Heat Transfer in Rotating, Trailing Edge, Converging Channels With Partial Length Pin-Fins

Abstract

In the current study, the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a rotating, partial pin-finned, cooling channel that has a trapezoidal cross section and converges from the hub to tip in both the streamwise and spanwise directions are experimentally investigated. To model the geometry of an internal trailing edge cooling passage, the channel is oriented with respect to the direction of rotation (β = 120 deg). Isolated copper plates are used to obtain regionally averaged heat transfer coefficients on the leading and trailing surfaces. Pressure drop is measured using pressure taps placed at the inlet and outlet of the channel. Utilizing Dp = 5 mm diameter pins, a staggered array is created. For this array, the streamwise pin-spacing, Sy/Dp = 2.1, was kept constant; however, the spanwise pin-spacing, Sx/Dp, was varied from the hub to tip between 3 and 2.6 due to the channel convergence. Experiments were conducted for two partial pin-fin sets having pin length-to-diameter ratios of Sz/Dp = 0.4 and 0.2. The rotation number was varied from 0 to 0.21 by ranging the inlet Reynolds number from 10,000 to 40,000 and rotation speed from 0 to 300 rpm. A significant decrease in pressure loss and a slight reduction in heat transfer enhancement are observed with the use of partial pin-fins compared with the previously reported full pin-fin converging channel study. This provides better thermal performances of the partial pin-fin arrays compared with the full pin-fin array, in the converging channels.