Study of a Cooling Feed Pipe With a Covering Plate on a Ribbed Turbine Case

Abstract

Considering the complicated geometry in an active clearance control (ACC) system, the design of an improved cooling feed pipe with a covering plate for a high pressure ribbed turbine case was investigated. Numerical calculations were analyzed to obtain the interactions between the impinging jet arrays fed by the pipe. Experimental tests were performed to explore the effect of the Reynolds number (2000–20,000) and the jet-to-surface spacing ratio (6–10) on the streamwise-averaged Nusselt numbers. Additionally, the effect of the crossflow produced by the configuration was investigated. Results showed a confined curved channel was formed by the pipe and ribbed case, which resulted in crossflow. The crossflow evolved into vortices and the streamwise-averaged Nusselt number on the high ribs was subsequently increased. Furthermore, the distribution of the heat transfer on the entire surface became more uniform compared with that of traditional impinging jet arrays. A higher Nusselt number was achieved by decreasing the jet-to-surface spacing and increasing the Reynolds number. This investigation has revealed a cooling configuration for controlling the wall flow and evening the heat transfer on the case surface, especially for the ribs.