Abstract
Previous studies have indicated some differences between steady CFD predictions of flow in a rotor-stator disc cavity with rotating bolts compared to measurements. Recently time dependent CFD simulations have revealed the unsteadiness present in the flow and have given improved agreement with measurements. In this paper unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) 360 model CFD calculations of a rotor-stator cavity with rotor bolts were performed in order to better understand the flow and heat transfer within a disc cavity previously studied experimentally by other workers. It is shown that the rotating bolts generate unsteadiness due to wake shedding which creates time-dependent flow patterns within the cavity. At low through flow conditions, the unsteady flow significantly increases the average disc temperature. A systematic parametric study is presented giving insight into the influence of number of bolts, mass flow rate, cavity gap ratio and the bolts-to-shroud gap ratio on the time depended flow within the cavity.