Numerical Prediction of Combustor Heatshield Flow and Heat Transfer With Sub-Grid-Scale Modelling of Pedestals

A goal for computational analysis of combustors is to produce a tool for life prediction. An important part of this will be the prediction of the temperature field in the combustor walls. The complex geometries of combustor components make this a formidable task. In this paper a 3D coupled numerical flow/conjugate heat transfer calculation procedure is presented for a combustor heatshield. Proper account must be taken of the blockage and heat transfer effects of pedestals. A scheme has been developed to account for these effects without resolving the pedestals in the computational grid. Extra sink terms are included in the momentum equations to account for pedestal pressure drop. An extra energy equation is solved to determine the local pedestal temperature and to account for heat transfer between pedestals and fluid. This treatment has been validated against empirical data for arrays of pedestals in ducts with good agreement for friction factor and Nusselt number. The methodology is then applied to a generic heatshield geometry to indicate that a viable computational route has been developed for combustor heatshield analysis.