Heat and flow evaluation in rotating circular disks passage with a CFD approach

The flow structure and the temperature distribution in ventilated disk pass age are investigated thoroughly in this work. Two computational methods are used namely, the finite volume method (FVM) and finite element method (FEM ). Both are based on the Navier-Stokes partial differential equations (PDEs ) but with different algorithms and meshes. With different settings of oper ating conditions on disk, the following important paramaters are considered : inlet Reynolds number (Re), rotational speed, shroud clearance, and wall temperature. Both corotating and counterrotating disks also are being studi ed. The former is based on FORTRAN cone and the later on a FASTFLO partial differential equation (PDE) calculator. Both codes are run on an SGI UNIX w orkstation. It is found that both the Corolis force and centrifugal buoyanc y have important effects on the flow structure and heat transfer because of the rotational speed and inlet velocity. The Nusselt number (Nu) decreases along the radius, especially near the disk knowledge. If decreases more ra pidly along the radius, and the absolute value is much greater for nonventi lated disks. The predicted friction coefficient (C-f) also are very differe nt in both cases. For the ventilated case, C-f varies rapidly, whereas in t he nonventilated case, C-f is rather constant when rotational speed (Omega) is low (<100 ppm). However, when <Omega> is higher (> 800 rpm), C-f varies appreciably along the radius. Finally, the shroud clearance has the pronou nced effects only in the high-Re pow. The results are compared and discusse d, and their agreement is good.