The helical flow regime was investigated by using DPIV when the rotating Reynolds number is small. The wall slits were azimuthally located along the inner wall of outer cylinder and the slits number of each model was 9 and 18, another plain wall model was also studied for comparison purpose. The helical vortex flow regime can be observed in all the three models. The negative temperature gradients determine the direction of the rotation and movement of the helical vortex. But the helical wavy vortex flow can only be found in the plane and 9-slit models. And the result showed that the existence of slit wall accelerated the transition process.

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The objective of the present investigation is to explore the possibility of improving the performance of a centrifugal fan at low Reynolds numbers using a simple passive means, namely Gurney flap (GF). GFs of 1/8th inch brass angle (3.175 mm) corresponding to 15.9% of blade exit height or 5.1% of blade spacing at the impeller tip are attached to the impeller blade tip on the pressure surface. Performance tests are carried out on the centrifugal fan with vaneless diffuser at five Reynolds numbers (viz., 0.30, 0.41, 0.55, 0.69, 0.82x105, i.e., at five speeds respectively at 1,100, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 and 3,000 rpm) without and with GF. Static pressures on the vaneless diffuser hub and shroud are also measured for each speed at four flow coefficients [φ=0.23 (below design flow coefficient), φ=0.34 (design flow coefficient), φ=0.45 (above design flow coefficient) and φ=0.60 (above design flow coefficient)] with and without GF. From the performance curves it is found that the performance of the fan improves considerably with GFs at lower Reynolds numbers and improves marginally at higher Reynolds number. Similar improvements are observed for the static pressures on the diffuser hub and shroud. The effect of Reynolds number on the performance and static pressures is considerable. However the effect is reduced with GFs.

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A computational study is reported on flow and heat transfer characteristics from five rows of circular air jets impinging on a concave surface with four rows of effusion holes. The effects of exit configurations of spent air and the arrangement of jet orifices and effusion holes for a jet Reynolds number of 7500 is investigated. In all, eight cases are studied and a good qualitative correlation is found among their flow patterns, pressure variations and heat transfer distributions

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The Fighter aircraft transmission system consists of a light weight, High Speed Flexible Coupling (HSFC) known as Power Take-Off shaft (PTO) for connecting Engine gearbox (EGB) with Accessory Gear Box (AGB). The HSFC transmits the power through series of specially contoured metallic annular thin flexible plates whose planes are normal to the torque axis. The HSFC operates at high speed ranging from 10,000 to 18,000 rpm. The HSFC is also catered for accommodating larger lateral and axial misalignment resulting from differential thermal expansion of the aircraft engine and mounting arrangement. The contoured titanium alloy flexible plates are designed with a thin cross sectional profile to accommodate axial and parallel misalignment by the elastic material flexure. This paper investigates the effect of misalignment on the transmission characteristics of the HSFC couplings. A mathematical model for the HSFC coupling with misalignment has been developed for analyzing the torque transmission and force interaction characteristics. An extensive testing has been conducted for validating characteristics of the designed coupling under various misalignment conditions. With this the suitability of the model adapted for the design iteration of HSFC development is validated. This method will reduce the design iteration cycles of HSFC and can be extended for the similar development of flexible couplings.

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The present study is devoted to the influence of a superposed radial inflow in a rotor-stator cavity with a peripheral opening. The flow regime is turbulent, the two boundary layers being separated by a core region. An original theoretical solution is obtained for the core region, explaining the reason why a weak radial inflow has no major influence near the periphery of the cavity but strongly affects the flow behavior near the axis. The validity of the theory is tested with the help of a new set of experimental data including the radial and tangential mean velocity components, as well as three components of the Reynolds stress tensor measured by hot-wire anemometry. The theoretical results are also in good agreement with numerical results obtained with the Fluent code and experimental data from the literature.

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