Direct numerical simulations of heat transfer in a fully-developed turbulent pipe flow with circumferentially-varying thermal boundary conditions are reported. Three cases have been considered for friction Reynolds number in the range 180-360 and Prandtl number in the range 0.7-4. The temperature statistics under these heating conditions are characterized. Eddy diffusivities and turbulent Prandtl numbers for radial and circumferential directions are evaluated and compared to the values predicted by simple models. It is found that the usual assumptions made in these models provide reasonable predictions far from the wall and that corrections to the models are needed near the wall.

This manuscript analyzes the role of coherent structures in turbulent thermal transport in pipe flows. A Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) analysis is performed on a direct numerical simulation dataset with non-homogeneous boundary conditions, heated on the upper side, representative of solar receivers (Antoranz et al, 2015, Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, 55). Three flow conditions are analyzed: with friction Reynolds number equal to 180 and Prandtl number equal to 0.7 and 4 and with friction Reynolds number equal to 360 and Prandtl number equal to 0.7. Both POD and extended POD modes are presented and compared. This allows to visualize the main flow modes in terms of both turbulent kinetic energy and temperature fluctuations, analyzing their contribution to the turbulent transport of heat. The POD analysis shows that the temperature fluctuations are described by a more compact modal subspace than the turbulent kinetic energy. The effect of increasing the Reynolds number is to produce a thinner boundary layer, with a slightly less compact representation of both kinetic energy and temperature fluctuations. The increase of the Prandtl number, instead, results in a thinner thermal boundary layer with a greater scale separation between thermal fluctuations and kinetic energy. Temperature POD modes together with velocity extended POD modes are used to analyze and quantify the mode contribution to turbulent thermal transport. Results show that the correlation between velocity and temperature is such that it is possible to describe roughly 100% of the turbulent heat transport and temperature fluctuations with only 40% of the kinetic energy. For the cases with P r = 0.7, the first extended POD mode is a large vertical jet flanked by a pair of counter-rotating vortices near the heated part of the pipe. This single structure accounts for up to 10% of the turbulent heat transport.

The influence of surface roughness on the profile and end-wall total pressure losses in Low Pressure Turbines was investigated experimentally in a turbine high-speed rig. The rig consisted of a rotor-stator configuration. Both rows of airfoils are high lift, high aspect ratio and high turning blades that are characteristic of state of the art Low Pressure Turbines. The stator airfoils (both vanes and platforms) were casted and afterwards they were barreled to improve their surface finish up to 1.73 μm Ra. Then they were assembled in the rig and tested. The stator was traversed upstream and downstream with miniature pneumatic probes to obtain total pressure, flow angle and static pressure flow fields. Once this test was completed the rig was disassembled and the stator airfoils were polished to achieve a roughness size of 0.72 μm Ra, characteristic of Low Pressure Turbine polished airfoils. Once again, the stators were assembled in the rig and tested to carry out a back-to-back comparison between the two different surface roughnesses. The total pressure profile and end-wall losses were measured for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, extending from 8×104 to 2.4×105, based on suction surface length (Res∼1.5 ReCx) and exit Mach number of 0.61. Experimental results are presented and compared in terms of area average, radial pitchwise average distributions and exit plane contours of total pressure losses, flow angles and helicity. The results agree with previous studies of roughness in Turbines, a beneficial effect of surface roughness was found at very low Reynolds numbers, in stagnation pressure losses.

This paper presents an experimental study of the flow field in an annular cascade of Low Pressure Turbine airfoils. The influence of Reynolds number, Mach number and incidence on profile and end wall losses have been investigated. The annular cascade consisted of 100 high lift, high aspect ratio, high turning blades that are characteristic of modern LP Turbines. The investigation was carried out for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, extending from 120k to 315k, exit Mach numbers, from 0.5 to 0.9, and incidences from −20 to +14 degrees. Results clearly indicate a significant effect of incidence and Mach number in secondary loss production; however, the Reynolds number shows it much weaker impact. It has also been found that the profile loss production is strongly influenced by both Reynolds and Mach numbers, being the impact of the incidence weaker. Finally, measured data suggest that, in order to properly reproduce the performance of these types of airfoils, annular cascades can be required as far as linear cascades may miss some essential flow features.

No abstract