CALCULATION OF HEAT TRANSFER IN A RADIALLY ROTATING COOLANT PASSAGE

Abstract

The three-dimensional flow field and heat transfer in a radially rotating coolant passage are studied numerically. The passage chosen has a square cross section with smooth isothermal walls of finite length. The axis of rotation is normal to the flow direction with the flow radially outward. The effects of Coriolis forces, centrifugal buoyancy, and fluid Reynolds number on the flow and heat transfer have all been considered. The analysis has been performed by using a fully elliptic, three-dimensional, body-fitted computational fluid dynamics code based on pressure correction techniques. The numerical technique employs a multigrid iterative solution procedure and the standard κ − ε turbulence model for both the hydrodynamics and heat transfer. The effect of rotation is included by considering the governing equations of motion in a relative frame of reference that moves with the passage. The consequence of rotation is to bring higher velocity fluid from the core to the trailing surface, thereby increasing both the friction and heat transfer at this face. At the same time, the heat transfer is predicted to decrease along the leading surface. The effect of buoyancy is to increase the radial velocity of the fluid, thus generally increasing the heat transfer along both the leading and trailing surfaces. These effects and trends that have been predicted are in agreement with experimental heat transfer data available in the literature [1,2]. The quantitative agreement with the data was also found to be quite satisfactory.