Abstract
Abstract
The current paper presents a numerical investigation of the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) in an axial helium turbine. The objective is the prediction of the cooling needed to keep the blade temperature below the allowable material limits. The cooling is applied at the hub by means of internal cooling channels.
A CHT solver has been developed for this purpose. It combines a three-dimensional heat conduction calculation inside the blade with a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes flow calculation around the turbine blade. The required cooling at the blade root is calculated by imposing the temperature limit as boundary conditions at the bottom plane.
Various alternative methods to implement the CHT are tested and compared. The results indicate that the so-called h-method is superior both in terms of accuracy and convergence speed.
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