Real Gas Models in Coupled Algorithms Numerical Recipes and Thermophysical Relations

Abstract

In the majority of compressible flow CFD simulations, the standard ideal gas state equation is accurate enough. However, there is a range of applications where the deviations from the ideal gas behaviour is significant enough that performance predictions are no longer valid and more accurate models are needed. While a considerable amount of the literature has been written about the application of real gas state equations in CFD simulations, there is much less information on the numerical issues involved in the actual implementation of such models. The aim of this article is to present a robust implementation of real gas flow physics in an in-house, coupled, pressure-based solver, and highlight the main difference that arises as compared to standard ideal gas model. The consistency of the developed iterative procedures is demonstrated by first comparing against results obtained with a framework using perfect gas simplifications. The generality of the developed framework is tested by using the parameters from two different real gas state equations, namely the IAPWS-97 and the cubic state equations state equations. The highly polynomial IAPWS-97 formulation for water is applied to a transonic nozzle case where steam is expanded at transonic conditions until phase transition occurs. The cubic state equations are applied to a two stage radial compressor setup. Results are compared in terms of accuracy with a commercial code and measurement data. Results are also compared against simulations using the ideal gas model, highlighting the limitations of the later model. Finally, the effects of the real gas formulations on computational time are compared with results obtained using the ideal gas model.