Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis of an Engine Internal Cavity

Abstract

The analysis of heat transfer in engine cavities or blade internal cooling systems is one of the most challenging work for aircraft engines designers for two main reasons. Firstly, the efficiency of such systems has a direct influence on both life and performance of these engines. Secondly, the available tools to predict heat transfer in both solid parts and surrounding cooling gases, i.e. Navier Stokes and conduction codes, are often used independently. An interaction model between the fluid and solid media is generally required and remains a difficult issue in engine configurations. A coupling procedure between a Navier-Stokes code and a conduction solver is therefore the only way to achieve heat transfer predictions in all flow situations. The objective of this work is to present such a procedure, which has been developed at Snecma and based on a Finite Volume Navier-Stokes code and a commercial Finite Element solver. The first application showed in the paper demontrates, with an uncoupled calculation that the Navier-Stokes code MSD, from ONERA, is able to predict heat transfer with an acceptable accuracy. The discretization used in the solid to predict heat conduction is briefly presented. Then the steady state coupling procedure is exposed and validated with an analytical solution. Finally, a conjugate heat transfer computation in a rotor/rotor cavity of a real engine, with rotating solid disks, is described in detail.