Numerical Conjugate Heat Transfer Study of a Cooled Compressor Rear Cone

Abstract

The paper presents the setup of a conjugate heat transfer study of an annular conical gap, its validation and a parameter study. The main goal of the work is to identify effects of gap width and swirl ratio on the local and global heat transfer in the annular conical gap. The validation of the numerical model is done by a comparison against experimental data from literature. It is shown that the non-axisymmetric flow in the gap can be well reproduced by a three-dimensional axisymmetric model. To identify influences of geometric and operational parameters on the cooling efficiency, a RANS parameter study of the cooling concept is performed. The parameter study includes variations of the gap width and the pre-swirl of the inlet air. The results are used to evaluate the quality of the cooling concept and to identify the effect of geometry on frictional effects and on heat transfer coefficients. In this respect it is important to separate frictional heating and convective heat transfer effects.