Flow Regimes and Heat Transfer Characteristics in Combustion Chambers

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical computations are performed to investigate the convective heat transfer characteristics of a gas turbine can combustor under non reacting flow conditions in a Reynolds number range 50,000 to 600,000 with a characteristic swirl number of 0.7. A sample of computational predictions of flow behaviors under reacting conditions are also shown for swirling furnace flow of 0.52. The RNG (K-ɛ Model) predictions are compared with the experimental data of local heat transfer distribution on the combustor liner wall. It was observed that the flow field in the combustor is characterized by an expanding swirling flow, which impinges on the liner wall close to the inlet of the combustor. The peak heat transfer augmentation ratio (compared with fully developed pipe flow) reduces from 10.5 to 2.7. Additionally, the peak location does not change with Reynolds number since the flow structure in the combustor is also a function of the swirl number. The size of the corner recirculation zone near the combustor liner remains the same for all Reynolds numbers and hence the location of shear layer impingement and peak augmentation does not change. The heat transfer coefficient distribution on the liner wall predicted from the RNG (K-ɛ Model) is in good agreement with experimental values. The location and the magnitude of the peak heat transfer are predicted in very close agreement with the experiments.