Heat Transfer in Internal Cooling Channels of Gas Turbine Blades: Buoyancy and Density Ratio Effects

The present work investigates the effects of buoyancy and wall heating condition on the thermal performance of a rotating two-pass square channel with smooth walls. The U-bend channel has a square cross section with a hydraulic diameter of 5.08 cm (2 in.). The lengths of the first and second passes are 514 mm and 460 mm, respectively. The turbulent flow entered the channel with Reynolds numbers of up to 34,000. The rotational speed varied from 0 to 600 rpm with rotational numbers up to 0.75. For this study, two approaches were considered for tracking the buoyancy effect on heat transfer. In the first case, the density ratio was set constant, and the rotational speed was varied. In the second case, the density ratio was changed in the stationary case, and the effect of density ratio was discussed. The range of buoyancy number along the channel is 0–6. The objective was to investigate the impact of buoyancy forces on a broader range of rotation number (0–0.75) and buoyancy number scales (0–6), and their combined effects on heat transfer coefficient for a channel with an aspect ratio of 1 : 1. Results showed that increasing the density ratio increased the heat transfer ratio in both stationary and rotational cases. Furthermore, in rotational cases, buoyancy force effects were very significant. Increasing the rotation number induced more buoyancy forces, which led to an enhancement in heat transfer. The buoyancy effect was more visible in the turning region than any other region.