Modelling Conjugate Heat Transfer Within a Gas Turbine Secondary Air System Using 1D and 2-3D Solid Models in Thermo-Fluid System Simulation
Abstract This paper presents an implicit conjugate heat transfer (CHT) model designed for 1D systems of both solids and fluids. It demonstrates that this approach can be extended to include 2D and 3D elements being co-solved in a 2D or 3D thermal product. The approach is applied to a simple analytical problem and then to a Secondary Air Cavity within a Gas Turbine to illustrate the potential of this technique to be applied to more complex thermo-fluid simulations. Such simulations are important in trade off studies to balance minimizing engine bleed whilst ensuring sufficient cooling. The benefits of this CHT model are presented by comparison with the traditional approach of explicit co-simulation in which the temperature from the fluid domain is applied as a boundary condition to the thermal simulation and heat flux from the thermal simulation is applied as a boundary condition to the fluid domain (or vice versa). The ability to replace 1D elements with 2D or 3D elements allows model continuity from conceptual to detailed design and the reverse process potentially offers a route for model reduction later in lifecycle to support operation and maintenance through the use of an executable digital twin.