Conjugate Heat Transfer Method Research Articles

Numerical Simulation of Piston Cooling With Oil Jet Impingement

Convective heat transfer of an impinging jet is numerically evaluated for piston cooling process. A circular jet of subcooled engine oil that impinges normally onto the inner surface of the piston for an engine operating at normal condition is considered in the study. The k−ω shear stress transport (SST) based on transient three-dimensional governing Navier–Stokes (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)) equations are computationally solved using a finite-volume technique. The conjugate heat transfer method is used to obtain a coupled heat transfer solution between the solid and fluid regions, to predict the heat transfer coefficient at the piston walls and then the temperature distribution in the piston. It is shown that the cooling jet can significantly decrease the piston temperature. The location of the incidence of maximum heat transfer coefficient is moved away from the impingement point as the nozzle size increases.

Performance improvement of a high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor by integrated cooling

Centrifugal compressors with high pressure ratio have been widely used in small gas turbines, industrial compressors and turbochargers. High mechanical stress and high temperature of the impeller and large compression power required are the key factors that limit the pressure ratio achieved by centrifugal compressors. Cooling is an effective way to reduce the required compression power and the impeller temperature and it is widely used in gas turbines and industrial compressors. In this work, a cooling method named integrated cooling was employed in a high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor. The effects of the integrated cooling on the compressor performance were studied by three-dimensional steady simulation with conjugate heat transfer method using ANSYS CFX commercial solver. It is found that integrated cooling is capable of improving the compressor performance with respect to pressure ratio, efficiency, compression power as well as the impeller maximum temperature. With a cooling temperature of 300 K, the pressure ratio increased by 11.0% and efficiency by about 2.44% at the design condition. Besides, the maximum impeller temperature decreased by about 67 K. This considerable improvement of the compressor performance justifies the integrated cooling, which helps to advance the design of high pressure ratio centrifugal compressors.

Improving a conjugate-heat-transfer immersed-boundary method

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide the current state of the art in the development of a computer code combining an immersed boundary method with a conjugate heat transfer (CHT) approach, including some new findings. In particular, various treatments of the fluid-solid-interface conditions are compared in order to determine the most accurate one. Most importantly, the method is capable of computing a challenging three dimensional compressible turbulent flow past an air cooled turbine vane.Design/methodology/approach– The unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) equations are solved within the fluid domain, whereas the heat conduction equation is solved within the solid one, using the same spatial discretization and time-marching scheme. At the interface boundary, the temperatures and heat fluxes within the fluid and the solid are set to be equal using three different approximations.Findings– This work provides an accurate and efficient code for solving three dimensional CHT problems, such as the flow through an air cooled gas turbine cascade, using a coupled immersed boundary (IB) CHT methodology. A one-to-one comparison of three different interface-condition approximations has shown that the two multidimensional ones are slightly superior to the early treatment based on a single direction and that the one based on a least square reconstruction of the solution near the IB minimizes the oscillations caused by the Cartesian grid. This last reconstruction is then used to compute a compressible turbulent flow of industrial interest, namely, that through an air cooled gas turbine cascade. Another interesting finding is that the very promising approach based on wall functions does not combine favourably with the interface conditions for the temperature and the heat flux. Therefore, current and future work aims at developing and testing appropriate temperature wall functions, in order to further improve the accuracy – for a given grid – or the efficiency – for a given accuracy – of the proposed methodology.Originality/value– An accurate and efficient IB CHT method, using a state of the art URANS parallel solver, has been developed and tested. In particular, a detailed study has elucidated the influence of different interface treatments of the fluid-solid boundary upon the accuracy of the computations. Last but not least, the method has been applied with success to solve the well-known CHT problem of compressible turbulent flow past the C3X turbine guide vane.

Effects of Inlet Turbulence Conditions and Near-wall Treatment Methods on Heat Transfer Prediction over Gas Turbine Vanes

