Zonal Detached Eddy Simulation of the Fan-OGV Stage of a Modern Turbofan Engine

Abstract

Abstract The present article deals with the Zonal Detached Eddy Simulation of the fan module of a modern turbofan engine. The fan module, tested at the AneCom facility, is equipped with rotating fan blades and stationary outlet guide vanes (OGV). The simulation was performed to capture the interaction of the turbulent fan wakes with the OGV walls. The final goal of this simulation is the prediction of the associated broadband noise, not adressed here. In this paper, only the aerodynamic aspects are treated. The simulation relies on a hybrid RANS/LES approach with a zonal strategy: the core airflow is treated in RANS while the bypass airflow is solved with the hybrid approach. Mesh criteria meeting both RANS/LES and acoustic requirements were fulfilled, leading to a mesh of 380 million cells. The simulation was performed during five revolutions and statistical convergence was reached. Inspections of the flow-fields highlight a consistent behaviour of the shielding function (border between RANS and LES solving areas) around the blade walls, at the trailing-edge and in the tip gap flow areas. Comparisons with performance and hot-wire measurements are also presented. Aerodynamic performance and radial evolution of averaged velocities on a plane in-between the fan and the OGV are well retrieved, both in shape and levels. For the turbulent quantities, the shape of the radial profiles are close to the measurements, with much better accuracy in the upper region compared to the RANS solution.