Protuberances in a Turbulent Thermal Boundary Layer

Recent efforts to evaluate the effects of isolated protuberances within velocity and thermal boundary layers have been performed using transient heat transfer approaches. While these approaches provide accurate and highly resolved measurements of surface flux, measuring the state of the thermal boundary layer during transient tests with high spatial resolution presents several challenges. As such, the heat transfer enhancement evaluated during transient tests is presently correlated to a Reynolds number based either on the distance from the leading edge or on the momentum thickness. Heat flux and temperature variations along the surface of a turbine blade may cause significant differences between the shapes and sizes of the velocity and thermal boundary layer profiles. Therefore, correlations are needed which relate the states of both the velocity and thermal boundary layers to protuberance and roughness distribution heat transfer. In this study, a series of three experiments are performed for various freestream velocities to investigate the local temperature details of protuberances interacting with thermal boundary layers. The experimental measurements are performed using isolated protuberances of varying thermal conductivity on a steadily heated, constant flux flat plate. In the first experiment, detailed surface temperature maps are recorded using infrared thermography. In the second experiment, the unperturbed velocity profile over the plate without heating is measured using hot-wire anemometry. Finally, the thermal boundary layer over the steadily heated plate is measured using a thermocouple probe. Because of the constant flux experimental configuration, the protuberances provide negligible heat flux augmentation. Consequently, the variation in protuberance temperature is investigated using the velocity boundary layer parameters, the thermal boundary layer parameters, and the local fluid temperature at the protuberance apices. A comparison of results using plastic and steel protuberances illuminates the importance of the shape of the thermal and velocity boundary layers in determining the minimum protuberance temperatures.