This paper investigates the effects of inlet turbulence conditions and near-wall treatment methods on the heat transfer prediction of gas turbine vanes within the range of engine relevant turbulence conditions. The two near-wall treatment methods, the wall-function and low-Reynolds number method, were combined with the SST and ωRSM turbulence model. Additionally, the RNG k-e, SSG RSM, and SST+γ-Reθ transition model were adopted for the purpose of comparison. All computations were conducted using a commercial CFD code, CFX, considering a three-dimensional, steady, compressible flow. The conjugate heat transfer method was applied to all simulation cases with internally cooled NASA turbine vanes. The CFD results at mid-span were compared with the measured data under different inlet turbulence conditions. In the SST solutions, on the pressure side, both the wall-function and low-Reynolds number method exhibited a reasonable agreement with the measured data. On the suction side, however, both wall-function and low-Reynolds number method failed to predict the variations of heat transfer coefficient and temperature caused by boundary layer flow transition. In the ωRSM results, the wall-function showed reasonable predictions for both the heat transfer coefficient and temperature variations including flow transition onset on suction side, but, low-Reynolds methods did not properly capture the variation of the heat transfer coefficient. The SST+γ-Reθ transition model showed variation of the heat transfer coefficient on the transition regions, but did not capture the proper transition onset location, and was found to be much more sensitive to the inlet turbulence length scale. Overall, the Reynolds stress model and wall function configuration showed the reasonable predictions in presented cases.

Numerical study of conjugate heat transfer of steam and air in high aspect ratio rectangular ribbed cooling channel

The relationship between flow field and heat transfer in an air/steam cooled ribbed channel was numerically investigated and compared. The width to height ratio was 4 and the rib height to hydraulic diameter was 0.078. The conjugate heat transfer method was adopted and a uniform heat source was located in the solid domain to simulate the actual heating method in the experiment. The GGI method was used to deal with the solid-fluid interface. The fluid field structure was shown by vortex core technology. We found that the wall heat flux distribution is similar with that of the Nusselt number, which is periodic. The temperature difference of a certain position on the inner and outer wall was less than 2 K. The Nusselt number reached its peak value at No.15-18 part and then decreased. The large width to height ratio led to strong interaction between the main flow fluid and the fluid in near wall region. As a result, an extra main flow secondary flow and two separation vortexes could be observed. These three additional vortexes were all in main flow region. The two separation vortexes approached to each other in flow direction and mixed into one vortex at low Reynolds number. When Reynolds number is larger than 30000, the two vortexes remain independent. The relative distance between them reaches the minimum value and the Nusselt number reaches the peak value at the same time. In addition, the flow field structure is mainly determined by Reynolds number and the fluid type cannot obviously influence the secondary flow distribution. The generation and separation of secondary flow as well as the mixing of secondary flows can enhance the local heat transfer strength.

LES of knocking in engines using dual heat transfer and two-step reduced schemes

Large Eddy Simulation of knocking in piston engines requires high-fidelity physical models and numerical techniques. The need to capture temperature fields with high precision to predict autoignition is an additional critical constraint compared to existing LES in engines. The present work presents advances for LES of knocking in two fields: (1) a Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) technique is implemented to compute the flow within the engine over successive cycles with LES together with the temperature field within the cylinder head walls and the valves and (2) a reduced two-step scheme is used to predict both propagating premixed flames as well as autoignition times over a wide range of equivalence ratios, pressures and temperatures. The paper focuses on CHT which is critical for knocking because the gas temperature field is controlled by the wall temperature field and knocking is sensitive to small temperature changes. The CHT LES is compared to classical LES where the temperatures of the head and the valves are supposed to be homogeneous and imposed empirically. Results show that the skin temperature field (which is a result of the CHT LES while it is a user input for classical LES) is complex and controls knocking events. While the results of the CHT LES are obviously better because they suppress a large part of the empirical specification of the wall temperatures, this study also reveals a difficult and crucial element of the CHT approach: the description of exhaust valves cooling which are in contact with the engine head for part of the cycle and not in the rest of the cycle, leading to difficulties for heat transfer descriptions between valves and head. The CHT method is successfully applied to an engine studied at IFP Energies Nouvelles where knocking characteristics have been studied over a wide range of conditions.

Characterizing the convective heat transfer on stator ventilation ducts for large hydro generators with a neural network

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to approximate the convective heat transfer using a few non-dimensional parameters in the design process of large synchronous machines. The computed convective wall heat transfer coefficient can be used in circuit models or can be defined in numerical heat conduction (HC) models to compute the thermal field in the solid domains without the time consuming computation of the fluid domain. Design/methodology/approach – Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used to include a wide range of different designs, operating conditions and cooling schemes to ensure accurate results for a wide range of possible machines. Neural networks are used to correlate the computed heat transfer coefficients to various design parameters. The data set needed to define the weights and bias layers in the network has been obtained by several CFD simulations. A comparison of the evaluated solid temperatures with those obtained using the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) method has been carried...

