Heat Transfer in a “Cover-Plate” Preswirl Rotating-Disk System

1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Pilbrow ◽  
H. Karabay ◽  
M. Wilson ◽  
J. M. Owen

In most gas turbines, blade-cooling air is supplied from stationary preswirl nozzles that swirl the air in the direction of rotation of the turbine disk. In the “cover-plate” system, the preswirl nozzles are located radially inward of the blade-cooling holes in the disk, and the swirling airflows radially outward in the cavity between the disk and a cover-plate attached to it. In this combined computational and experimental paper, an axisymmetric elliptic solver, incorporating the Launder–Sharma and the Morse low-Reynolds-number k–ε turbulence models, is used to compute the flow and heat transfer. The computed Nusselt numbers for the heated “turbine disk” are compared with measured values obtained from a rotating-disk rig. Comparisons are presented, for a wide range of coolant flow rates, for rotational Reynolds numbers in the range 0.5 X 106 to 1.5 X 106, and for 0.9 < βp < 3.1, where βp is the preswirl ratio (or ratio of the tangential component of velocity of the cooling air at inlet to the system to that of the disk). Agreement between the computed and measured Nusselt numbers is reasonably good, particularly at the larger Reynolds numbers. A simplified numerical simulation is also conducted to show the effect of the swirl ratio and the other flow parameters on the flow and heat transfer in the cover-plate system.

Author(s):  
Robert Pilbrow ◽  
Hasan Karabay ◽  
Michael Wilson ◽  
J. Michael Owen

In most gas turbines, blade-cooling air is supplied from stationary pre-swirl nozzles that swirl the air in the direction of rotation of the turbine disc. In the “cover-plate” system, the pre-swirl nozzles are located radially inward of the blade-cooling holes in the disc, and the swirling air flows radially outwards in the cavity between the disc and a cover-plate attached to it. In this combined computational and experimental paper, an axisymmetric elliptic solver, incorporating the Launder-Sharma and the Morse low-Reynolds-number k-ε turbulence models, is used to compute the flow and heat transfer. The computed Nusselt numbers for the heated “turbine disc” are compared with measured values obtained from a rotating-disc rig. Comparisons are presented, for a wide range of coolant flow rates, for rotational Reynolds numbers in the range 0.5 × 106 to 1.5 × 106, and for 0.9 < βp < 3.1, where βp is the pre-swirl ratio (or ratio of the tangential component of velocity of the cooling air at inlet to the system to that of the disc). Agreement between the computed and measured Nusselt numbers is reasonably good, particularly at the larger Reynolds numbers. A simplified numerical simulation is also conducted to show the effect of the swirl ratio and the other flow parameters on the flow and heat transfer in the cover-plate system.


1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Karabay ◽  
J.-X. Chen ◽  
R. Pilbrow ◽  
M. Wilson ◽  
J. M. Owen

This paper describes a combined theoretical, computational, and experimental study of the flow in an adiabatic preswirl rotor–stator system. Preswirl cooling air, supplied through nozzles in the stator, flows radially outward, in the rotating cavity between the rotating disk and a cover-plate attached to it, leaving the system through blade-cooling holes in the disk. An axisymmetric elliptic solver, incorporating the Launder–Sharma low-Reynolds-number k–ε turbulence model, is used to compute the flow. An LDA system is used to measure the tangential component of velocity, Vφ, in the rotating cavity of a purpose-built rotating-disc rig. For rotational Reynolds numbers up to 1.2 × 106 and preswirl ratios up to 2.5, agreement between the computed and measured values of Vφ is mainly very good, and the results confirm that free-vortex flow occurs in most of the rotating cavity. Computed values of the preswirl effectiveness (or the nondimensional temperature difference between the preswirl and blade-cooling air) agree closely with theoretical values obtained from a thermodynamic analysis of an adiabatic system.


Author(s):  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Yu Rao ◽  
Yanlin Li

This paper presents a numerical study on turbulent flow and heat transfer in the channels with a novel hybrid cooling structure with miniature V-shaped ribs and dimples on one wall. The heat transfer characteristics, pressure loss and turbulent flow structures in the channels with the rib-dimples with three different rib heights of 0.6 mm, 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm are obtained for the Reynolds numbers ranging from 18,700 to 60,000 by numerical simulations, which are also compared with counterpart of a pure dimpled and pure V ribbed channel. The results show that the overall Nusselt numbers of the V rib-dimple channel with the rib height of 1.5 mm is up to 70% higher than that of the channels with pure dimples. The numerical simulations show that the arrangement of the miniature V rib upstream each dimple induces complex secondary flow near the wall and generates downwashing vortices, which intensifies the flow mixing and turbulent kinetic energy in the dimple, resulting in significant improvement in heat transfer enhancement and uniformness.


