Effect of 45-deg Rib Orientations on Heat Transfer in a Rotating Two-Pass Channel With Aspect Ratio from 4:1 to 2:1

Abstract

The internal cooling passages of gas turbine blades mostly have varying aspect ratios from one passage to another. However, there are limited data available in the open literature that used a reduced cross section and aspect ratio (AR), after the tip turn. Therefore, the current study presents heat transfer and pressure drop of three different α = 45 deg profiled rib orientations, typical parallel (usual), reversed parallel (unusual), and crisscross patterns in a rotating two-pass rectangular channel with AR = 4:1 and 2:1 in the first radially outward flow and second radially inward flow passages, respectively. For each rib orientation, regional averaged heat transfer results are obtained for both the flow passages with the Reynolds number ranging from 10,000 to 70,000 for the first passage and 16,000 to 114,000 for the second passage with a rotational speed range of 0–400 rpm. This results in the highest rotation number of 0.39 and 0.16 for the first and second passage respectively. The effects of rib orientation, aspect ratio variation, 180-deg tip turn, and rotation number on the heat transfer and pressure drop will be addressed. According to the results, for usual, unusual and crisscross rib patterns, increasing rotation number causes the heat transfer to decrease on the leading surface and increase on the trailing surface for the first passage and vice versa for the second passage. The overall heat transfer enhancement of the usual and unusual rib patterns is higher than the crisscross one. In terms of the pressure losses, the crisscross rib pattern has the lowest and the usual rib pattern has the highest-pressure loss coefficients. When pressure loss and heat transfer enhancement are both taken into account together, the crisscross or unusual rib pattern might be an option to use in the internal cooling method. Therefore, the results can be useful for the turbine blade internal cooling design and heat transfer analysis.