Effect of pre-swirl nozzle closure modes on unsteady flow and heat transfer characteristics in a pre-swirl system of aero-engine

Abstract

The pre-swirl system is of great importance for temperature drop and cooling air supply. This study aims to investigate the influencing mechanism of heat transfer, nonuniform thermodynamic characteristics, and cooling air supply sensitivity in a pre-swirl system by the application of the flow control method of the pre-swirl nozzle. A novel test rig was proposed to actively control the supplied cooling air mass flow rate by three adjustable pre-swirl nozzles. Then, the transient problem of the pre-swirl system was numerically conducted by comparison with 60°, 120°, and 180° rotating disk cavity cases, which were verified with the experiment results. Results show that the partial nozzle closure will aggravate the fluctuation of air supply mass flow rate and temperature. When three parts of nozzles are closed evenly at 120° in the circumferential direction, the maximum value of the nonuniformity coefficient of air supply mass flow rate changes to 3.1% and that of temperature changes to 0.25%. When six parts of nozzles are closed evenly at 60° in the circumferential direction, the maximum nonuniformity coefficient of air supply mass flow rate changes to 1.4% and that of temperature changes to 0.20%. However, different partial nozzle closure modes have little effect on the average air supply parameters. Closing 14.3% of the nozzle area will reduce the air supply mass flow rate by 9.9% and the average air supply temperature by about 1 K.