Large eddy simulation of turbulent buoyant flow in a confined cavity with conjugate heat transfer

Turbulent natural convection in enclosure is a paradigmatic case for wide class of processes of great interest for industrial and environmental problems. The solid-fluid thermal interaction, the anisotropy of the turbulence intensity in the flow field along with the transient nature of heat transfer processes, pose challenges regarding the numerical modeling. The case of a square cavity with differently heated vertical walls and two horizontal conductive plates is studied at Ra = 1.58 × 109. The study is carried out numerically, using large-eddy simulation together with a dynamic Lagrangian turbulence model and a conjugate heat transfer method to take into account heat transfer at the solid surfaces. First, validation is carried out against the literature experimental and numerical data. The results of validation tests evidence the limitations of using the adiabatic conditions as a model for reproducing an insulator. In fact, the adiabatic condition represents the asymptotic behavior which is often difficult to reach in real conditions. Successively, the model is used to investigate the effect on the flow field of different materials composing the horizontal walls. Initial conditions representative of physical experiment are used. In order to reduce the computational time required for a simulation with insulating materials at the walls, a four-step temperature advancement strategy is proposed, based on the artificial reduction-first and recover-later of the specific heat coefficient Cp of the materials at different stages of the simulation. The conductivity of the solid media is found to influence the flow configuration since heat transfer at the solid walls substantially modifies the turbulent field and makes the flow field less homogeneous along the horizontal direction.

Numerical research on the film-cooling gas turbine blade with the conjugate heat transfer method

The conjugate heat transfer method is used to research the cooling effect of high pressure blades compared with the adiabatic method. The computational domain consists of the internal and external flow passages, the cylindrical holes on the pressure and suction sides and the quadrate holes in the trail. The results demonstrate that the downstream extends longer on the suction side, engendering larger area with higher cooling efficiency. The temperature drops streamwise as the coolants flow out of the holes. With conjugate method, the leading edge's detrimental high temperature vanishes, and its cooling efficiency is higher than the adiabatic simulation mostly. The influence of trail's structure and the inlet pressure on cooling efficiency is obtained with the conjugate technique. The trail's quadrate cooling apertures lessen the high-temperature area. The cooling efficiency rises as the inlet pressure increases in a certain range.

Analysis of Temperature Distribution in the Stator of Large Synchronous Machines Considering Heat Conduction and Heat Convection

The aim of this paper is the characterization of the convective heat transfer and its treatment in a 3-D model to calculate the heat transfer and related temperature distribution in large synchronous machines. The wall heat transfer coefficients in the ventilation ducts have been correlated to various design parameters by several computational fluid dynamics simulations and have been defined at the boundaries at the tooth and yoke iron in the numerical model. The losses have been determined in the copper bars and stator iron from electromagnetic calculations. The validation has been made for the stator temperatures with the established conjugate heat transfer method.

Simulation of jet impingement heat transfer onto a moving disc

A transient numerical investigation has been conducted to determine the thermal effects of an axisymmetric oil jet impinging on a high-speed reciprocating disc subjected to uniform heat flux and bounded by a cylindrical wall. The two-phase air–oil simulations are performed using the volume of fluid (VOF) method with a high-resolution interface-capturing scheme. The three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations and energy equation are numerically solved using a finite volume discretization. The conjugate heat transfer (CHT) method is used to obtain a coupled heat transfer solution between the disc and fluid, yielding a more accurate prediction for the heat transfer coefficient. To overcome the high computational cost of such a simulation, a new methodology is presented to accelerate the solution. The simulation process involves several stages, including the simulation of the heat transfer of a stationary disc with a cooling jet at different impingement distances from the nozzle exit and simulation of a moving disc without the cooling jet and subjected to constant heat flux. Following this, the flow field and thermal characteristics of a reciprocating disc with constant heat flux and an impinging cooling jet is considered. For jet impingement onto the moving boundary, the maximum Nusselt number is achieved a short time after the relative velocity between the disc and the jet reaches its maximum.

Conjugate heat transfer study on a ventilated disc of high-speed trains during braking

The heat dissipation of a ventilated disc on high-speed trains during emergency braking is studied to improve heat dissipation performance. The conjugate heat transfer method is employed to understand the distribution and variation of convective heat transfer coefficients on the disc surfaces during braking. Finite element models of the ventilated disc and the complicated air flow field under the train are built. Boundary conditions are derived based on real working conditions. Heat transfer simulation is carried out using the FLUENT computer code. Simulation results, including temperature rise of the disc, convective heat transfer coefficient distribution, and heat transfer rate, are presented and analyzed. Using materials with high thermal conductivity coefficients and reducing the heat transfer wall thickness of the disc are proposed to improve the heat dissipation performance of the disc based on the simulation results. Both methods are effective in improving the heat transfer rate of the disc with a 10% improvement in the improved thermal conductivity case and a 30% improvement in the reduced wall thickness case.

