New method to separate turbulence statistics of fan rotor wakes from background flow

Abstract

The separation of turbulence parameters such as turbulence intensity and integral length scale of fan rotor wakes from background flow from unsteady velocity data is a challenge. The two processes are overlapped, and typically, very few samples of the data are taken inside the rotor wakes, making it hard to perform any spectral analysis. This work proposes a new time domain approach to separate the two processes by using two suitable data tapers. The unsteady velocity cyclic variance distribution is used as reference to establish the border between the blade wakes and the background flow. Results indicate an increase in wake turbulence levels and a slight increase in background turbulence levels with the increase in fan blade loading. The integral length scale of the rotor wakes did not change considerably among the different fan loading analyzed. This contrasts with the values observed for the background flow, which decreased with increasing of fan loading. The rotor wakes seem to be anisotropic, regardless of the fan operating point.Graphical abstract