Numerical investigation of windage heating within shrouded rotor-stator cavity system with central inflow

The rotating disk surface temperature rise due to windage heating effect by numerically modeling the turbulent flow within a rotor-stator cavity which is available with a peripheral shroud and imposed through airflow was dealt with.The windage heating may be defined as viscous friction heating caused by relative velocity differences across the boundary layers between the fluid and the rotating disk surface.The kinetic energy dissipation process could transform the rotating shaft power into thermal heating.Commercial finite volume based solver,ANSYS/CFX was employed to numerically simulate this physical process by using the shear stress transport(SST)turbulence model.CFD results include the rotating disk surface temperature axial distribution and tangential velocity distribution of the fluid domain.The velocity difference between the result obtained by particle image velocimetry(PIV)experiments and CFD simulation are within 5%.The adiabatic disk temperature rise can be calculated by the tangential velocity of disk and fluid in large gap ratio and turbulent parameter.CFD temperature distribution results and those estimated via velocity differences are within 10%.

Effect of windage heating on a micro high-speed rotor-stator cavity

The main objective of this work is to investigate the effect of windage heating on the micro high-speed rotor-stator cavity.The influences of centrifugal force and spacing on the windage heating are analyzed with and without the change of gap ratio respectively.The results demonstrate that there is no difference in the flow structure between micro and large-scale rotorstator cavities at the same rotational Reynolds number and gap ratio.However,the windage heating induced by the larger centrifugal force and smaller spacing brings the different heat transfer laws for the micro rotor-stator cavity.The larger centrifugal force weakens the local heat transfer near the rotor periphery.Such influence can be strengthened at higher rotational Reynolds numbers and lower rotor excess temperatures.Besides,the smaller spacing further enhances the windage heating and reduces the average heat transfer especially under the condition of lower gap ratio.The findings of this work contribute to the design of rotor-stator cavity utilized in the micro rotating machinery.

Performance Analysis of Inter-Stage Leakage Flows at Rotating Conditions in an Axial Compressor

For the compressor with shrouded stator blades,the stator well is a rotor-stator space between the rotating drum and the stationary shroud.Due to the pressure difference,a reverse leakage flow would travel through the stator well and inject into the main flow path.Although,the labyrinth seal is commonly placed under the shroud,the rotation effect and seal clearance variation in actual operation process have great impact on the characteristics of this inter-stage leakage,as well as the compressor performance.In this paper,experiments were conducted at a compressor inter-stage seal test rig.The leakage flow rates,total temperatures and swirl ratios were obtained at different speeds and working clearances.The proportions of rotation effect and the clearance reduction effect were analyzed by data processing.Comparisons indicate that the working clearance and leakage flow reduce about 43%and 50%respectively,when the rotational speedω=8100 r/min.The proportion of reduction caused by the rotation effect is around 15%,while the influence of working clearance variation is much greater,accounting for about 35%.The windage heating coefficient and swirl ratio in the outlet cavity are almost in exponential relationship with the rotor speed.The increases in total temperature and swirl ratio generated by the rotation effect are found to be about 80%.In addition,the swirl and radial velocity profiles in the cavities were discussed by validated numerical simulations to reveal the typical flow characteristics.The data presented can provide guidance for better leakage conditions prediction as well as the inter-stage seal design enhancement.