| Summary: | In the side-chambers of radial turbomachinery, which are rotor–stator cavities, complex flow patterns develop that contribute substantially to axial thrust on the shaft and frictional torque on the rotor. Moreover, leakage flow through the side-chambers may occur in both centripetal and centrifugal directions which significantly influences rotor–stator cavity flow and has to be carefully taken into account in the design process: precise correlations quantifying the effects of rotor–stator cavity flow are needed to design reliable, highly efficient turbomachines. This paper presents an experimental investigation of centripetal leakage flow with and without pre-swirl in rotor–stator cavities through combining the experimental results of two test rigs: a hydraulic test rig covering the Reynolds number range of <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mrow> <mn>4</mn> <mi>e</mi> <mn>5</mn> </mrow> <mo>≤</mo> <mo>≤</mo> <mrow> <mn>3</mn> <mi>e</mi> <mn>6</mn> </mrow> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> and a test rig for gaseous rotor–stator cavity flow operating at <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mrow> <mn>2</mn> <mi>e</mi> <mn>7</mn> </mrow> <mo>≤</mo> <mo>≤</mo> <mrow> <mn>2</mn> <mi>e</mi> <mn>8</mn> </mrow> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>. This covers the operating ranges of hydraulic and thermal turbomachinery. In rotor–stator cavities, the Reynolds number is defined as <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>=</mo> <mfrac bevelled="true"> <msup> <mrow></mrow> <mn>2</mn> </msup> <mrow></mrow> </mfrac> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> with angular rotor velocity , rotor outer radius and kinematic viscosity . The influence of circumferential Reynolds number, axial gap width and centripetal through-flow on the radial pressure distribution, axial thrust and frictional torque is presented, with the through-flow being characterised by its mass flow rate and swirl angle at the inlet. The results present a comprehensive insight into the flow in rotor–stator cavities with superposed centripetal through-flow and provide an extended database to aid the turbomachinery design process.
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