Turbulent heat transfer on the stationary disk in a rotor–stator system

A combined numerical and experimental study was performed to determine the turbulent heat transfer on a stationary disk, which is situated in a close distance from a rotating disk. The RNG k–(epsilon) model and the steady-state liquid crystal technique were employed respectively in the numerical simulation and the experiment. In the range of the rotational Reynolds number from 1.42×105 to 3.33×105, the heat transfer rate on the stator and the flow characteristics in the gap between the disks are presented. The results revealed that there exists an optimum rotor–stator distance for a given Reynolds number, at which the average heat transfer on the stator reaches maximum. When the Reynolds number increases, the maximum shifts towards smaller disk-distances.