The Mechanism and Application of Effusion Cooling

Abstract

Summary: Effusion cooling consists in forcing a gas under pressure through a porous material thereby absorbing heat from the material and forming a heat insulating layer on the exposed surface. The internal heat transfer between the porous material and coolant is considered and the heat transfer coefficient obtained from experiment. An approximate analysis for the heat insulating effect based on a heat balance method is derived in detail and applied to experiments with porous plugs set into the side of a duct carrying hot gases, and to porcras cylinders swept by hot gases. It has been found that this analysis applies reasonably accurately to the results of these experiments and of most of the published data. The manufacture of porous materials is discussed briefly and a representative list of commercially available materials is included. The application of effusion and sweat cooling to the blading and combustion chamber linings for gas turbines, rocket motors and the outside skin of flying vehicles is considered.