Flow and Heat Transfer in Rotating Cavities

One of the promising trends to increase the thermal efficiency of gas turbines is to raise the gas temperature at the turbine inlet. In modern gas turbines, turbine section operates under severe thermal conditions. Cooling of the turbine section is one of the key technologies for further improvement of gas turbines to keep their safe working. The objective of this study is to investigate the flow and heat transfer in a low-pressure turbine which has cavities formed by an assembly of turbine disks. This study employs two dimensionless parameters which govern flow and heat transfer in rotating cavities. These are throughflow Reynolds number and rotational Reynolds number. Flow visualization and heat transfer experiments in rotating situation were carried out in wide range of experimental conditions. This paper focuses on the effect of forced convection by the throughflow on flow and heat transfer characteristics in rotating cavities.