Application of Coolant Diffusion Equation in Numerical Simulation of Flow in Air-cooled Turbines

This article deals with time-averaged coolant diffusion equation in arbitrary, body-fitted coordinates. Schmidt number and Lewis number are used to obtain the mass diffusion coefficient. Other than the existing N-S solver, a new solver for the diffusion equation and the influences of cooling air on the thermal parameters, such as gas constant, constant-pressure specific heat, is established. Capable of simulating the flow of multi component fluid, this solver is used to simulate the flow in air-cooled two-stage turbines. The comparison of test results from the modified solver to those from the traditional N-S solver has evidenced that a marked difference present is in thermal parameters and flow field structure.