An investigation of convective heat transfer in a rotating coolant channel

A numerical method is presented for the determination of heat transfer rates in a cylindrical cooling duct within turbine blades which rotate about an axis orthogonal to its own axis of symmetry. The equations of motion and energy are solved in conjunction with the k-epsilon model of turbulence using the finite element method. The predicted results are compared with experimental data and it is clearly demonstrated that conduction in the solid boundary must be taken into account if satisfactory agreement is to be achieved. Excluding these effects can lead to an overestimation of the maximum wall temperature by approximately 50 percent.