Numerical Validation of Conjugate Heat Transfer Method for Anti-/De-Icing Piccolo System

An anti-/de-icing conjugate heat transfer method based on a ANSYS-CFX flow solver and FENSAP-ICE software is presented. The ANSYS-CFX flow solver is used as the flow solver module with the shear stress transport turbulence model. DROP3D is used as the droplet impingement module. ICE3D is used as the ice accretion and water film runback module. CHT3D/CFX is used for the thermal coupling of all modules. Before solving for the temperature distribution in a three-dimensional antiicing system geometry based on a piccolo tube with three jet rows, a test case consisting of a two-stream parallel gas-to-gas microheat exchanger will validate the CHT3D/CFX procedure. For the antiicing system in wet air mode, the temperature results at corresponding experimental locations are presented and compared to results from the literature.

Retrofit design of composite cooling structure of a turbine blade by fluid networks and conjugate heat transfer methods

This article discusses the development of the numerical methods of gas flow coupled with heat transfer, and introduces the fluid net-works method for rapid prediction of the performance of the composite cooling structures in turbine blade. The reliability of these methods is verified by comparing experimental data. For a HPT rotor blade, a rapid prediction on the internal cooling structures is first made by using the fluid network analysis, then an assessment of aerodynamic and heat transfer characteristics is conducted. Based on the network analysis results, three ways to improve the design of the cooling structures are tested, i.e., adjusting the cooling gas flow mass ratios for different inner cooling cavities, reducing the flow resistances of the channel turning structures, and improving the local internal cooling structure geometries with high temperature distribution. Through the verification of full three-dimensional gas/solid/coolant conjugate heat transfer calculation, we conclude that the modified design can make the overall temperature distribution more even by significantly reducing the highest temperature of the blade surface, and reasonably matching the parameters of different coolant inlets. The results show that the proposed calculation methods can remarkably reduce the design cycle of complex turbine blade cooling structure.

Massively parallel conjugate heat transfer methods relying on large eddy simulation applied to an aeronautical combustor

Optimizing gas turbines is a complex multi-physical and multi-component problem that has long been based on expensive experiments. Today, computer simulation can reduce design process costs and is acknowledged as a promising path for optimization. However, performing such computations using high-fidelity methods such as a large eddy simulation (LES) on gas turbines is challenging. Nevertheless, such simulations become accessible for specific components of gas turbines. These stand-alone simulations face a new challenge: to improve the quality of the results, new physics must be introduced. Therefore, an efficient massively parallel coupling methodology is investigated. The flow solver modeling relies on the LES code AVBP which has already been ported on massively parallel architectures. The conduction solver is based on the same data structure and thus shares its scalability. Accurately coupling these solvers while maintaining their scalability is challenging and is the actual objective of this work. To obtain such goals, a methodology is proposed and different key issues to code the coupling are addressed: convergence, stability, parallel geometry mapping, transfers and interpolation. This methodology is then applied to a real burner configuration, hence demonstrating the possibilities and limitations of the solution.

Effects of coolant flow rates on cooling performance of the intermediate pressure stages for an ultra-supercritical steam turbine

The effects of the coolant flow rates on the thermal and flow fields of the first two intermediate pressure (IP) stages of an ultra-supercritical steam turbine was numerically investigated using the Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) method, and the un-cooled case was also simulated for comparison. The three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solution was utilized to analyze the flow field and temperature distributions of the first two IP stages. The numerical results show that the steam cooling system has proved its ability to cool down the high temperature components, even in the case with the low coolant flow rate. The cooling performance can be improved with increased coolant flow rate, however, great flow losses would be induced and make the stage efficiency reduce by 1.23%. The different coolant flow rates also lead to great differences in the flow field in the front cavity of the first stage: ingress dominated flow condition with the low coolant flow rate and egress dominated flow condition with the high coolant flow rate. The negative influence of the ingested hot main steam on the cooling effect was also described.

