Application of immersed boundary method in turbomachines

Abstract

Simulating unsteady turbulent flow in turbomachines is still challenging due to the complexity of blade geometry and relative motion between rotor and stator. This study presents an Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) for high-Reynolds turbomachinery internal flows, and shows the advantage of the automatic grid generation techniques and flexible moving boundary treatments. The wall functions are used in the present method to alleviate the wall resolution restriction of turbulence simulation. The Two-Dimensional (2-D) IBM solver, which was previously developed and tested for a low-speed compressor, is further validated for a well-documented Low-Pressure Turbine (LPT) cascade. Both the blade loading and the total pressure losses in the wake are well captured by the present 2-D solver. The complex Three-Dimensional (3-D) effects in turbomachines motivate the further development of an extended 3-D IBM solver by using a curvilinear-coordinate system that facilitates the hub and casing boundary treatment. The good performance of the 3-D solver is demonstrated through comparison with CFX solver solutions for the rotor configuration of Advanced Noise Control Fan (ANCF). Further effects of the grid resolution on capturing the blade wake are discussed. The results indicate that the present 3-D solver is capable of reproducing the evolution of the blade wake with suitable computational grid.