Flow structures and wall parameters on rotating riblet disks and their effects on drag reduction

Abstract

The demand of energy saving and loss mitigation in modern industry gives rise to drag reduction techniques such as micro groove/riblet ever since the last century. Plenty of studies are conducted under straight flow condition showing relevance between drag reduction and flow features. However, the same issue has not been studied adequately for rotational flows, which is typical in turbopumps. In this paper, two-dimensional numerical simulations of rotating disks are performed together with verification experiments to investigate drag reduction effect of micro riblet under rotational flow condition. The numerical results show that riblets with certain dimensions can lessen the resistant torque by a maximum of 8.46% and the drag reduction efficiency depends on rotational Reynolds number and riblet dimensions. Meanwhile, the distributions of static pressure and swirl velocity on surfaces are changed and near-wall turbulence intensity is tranquilized by riblets which are considered as the main reasons to the diminish of drag. Finally, the relevance of vortexes inside riblets to swirl wall shear stress and torque is demonstrated revealing that the configuration of riblets plays an important role in cutting resistance. The results of this paper can be a supplement for the investigation of micro groove/riblet drag reduction mechanism.

Keywords

• CFD
• Drag reduction
• Riblet
• Rotating disk