Validation of measurements with conjugate heat transfer models

Purpose – The purpose of this work is to propose a numerical method based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for reconstructing the heat transfer inside electrical machines. The used conjugate heat transfer (CHT) method takes heat convection and heat conduction into account to determine the temperature rise and the thermal losses in stator duct models of large hydro generators. Three different test cases are studied with different slot section components. The numerical models are validated with measurement data for a range of different mass flow rates. Design/methodology/approach – The work presented is based on the combination of two complementary approaches, namely numerical simulation and measurements. The measured data for the air mass flow and the heat losses are used as boundary conditions for the identification of the temperature distribution in the solid and fluid domains (using a commercial software for CFD). The CHT method is an additional application of CFD and is used to solve the energy equations in the solid domains. Therefore, it is possible to define a thermal source in the solid domains. Findings – The data obtained by the numerical computation are compared with measurement data for different mass flow rates of the cooling fluid. The quality of the computed values depending on the different mass flow rates shows a good agreement with the measured data. The temperature distribution in the solid domains depending on different material properties is also pointed out in this investigation. Research limitations/implications – The topic describes a method for solving the heat transfer in the fluid as well as the solid domains. The losses can be defined as sources in the solid domains, e.g. copper and iron, obtained by electromagnetic calculations. This boundary condition defines the situation more accurately than, for example, a constant value of the heat flux or the temperature at the walls like in common used CFD simulations. Another advantage of CFD over other approaches is the consideration of the actual wall heat transfer coefficient. Originality/value – The presented investigations show relevant issues influencing the thermal behaviour of electrical machines.

Application of Conjugate Heat Transfer in Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Internal-Cooled Turbine Blade

The genetic algorithm was employed to Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of transonic internally cooled turbine blades based on the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) method. Firstly, a parametric modeling method was employed to model the internal-cooled blade.Comparison of the SST turbulence model with and withoutγ-θtransition model was conducted, and the influence and reason between turbulent region and heat transfer distribution was analyzed.The result shows that separation appeared after middle region of the suction surface, because of the pressure after shock wave decrease abruptly that reduce adverse pressure gradient resistance capacity of laminar flow, it leads to instability and transition, and then enter a state of turbulence, same to the heat transfer coefficient with the phenomenon of abrupt increase that impact the temperature distribution, consequently SST model with γ-θ transition is better to showcase the change of aerodynamic and heat transfer in the transition region; Then,comparing the cooling effectiveness with different number cooling holes of internal-cooled blade , four cooling channels case was the best choice in consideration of the cooling effectiveness and the manufacturing process and the cost of the blade; In the end, Automatic optimization process was set up ,andseveral optimization frameworks were achieved. With the cooling flow increase in 0.011849 kg/s, average temperature and maximum temperature were reduced by 4.92% and 1.55% respectively in the boundary conditionsoptimization, in addition to optimized the cooling flow and the cooling effectiveness, temperature distribution in the part of contrastive analysis of turbulence model was verifiable, Simultaneously it is important guiding significance for the geometry parameters optimization.

Research on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Air-Cooled Turbine Blade with Conjugate Heat Transfer Method

In order to improve the performance of aero engines, trying to increase the turbine inlet temperature is an important way. But the turbine inlet temperature of modern aero engines can be more than 2000 K, which is far more than what the materials can bear. So advanced cooling technologies should be introduced to solve this problem. Using the conjugate heat transfer method, this paper researched the aerodynamic characteristics of a certain turbine blade with complex cooling structures. Some conclusions can be drawn: the velocity of the air flow and different distributions of coolant flow for turbine blade with multiple cooling air inlets have great influence on the cooling effect; the cooling effect decreases as the temperature ratio decreases; with the same mass cold gas, the less film cooling holes, the worse cooling effect; therefore, a reasonable air flow distribution plays an important role in obtaining good cooling effect.

Effect of the thermal insulation on generator and micro gas turbine system

The efficiency of micro gas turbine generator is affected significantly by the temperature level in the micro gas turbine system. If the operation temperature of generator and compressor increases, the efficiency of generator and compressor decreases, greatly. This study investigates the heat transfer and temperature distribution in a micro gas turbine system. In addition, the temperature levels on the substrates are controlled using the different thermal insulation materials. The thermal conductivity of insulation is changed from 0.1 to 100 to evaluate the effect of the thermal conductivity on generator and micro gas turbine. A conjugate heat transfer method has been used for this purpose. We conducted a CFD analysis in the compressor and turbine flow domains using CFX v.12 to obtain the boundary conditions for conduction calculation. The conduction analysis, using ANSYS v.12, was calculated on the solid part domain. The conduction heat transfer calculation considered the heat generation induced by the Joule heating in the generator. The results show that the most heat flux from the turbine and generator is removed by the inlet flow induced by the compressor. The conductivity of thermal insulation material has a little effect on the temperature distributions of the generator.