Experimental Study of an Actively Managed Thermal Loading Method in Turbine Disk

Abstract

An experimental study was performed to investigate temperature distribution and circumferential stress level on turbine disk with an actively managed thermal loading method in a near-vacuum environment and with a rotating condition. The radiant heating method was used to apply the thermal loading by heating wire. The thermocouple and strain gauge techniques were employed to measure the surface temperature and strain, respectively. As a comparison, under cold and conventional thermal loading conditions, the disk was also tested at the same rotation number range from 4000 to 6000 rpm. Results showed that the stress level could be effectively controlled through actively managing the thermal loading of disk and it did not rely on conventional cooling technology and new material. By actively enhancing the temperature of lower part of disk to reorganize thermal loading, the decline ratio of maximum circumferential stress level in hub could be arrived 28.66% to compare with the conventional thermal loading condition, even in 6000 rpm. The reason for the preceding effect could be explained that an artificial V-shaped temperature distribution was built in disk through using an actively managed thermal loading method, and correspondingly, the reverse temperature gradient between hub and web produced a pulling effect and counteracted parts of stress from rotating.