Mechanisms of Turbulence Transport in a Turbine Blade Coolant Passage With a Rib Turbulator

Abstract

This paper provides detailed measurements of the flow in a ribbed coolant passage, and attempts to delineate the important mechanisms that contribute to the production of turbulent shear stress and the normal stresses. It is shown that the separated flow behind the rib is dictated by large-scale structures, and that the dynamics of the large-scale structures, associated with sweep, ejection, and inward and outward interactions, all play an important role in the production of the turbulent shear stress. Unlike the turbulent boundary layer, in a separated shear flow past the rib, the inward and outward interaction terms are both important, accounting for a negative stress production that is nearly half of the positive stress produced by the ejection and sweep mechanisms. It is further shown that the shear layer wake persists well past the re-attachment location of the shear layer, implying that the flow between ribbed passages never recovers to that of a turbulent boundary layer. Therefore, even past re-attachment, the use of statistical turbulence models that ignore coherent structure dynamics is inappropriate.