Impact of Leakage Inlet Swirl Angle in a Rotor–Stator Cavity on Flow Pattern, Radial Pressure Distribution and Frictional Torque in a Wide Circumferential Reynolds Number Range

Abstract

In the side-chambers of radial turbomachinery, which are rotor–stator cavities, complex flow patterns develop that contribute substantially to axial thrust on the shaft and frictional torque on the rotor. Moreover, leakage flow through the side-chambers may occur in both centripetal and centrifugal directions which significantly influences rotor–stator cavity flow and has to be carefully taken into account in the design process: precise correlations quantifying the effects of rotor–stator cavity flow are needed to design reliable, highly efficient turbomachines. This paper presents an experimental investigation of centripetal leakage flow with and without pre-swirl in rotor–stator cavities through combining the experimental results of two test rigs: a hydraulic test rig covering the Reynolds number range of 4 × 10 5 ≤ R e ≤ 3 × 10 6 and a test rig for gaseous rotor–stator cavity flow operating at 2 × 10 7 ≤ R e ≤ 2 × 10 8 . This covers the operating ranges of hydraulic and thermal turbomachinery. In rotor–stator cavities, the Reynolds number R e is defined as R e = Ω b 2 ν with angular rotor velocity Ω , rotor outer radius b and kinematic viscosity ν . The influence of circumferential Reynolds number, axial gap width and centripetal through-flow on the radial pressure distribution, axial thrust and frictional torque is presented, with the through-flow being characterised by its mass flow rate and swirl angle at the inlet. The results present a comprehensive insight into the flow in rotor–stator cavities with superposed centripetal through-flow and provide an extended database to aid the turbomachinery design process.

Experimental Investigation of Centrifugal Flow in Rotor–Stator Cavities at High Reynolds Numbers >108

“…It can be expressed as the average radial flow velocity u r (r) =ṁ 2πρrG at the disc's outer radius. The test rig is more precisely described in [5].…”

A Flow Model for Side Chambers of Centrifugal Pumps Considering Radial Wall Shear Stress

“…The authors found that though the cavity is imposed with a centripetal throughflow, the flow regime belongs to the Batchelor-type and a general power-law for the entrainment coefficient K ( K is the ratio of the angular velocity of the rotating core to that of the rotating disk) is still valid. Schröder et al 17 conducted experimental studies on a liquid rotor-stator cavity and a gas rotor-stator cavity. They presented a flow database related to the centripetal throughflow with and without pre-rotation.…”