Improved Impingement Cooling Using Flow Enhancing Structural Elements

Abstract

This investigation is part of a study seeking to improve impingement cooling in internal combustion turbomachinery using flow modifying elements within the cooling channel. A simplified geometry of a jet impingement cooling configuration is chosen for well-defined numerical simulations and complementary experiments. The generic cooling channel setup features of a square cross-section that is closed on one end and is supplied by 9 inline jets that are directed toward a heated plate. Using RANS, the presence of an arc-conic placed immediately downstream of each jet nozzle was found to increase the heat transfer and prompted the present experimental study to elucidate the fluid mechanical mechanisms leading to the improved performance. Central to the study is an extensive data base of time-resolved 2d-2c PIV data for both channel configurations, with and without installed arc-conics, on a field of view that simultaneously captures up to 3 jets. Using two-point correlations, an interaction or modal coupling between the jets is not observed, suggesting that each jet may be treated individually. The arc-conics tend to stabilize the jets by capturing and redirecting the bulk cross-flow, thereby increasing the self-similarity of the jet impingement pattern, in particular toward the channel exit. Modal analysis using both snap-shot POD and spectral POD (SPOD) capture the dynamics of the flow, ideally to achieve a dimensionality reduction for reduced order modeling. However, the fully turbulent flow with highly stochastic dynamics exhibits only weak spatial or temporal signatures, with the energy content spread across a large number of modes. Among the dominant modes are pulsations of the jet onto the surface along with spanwise sweeping motions. The stabilization of the jet by the arc-conic results in a more defined impingement flow with the signature of the jet's shear layer visible in the higher modes of the energy spectrum and is considered the main mechanism of improved heat transfer.