body. For these tests, TLC (thermochromatic liquid crystals) have been used for measuring the film cooling performance and the heat transfer. Detailed experimental results for the aerodynamics, the film cooling effectiveness and the heat transfer enhancement are presented for different film cooling geometries. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.