1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Morse ◽  
C. L. Ong

The paper presents finite-difference predictions for the convective heat transfer in symmetrically-heated rotating cavities subjected to a radial outflow of cooling air. An elliptic calculation procedure has been used, with the turbulent fluxes estimated by means of a low Reynolds number k-ε model and the familiar ‘turbulence Prandtl number’ concept. The predictions extend to rotational Reynolds numbers of 3.7 × 106 and encompass cases where the disc temperatures may be increasing, constant or decreasing in the radial direction. It is found that the turbulence model leads to predictions of the local and average Nusselt numbers for both discs which are generally within ± 10% of the values from published experimental data, although there appear to be larger systematic errors for the upstream disc than for the downstream disc. It is concluded that the calculations are of sufficient accuracy for engineering design purposes, but that improvements could be brought about by further optimization of the turbulence model.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Wilson ◽  
R. Pilbrow ◽  
J. M. Owen

Conditions in the internal-air system of a high-pressure turbine stage are modeled using a rig comprising an outer preswirl chamber separated by a seal from an inner rotor-stator system. Preswirl nozzles in the stator supply the “blade-cooling” air, which leaves the system via holes in the rotor, and disk-cooling air enters at the center of the system and leaves through clearances in the peripheral seals. The experimental rig is instrumented with thermocouples, fluxmeters, pitot tubes, and pressure taps, enabling temperatures, heat fluxes, velocities, and pressures to be measured at a number of radial locations. For rotational Reynolds numbers of Reφ ≃ 1.2 × 106, the swirl ratio and the ratios of disk-cooling and blade-cooling flow rates are chosen to be representative of those found inside gas turbines. Measured radial distributions of velocity, temperature, and Nusselt number are compared with computations obtained from an axisymmetric elliptic solver, featuring a low-Reynolds-number k–ε turbulence model. For the inner rotor-stator system, the computed core temperatures and velocities are in good agreement with measured values, but the Nusselt numbers are underpredicted. For the outer preswirl chamber, it was possible to make comparisons between the measured and computed values for cooling-air temperatures but not for the Nusselt numbers. As expected, the temperature of the blade-cooling air decreases as the inlet swirl ratio increases, but the computed air temperatures are significantly lower than the measured ones. Overall, the results give valuable insight into some of the heat transfer characteristics of this complex system.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Y.-C. Shih ◽  
J. M. Khodadadi ◽  
K.-H. Weng ◽  
A. Ahmed

The periodic state of laminar flow and heat transfer due to an insulated or isothermal rotating cylinder object in a square cavity is investigated computationally. A finite-volume-based computational methodology utilizing primitive variables is used. Various rotating objects (circle, square, and equilateral triangle) with different sizes are placed in the middle of a square cavity. A combination of a fixed computational grid and a sliding mesh was utilized for the square and triangle shapes. For the insulated and isothermal objects, the cavity is maintained as differentially heated and isothermal enclosures, respectively. Natural convection heat transfer is neglected. For a given shape of the object and a constant angular velocity, a range of rotating Reynolds numbers are covered for a Pr=5 fluid. The Reynolds numbers were selected so that the flow fields are not generally affected by the Taylor instabilities (Ta<1750). The periodic flow field, the interaction of the rotating objects with the recirculating vortices at the four corners, and the periodic channeling effect of the traversing vertices are clearly elucidated. The simulations of the dynamic flow fields were confirmed against experimental data obtained by particle image velocimetry. The corresponding thermal fields in relation to the evolving flow patterns and the skewness of the temperature contours in comparison to the conduction-only case were discussed. The skewness is observed to become more marked as the Reynolds number is lowered. Transient variations of the average Nusselt numbers of the respective systems show that for high Re numbers, a quasiperiodic behavior due to the onset of the Taylor instabilities is dominant, whereas for low Re numbers, periodicity of the system is clearly observed. Time-integrated average Nusselt numbers of the insulated and isothermal object systems were correlated with the rotational Reynolds number and shape of the object. For high Re numbers, the performance of the system is independent of the shape of the object. On the other hand, with lowering of the hydraulic diameter (i.e., bigger objects), the triangle and the circle exhibit the highest and lowest heat transfers, respectively. High intensity of the periodic channeling and not its frequency is identified as the cause of the observed enhancement.


