Effect of bolts on flow and heat transfer in a rotor-stator disc cavity

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) 3600 model CFD calculations of a rotorstator 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 throughflow 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