Abstract
To achieve enhanced cooling of hot components in the high pressure (HP) section of an aeroengine, application of cooled cooling air (CCA) has been proposed. Here a “two row preswirl feed” arrangement is considered to accommodate the CCA, together with the uncooled cooling air (UCA) in high pressure turbine (HPT) preswirl cavity. The CCA and UCA inflows are introduced into the preswirl cavity at two different radii. Most of the cooling air leaves the preswirl cavity from the receiver holes. To assess the CCA behavior in the preswirl cavity, a definition of feeding effectiveness is introduced based on the relative total temperature at the exit of the receiver hole. The CFD investigation for the preswirl cavity was conducted in a systematic way by altering both the radial position of the receiver hole and inflows of the CCA and UCA, while keeping other conditions unchanged. It was found that the feeding effectiveness increases as the radial position of the receiver hole decreases. An optimal feeding effectiveness close to a minimum mixing condition was achieved by adjusting the CCA and UCA inflows. Unsteady CFD investigations gave a similar prediction for the overall performance of the CCA in the preswirl cavity, but with a lower feeding effectiveness compared with its steady CFD counterpart. The reduction in the feeding effectiveness was attributed to an enhanced mixing from the discrete CCA and UCA inflows and associated unsteady effects.