Author(s):  
Hasan Karabay ◽  
Robert Pilbrow ◽  
Michael Wilson ◽  
J. Michael Owen

This paper summarises and extends recent theoretical, computational and experimental research into the fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and heat transfer characteristics of the so-called cover-plate pre-swirl system. Experiments were carried out in a purpose-built rotating-disc rig, and the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were solved using 2D (axisymmetric) and 3D computational codes, both of which incorporated low-Reynolds-number k-ε turbulence models. The free-vortex flow, which occurs inside the rotating cavity between the disc and cover-plate, is controlled principally by the pre-swirl ratio, βp: this is the ratio of the tangential velocity of the air leaving the nozzles to that of the rotating disc. Computed values of the tangential velocity are in good agreement with measurements, and computed distributions of pressure are in close agreement with those predicted by a one-dimensional theoretical model. It is shown theoretically and computationally that there is a critical pre-swirl ratio, βp,crit, for which the frictional moment on the rotating discs is zero, and there is an optimal pre-swirl ratio, βp,opt, where the average Nusselt number is a minimum. Computations show that, for βp < βp,opt, the temperature of the blade-cooling air decreases as βp increases; for βp > βp,opt, whether the temperature of the cooling air increases or decreases as βp increases depends on the flow conditions and on the temperature difference between the disc and the air. Owing to the three-dimensional flow and heat transfer near the blade-cooling holes, and to unquantifiable uncertainties in the experimental measurements, there were significant differences between the computed and measured temperatures of the blade-cooling air. In the main, the 3D computations produced smaller differences than the 2D computations.


Author(s):  
L. W. Florschuetz ◽  
C. R. Truman ◽  
D. E. Metzger

Two-dimensional arrays of circular jets of air impinging on a heat transfer surface parallel to the jet orifice plate are considered. The air, after inpingement, is constrained to exit in a single direction along the channel formed by the surface and the jet plate. The downstream jets are subjected to a crossflow originating from the upstream jets. Experimental and theoretical results obtained for streamwise distributions of jet and crossflow velocities are presented and compared. Measured Nusselt numbers resolved to one streamwise hole spacing are correlated with individual spanwise row jet Reynolds numbers and crossflow-to-jet velocity ratios. Correlations are presented for both inline and staggered hole patterns including effects of geometric parameters: streamwise hole spacing, spanwise hole spacing, and channel height, normalized by hole diameter. The physical mechanisms influencing heat transfer coefficients as a function of flow distribution and geometric parameters are also discussed.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 690-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. C. DeJong ◽  
L. W. Zhang ◽  
A. M. Jacobi ◽  
S. Balachandar ◽  
D. K. Tafti

A detailed analysis of experimental and numerical results for flow and heat transfer in similar offset strip-fin geometries is presented. Surface-average heat transfer and pressure drop, local Nusselt numbers and skin friction coefficients on the fin surface, instantaneous flow structures, and local time-averaged velocity profiles are contrasted for a range of Reynolds numbers using both prior and new experimental and numerical results. This contrast verifies that a two-dimensional unsteady numerical simulation captures the important features of the flow and heat transfer for a range of conditions. However, flow three-dimensionality appears to become important for Reynolds numbers greater than about 1300, and thermal boundary conditions are important for Reynolds numbers below 1000. The results indicate that boundary layer development, flow separation and reattachment, wake formation, and vortex shedding are all important in this complex geometry.


1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian-Xin Chen ◽  
Xiaopeng Gan ◽  
J. Michael Owen

This paper describes a combined experimental and computational study of the heat transfer from an electrically-heated disc rotating close to an unheated stator. A radial outflow of cooling air was used to remove heat from the disc, and local Nusselt numbers were measured, using fluxmeters at seven radial locations, for nondimensional flow rates up to C = 9680 and rotational Reynolds numbers up to Reφ = 1.2 × 106. Computations were carried out using an elliptic solver with a low-Reynolds-number k-ε turbulence model, and the agreement between the measured and computed velocities and Nusselt numbers was mainly good.


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