Numerical simulation of rotationally-induced ingress through turbine rim seals

In the turbine stage of the aero-engines, the rotation of disk can cause high-temperature gas in annulus ingest into the rotor-stator system through rim seal. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was applied to study the so-called rotationally-induced (RI) ingress through an axial seal clearance. The variation of the cavity pressure and the radial velocity at the seal clearance with the sealing flow rate was investigated. The effectiveness distributions based on mass and concentration were computed respectively, and the minimum sealing flow rate required to seal the system was determined from the computed effectiveness data. Pressure criterion was also used to estimate the minimum sealing flow rate for different rotational Reynolds numbers, and the results accord with previously published experimental correlation.