Effect of 45-Deg Rib Orientations on Heat Transfer in a Rotating Two-Pass Channel With Aspect Ratio From 4:1 to 2:1

Abstract

Abstract The internal cooling passages of gas turbine blades mostly have varying aspect ratios from one passage to another. However, there are limited data available in the open literature that used a reduced cross-section and aspect ratio, AR, after the tip turn. Therefore, the current study presents heat transfer and pressure drop of three different α = 45° profiled rib orientations, typical parallel (usual), reversed parallel (unusual), and criss-cross patterns in a rotating two-pass rectangular channel with AR = 4:1 and 2:1 in the first radially outward flow and second radially inward flow passages respectively. For each rib orientation, regional averaged heat transfer results are obtained for both the flow passages with the Reynolds number ranging from 10,000 to 70,000 for the first passage and 16000 to 114000 for the second passage with a rotational speed range of 0 rpm to 400 rpm. This results in the highest rotation number of 0.39 and 0.16 for the first and second passage respectively. The effects of rib orientation, aspect ratio variation, 180° tip turn, and rotation number on the heat transfer and pressure drop will be addressed. According to the results, for usual, unusual and criss-cross rib patterns, increasing rotation number causes the heat transfer to decrease on the leading surface and increase on the trailing surface for the first passage and vice versa for the second passage. Overall heat transfer enhancement of the usual and unusual rib patterns is higher than criss-cross one. In terms of the pressure losses, the criss-cross rib pattern has the lowest and the usual rib pattern has the highest-pressure loss coefficients. When pressure loss and heat transfer enhancement are both taken into account together, the criss-cross or unusual rib pattern might be an option to use in the internal cooling method. Therefore, the results can be useful for turbine blade internal cooling design and heat transfer analysis.