Experimental Investigation on Heat Transfer and Pressure Loss Characteristics of Rotating Rectangular and Annular Ducts

In a gas turbine, a small portion of air is bled from the compressor to provide cooling to keep the turbine at a safe operating temperature. The air flows through several passages in between where the components of the turbine are assembled. In this study, the heat transfer and pressure loss characteristics of two of these passages are investigated experimentally. The first of the two passages investigated is the passage in between the turbine blade root and disc. This passage has a unique geometry resembling an S-shape. The heat transfer and pressure loss characteristic of this passages in not well documented. For this study, a model of the realistic S-shaped passage has been made. In addition, a simplified rectangular duct with hydraulic diameter similar to that of the realistic S-shaped passage was constructed along with three other rectangular passages at aspect ratios, 17.33, 8.81, 3.93, and 2.02. This study aims to determine if rectangular duct correlations are valid for the realistic S-shaped model. Specifically, flow in low Reynolds number ranges of less than 3000 are of interest. With the effect or rotation and aspect ratio being of primary concern in the study, an experimental rig was constructed to measure the heat transfer and pressure loss in these models. The experiments were conducted with both clockwise and counterclockwise rotation to account for the passage on the pressure side and suction side of the passage. The centerline Nusselt number distribution measured to check if the flow was fully developed. The effect of rotation caused swirling, increasing the entrance length in the duct and also enhanced heat transfer. The rotation also enhanced the heat transfer in the fully developed region. The fully developed experimental data for the simplified rectangular ducts showed good correlation with that of literature. However, the realistic S-shaped duct showed lower heat transfer values than the simplified rectangular ducts. Still, the effect of rotation is seen enhancing the rotation inf the realistic S-shaped duct. Additionally, the friction factor which was measured using the cross-sectional average static pressure showed similar results for the realistic S-shaped duct and the simplified rectangular duct. The passage between turbine disc bore and shaft is modeled as an annular duct with inner surface rotation. Flow in the turbulent region is studied and the test sections are made to have short length to hydraulic dimeter ratios. Along the centerline, the onset of Taylor vortices can be seen enhancing the Nusselt number in regions where the flow should be fully developed. This effect can also be seen enhancing the heat transfer in the fully developed region. The presence of Taylor vortices also adds resistance increasing the pressure loss across the duct.