Performance of generic rim seal configurations, axial-clearance rim seal (ACS), radial-clearance rim seal (RCS), radial-axial clearance rim seal (RACS) are compared under realistic working conditions. Conjugate heat transfer analysis on rim seal is performed in this paper to understand the impact of ingestion on disc temperature.
Results show that seal effectiveness and cooling effectiveness of RACS are the best when compared with ACS and RCS, the minimum mass flow rate for seal of RACS is 75% of that of RCS, and 34.6% of ACS. Authors compare the disc temperature distribution between different generic rim seal configurations where the RACS seems to be favorable in terms of low disc temperature. In addition, RACS has higher air-cooled aerodynamic efficiency, minimizing the mainstream performance penalty when compared with ACS and RCS. Corresponding to the respective minimum mass flow rate for seal, the air-cooled aerodynamic efficiency of RACS is 23.71% higher than that of ACS, and 12.79% higher than the RCS.