Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer and Flow Characteristics in a Steam-Cooled Square Ribbed Duct

Abstract

In order to increase entry gas temperature and improve the efficiency of gas turbine, steam is used as a coolant instead of air. Much research has been carried out on the closed circuit steam cooling of vanes substituted with film-cooling using compressor air in recent years. Furthermore, by studying the steam flow and heat transfer characteristics in rib ducts, this investigation focuses on establishing the basis of steam cooling technology application in complex flow field of internally-cooled turbine vane. In this paper, a report and assessment of RSM method based on SSG turbulence model is performed with commercial computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS CFX. The numerical results of heat transfer coefficient and friction factors in square channels with 90 degree rib turbulators for Reynolds numbers of 10 000, 30 000 and 60 000 are compared with the experimental data from Han’s. It is found that the obtained heat transfer coefficient distributions and friction factors match well with SSG turbulence model. In addition, the heat transfer distribution and pressure drop of steam-cooled ducts are predicted under the same work conditions by using dry real gas model. The Reynolds number could be correlated with the Nusselt number. The impact of steam physical properties on heat transfer performance are researched detailedly by respectively changing the steam superheat and entry pressure. The results indicate that the RSM method with a suitable turbulence model is valuable for the air-cooled and steam-cooled duct with the acceptable engineering accuracy (less than 20%). Comparing the cooling efficiency between steam and air under the same operation condition, the advantage of using cooling steam is evident than using cooling air. Furthermore, the efficiency of the whole gas turbine system will be greatly improved through using the closed loop steam cooling system. Changing the steam superheat and entry pressure, it has little effect on the steam flow and heat transfer characteristics. Increasing the steam overheat would raise the friction factor. Contrarily, enhancing the entry pressure would decrease the friction factor.