Flow and Heat Transfer in the Space Between Two Corotating Disks in an Axisymmetric Enclosure

Abstract

A numerical investigation was undertaken to characterize the laminar flow and heat transfer in axisymmetric coaxial corotating shrouded disk configurations. Attention was focused on calculation conditions favoring steady, stable, symmetric solutions of the conservation equations. The justification for this is based on velocity measurements obtained in a test section that matches the numerical configuration. Calculations were performed to investigate the dependence of the flow characteristics on disk angular velocity, disk spacing, and the disk–shroud gap width. Conditions involving a radial throughflow (blowing) and/or an axially directed disk–shroud gap flow were also predicted. In the region of the shroud the results show a strong sensitivity of the flow and heat transfer to variations in the flow Reynolds number (rotation) and Rossby number (blowing). By contrast, the flow was found to be less dependent on the disk spacing and the disk–shroud gap width for the conditions investigated. The introduction of an axially directed disk–shroud gap flow significantly alters the flow and heat transfer characteristics in the region between two disks. This finding is important for the improved design and control of corotating disk systems.

Experimental study of convective heat transfer on a finned rotating cylinder

“…1. Cross-stream vector velocity field (compressed in radial direction) [5]. average A relative to r observed that the inner region boundary was oval in a plane parallel to the fins when the separation distance between the edge of the fins and the shroud approached infinity.…”

“…Abrahamson [4], Chang [5], Humphrey [6] and Herrero [7] have studied flow characteristics in an enclosed co-rotating disk pair (ECDP), which is an idealization of an unobstructed computer disk storage system. Schuler et al [8], Tzeng [9], Gor [10] and Cho [11] have investigated flow structures and heat/mass transfers between shrouded co-rotating disks (i.e., equivalent to an ECDP), with and without an obstruction (i.e., the head arm) and with and without a ventilation flow through the hub.…”

Two- and three-dimensional laminar flows between disks co-rotating in a fixed cylindrical enclosure

“…In the contour plots, solid lines represent positive values of the variable and dashed lines represent negative values. In the streamline plot, a clockwise flow recirculation is represented by negative values of the streamfunction, defined in Equation (9).…”

“…Other numerical investigations of unobstructed flows between co-rotating disks in cylindrical enclosures include the axisymmetric steady flow cases investigated by Chang et al [9] and Tzeng and Fromm [10] in the laminar regime, and by Chang et al [11] and Tzeng and Humphrey [5] in the turbulent regime. However, the most interesting numerical results correspond to the two-and three-dimensional unsteady flow cases calculated by Humphrey et al [6] for the experimental conditions investigated by Schuler et al [4].…”

The LDV and PIV Study of Co-Rotating Disks Flow with Closed Shroud

“…Flow visualization techniques (Lennemann et al, 1974;Abrahamson et al, 1989;Humphrey and Gor, 1993) or point-wise velocity measurements (Chang et al, 1989;Schuler et al, 1990;Chen, 2002, 2003;Wu et al, 2006;Wu, 2009) were applied in early experimental studies. However, a complete experiment conducted in both the r   plane and the rz  plane was still not found.…”