Wall distance effect on heat transfer at high flow velocity

This paper aims to present the results of experimental and numerical research on heat transfer distribution under the impinging jets at various distances from the wall and high jet velocity. This work is a part of the INNOLOT Program financed by National Centre for Research and Development.

The air jets flow out from the common pipe and impinge on a surface which is cooled by them, and in this way, all together create a model of external cooling system of low-pressure gas turbine casing. Measurements were carried out for the arrangement of 26 in-line jets with orifice diameter of 0.9 mm. Heat transfer distribution was investigated for various Reynolds and Mach numbers. The cooled wall, made of transparent PMMA, was covered with a heater foil on which a layer of self-adhesive liquid crystal foil was placed. The jet-to-wall distance was set to h = from 4.5 to 6 d.

The influence of various Reynolds and Mach numbers on cooled flat plate and jet-to-wall distance in terms of heat transfer effectiveness is presented. Experimental results used for the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model development, validation and comparison with numerical results are presented.

Impinging air jets is a commonly used technique to cool advanced turbines elements, as it produces large convection enhancing the local heat transfer, which is a critical issue in the development of aircraft engines.

The achieved results present experimental investigations carried out to study the heat transfer distribution between the orthogonally impinging jets from long round pipe and flat plate. Reynolds number based on the jet orifice exit conditions was varied between 2,500 and 4,000; meanwhile, for such Re, the flow velocity in jets was particularly very high, changing from M = 0.56 to M = 0.77. Such flow conditions combination, i.e. the low Reynolds number and very high flow velocity cannot be found in the existing literature.