Effects of duct aspect ratios on heat/mass transfer with discrete V-shaped ribs

The present study investigates the effects of rib arrangements and aspect ratios of a rectangular duct simulating the cooling passage of a gas turbine blade. Two different V-shaped rib configurations are tested in a rectangular duct with the aspect ratios (W/H) of 3 to 6.82. One is the continuous V-shaped rib configuration with 60° attack angle, and the other is the discrete V-shaped rib configuration with 45° attack angle. The designed aspect ratio of the duct is obtained by changing the height with a fixed width of 150 mm. The square ribs (3 mm) with the pitch to height ratio of 10.0 are installed on the test section in a parallel arrangement for both rib configurations. Reynolds numbers based on the hydraulic diameter are changed from 10,000 to 30,000 in this study to investigate the variation of duct Reynolds number. A naphthalene sublimation method is used to measure local heat/mass transfer coefficients. For the continuous V-shaped rib configuration, two pairs of counter-rotating vortices are generated in a duct, and high transfer region is formed at the center of the ribbed walls of the duct. However, for the discrete V-shaped rib configuration with 45° attack angle, complex secondary flow patterns are generated in the duct due to its geometric feature, and more uniform heat/mass transfer distributions are obtained for all tested cases.