Analysis of the buoyancy-induced heat transfer in a rotating cavity

In order to get a better knowledge of the heat transfer in compressor cavities of aero-engines, the simplified rotating cavity with two-plane discs, a shaft and a cylindrical rim has been investigated numerically and compared with the available measurements. The numerical results in agreement with the available experiments show large-scale instabilities. The disk local Nusselt numbers show mainly radial rising distributions for the heated disks with radial rising temperature profiles. In the present work, at the Reynolds number of 20000, the disk local Nusselt numbers are the correlations of the local Grashof number to the power of 1.89~2.6, and the value of the power is increased as the rotational Reynolds number goes up. At the rotational Reynolds number of 800000, the local Nusselt numbers are the correlations of the local Grashof number to the power of 0.68~2.6, and the value of the power is decreased as Reynolds number goes up. The area-averaged disk Nusselt number is the correlation of the Reynolds number to the power of 0.479 and the rotational Grashof number to the power of 0.12.