Experimental investigation on the flow and flow-rotor heat transfer in a rotor-stator spinning disk reactor

Abstract

In this article, an experimental study has been conducted to provide better understanding of the flow and heat transfer characteristics in the front chamber of a rotor-stator spinning disk reactor. According to the measurements with a one-dimensional hot-wire anemometer probe, the effects of the axial gap width and the temperature on the core swirl ratio are investigated, which are ignored for the past decades. The values of the core swirl ratio are found to decrease by up to 12.2% when G increases from 0.0125 to 0.05 and reduce by up to 6% when the temperature rises from 300 K to 350 K. The measured moment coefficient, which primarily decides the energy dissipation rate, is analyzed according to the flow patterns for the first time. The transient thermochromic liquid crystal technique is used to estimate the heat transfer characteristic. The variations of the moment coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the average Nusselt number appear to be largely determined by the flow patterns. An empirical correlation of the average Nusselt number in the viscous section is determined for the first time, which is aimed to provide better predictions on the average heat transfer capacity. The interaction of the average Nusselt number with the moment coefficient is also introduced. It is speculated that the flow patterns in the chamber plays an important role in the energy dissipation and the heat transfer performance.