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This paper presents the results of a numerical study of the effects of swirling flow in coolant jets on film cooling performance. Some combined-hole designs with swirling coolant flow entering the delivery hole are proposed and analyzed. Adiabatic film cooling effectiveness values for cases with various blowing ratios are compared. Detailed flow structures and underlying mechanisms are discussed. The results show that film cooling effectiveness is improved with jet swirl at high blowing ratios, and that swirl strength has significant influence on film cooling performance. Combined-hole designs can further improve film cooling performance using swirling jets due to mixing of coolant flows and interaction of vortices. The largest improvements of area-averaged film cooling effectiveness for a single-hole swirl case and a combined-hole swirl case over corresponding non-swirling case results are 157% and 173%, respectively.