Body-force modeling for aerodynamic analysis of air intake – fan interactions

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore a methodology that allows to represent turbomachinery rotating parts by replacing the blades with a body force field. The objective is to capture interactions between a fan and an air intake at reduced cost, as compared to full annulus unsteady computations. Design/methodology/approach The blade effects on the flow are taken into account by adding source terms to the Navier-Stokes equations. These source terms give the proper amount of flow turning, entropy, and blockage to the flow. Two different approaches are compared: the source terms can be computed using an analytic model, or they can directly be extracted from RANS computations with the blade’s geometry. Findings The methodology is first applied to an isolated rotor test case, which allows to show that blockage effects have a strong impact on the performance of the rotor. It is also found that the analytic body force model underestimates the mass flow in the blade row for choked conditions. Finally, the body force approach is used to capture the coupling between a fan and an air intake at high angle of attacks. A comparison with full annulus unsteady computations shows that the model adequately captures the potential effects of the fan on the air intake. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that the analytic model used in this paper is combined with the blockage source terms. Furthermore, the capability of the model to deal with flows in choked conditions was never assessed.