HEAT TRANSFER AND TEMPERATURE FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN A CAVITY WITH ROTATION, RECIRCULATION, AND COOLANT THROUGHFLOW.

Local wall heat transfer coefficients and fluid temperature distributions were measured in a cavity consisting of a pair of parallel disks and a cylindrical shroud. One of the disks was rotating, whereas the other disk and the shroud were stationary. Coolant air entered the cavity through a central aperture in the rotating disk and exited through an annular gap at the rim of the rotating disk. The coolant flow rate, the disk rotational speed, and the cavity aspect ratio (disk separation distance to radius) were varied throughout the course of the experiments. The latter parameter took on values as large as two. The heat transfer results and the fluid isotherm maps suggested that the flow pattern within the cavity was markedly different depending upon whether the coolant stream or the pumping action of the rotating disk was predominant.