In the rotating disk cavities of aero-engine compressors, buoyancy-induced flow and heat transfer can occur due to thermal gradients between cooling air and hot surfaces. The simplified rotating cavity with two plane discs, a shaft and a cylindrical rim has been investigated numerically and compared with the available measurements. Two models have been solved using a commercial CFD code, Fluent, with the RNG k-ε turbulence model. The first one is the conventional model with only fluid region solved, a temperature profile with the linear radial gradient imposed at the disk walls, and an isothermal boundary condition imposed at the shroud wall. The second one is the model with thick-walled disks and shroud, an adiabatic boundary condition imposed at the outer walls of the disks, and an isothermal boundary condition imposed at the outer wall of the shroud. The fluid and solid are coupled solved simultaneously. The disk temperatures are computed. In the present work, the numerical results are in reasonable agreement with the measurements. The computed disk temperatures in the second model have approximately linear radial gradients over the first three-quarters of the disks, and in the last quarter of the disks the temperature radial gradients are obviously non-linear. The different disk temperature profiles in these two models do not lead to obviously different disk heat transfers. The heat transfer in the rotating cavity leads to a considerable temperature increase of the cavity core fluid, therefore a corresponding increase of the outlet temperature. These two temperature increases are critical for the cooling design in aero-engines.
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