Flow and heat transfer measurements in a swirl chamber with different outlet geometries

In technical applications, an efficient cooling is necessary for high thermal load components such as turbine blades. One potential and promising technique is a swirling tube flow in comparison with an axial flow. The additional circumferential velocity and enhanced turbulent mixing increase the heat transfer. But the complex flow field and heat transfer mechanisms are still under research. Furthermore, the reliability of a swirl chamber regarding different outlet conditions is of great interest for a robust cooling design. Therefore, we investigated the influence of a straight, a tangential and a \(180^\circ\) bend outlet. To gain understanding of the flow phenomena, we measured the velocity field by means of stereo-PIV (particle image velocimetry). We experimentally studied the cooling capability measuring the heat transfer coefficients using thermochromic liquid crystals. For an accurate cooling design, we used the local adiabatic wall temperature as the correct reference temperature for calculating the heat transfer coefficients. We will show the velocity field, the pressure loss and the heat transfer results for realistic Reynolds numbers from 10,000 to 40,000 and for swirl numbers between \(2.36\) and \(5.3\). The obtained heat transfer is more than four times higher compared to an axial tube flow. Our measurements indicate that the here investigated outlet redirection has no significant influence on the flow field and the heat transfer coefficients.