The paper presents results of the incorporation of the harmonic nonlinear method into an existing turbomachinery Navier-Stokes code. This approach, introduced by He and Ning in 1998, can be considered as a bridge between classical steady state and full unsteady calculations, providing an approximate unsteady solution at affordable calculation costs. The unsteady flow perturbation is Fourier decomposed in time, and by a casting in the frequency domain transport equations are obtained for each time frequency. The user controls the accuracy of the unsteady solution through the order of the Fourier series. Alongside the solving of the time-averaged flow steady-state equations, each frequency requires the solving of two additional sets of conservation equations (for the real and imaginary parts of each harmonic). The method is made nonlinear by the injection of the so-called deterministic stresses, resulting from all the solved frequencies, into the time-averaged flow solver. Because of the transposition to the frequency domain, only one blade channel is required like a steady flow simulation. The presented method also features a new improved treatment that enhances the flow continuity across the rotor/stator interface by a reconstruction of the harmonics and the time-averaged flow on both sides of the interface. A non-reflective treatment is applied as well at each interface. Validation for analytical and turbomachinery test cases are presented. In particular, results are compared between the harmonic method, steady-state mixing plane and full unsteady calculations. The comparison with the reference full unsteady calculation provides a quantitative indication of the accuracy of the approach, as well as the significant gain in CPU time, whereas the comparison with classical quasi-steady state solutions indicates the gain of accuracy. A multistage compressor flow is also presented to show the capabilities of the method.

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An intermittency transport model is proposed for modeling separated-flow transition. The model is based on earlier work on prediction of attached flow bypass transition and is applied for the first time to model transition in a separation bubble at various degrees of free-stream turbulence. The model has been developed so that it takes into account the entrainment of the surrounding fluid. Experimental investigations suggest that it is this phenomena which ultimately determines the extent of the separation bubble. Transition onset is determined via a boundary layer correlation based on momentum thickness at the point of separation. The intermittent flow characteristic of the transition process is modeled via an intermittency transport equation. This accounts for both normal and streamwise variation of intermittency and hence models the entrainment of surrounding flow in a more accurate manner than alternative prescribed intermittency models. The model has been validated against the well established T3L semicircular leading edge flat plate test case for three different degrees of free-stream turbulence characteristic of turbomachinery blade applications.

The paper presents an experimental and numerical analysis of the interaction between wakes and boundary layers on aerodynamic blade profiles. The experiment revealed that incoming wakes interact with boundary layers and cause the significant increase of velocity fluctuations in the boundary layer and in consequence shift the transition zone towards the leading edge. The full time evolution of periodic wake induced transition was reproduced from measurements. The numerical simulation of the flow around the blade profile has been performed with the use of the adaptive grid viscous flow unNEWT PUIM solver with a prescribed unsteady intermittency method (PUIM) developed at Cambridge University, UK. The results obtained give evidence that the turbulence transported within the wake is mainly responsible for the transition process. The applied CFD solver was able to reproduce some essential flow features related to the bypass and wake-induced transitions and the simulations reveal good agreement with the experimental results in terms of localisation and extent of wake-induced transition.

With the increase of computational power, more sophisticated computational methods can be used, larger systems simulated, and complex phenomena predicted more reliably. Nevertheless, up to now, when turbomachinery systems are numerically optimized, each of the components, i.e., the compressor, combustor, and turbine, is simulated separately from the other two. While this approach allows the use of highly dedicated simulation tools, it does not account for the interactions between the different components. With the purpose to meet the future requirements in terms of low emissions, high reliability and efficiency, a novel, highly efficient, fully-coupled, approach based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) has been developed, enabling a steady or time-accurate simulation of a full aero-engine within a single code. One of the advantages of a steady, fully coupled approach over a steady component-by-component approach, is that the boundary conditions at the interfaces do not need to be guessed. A fully coupled, time-accurate simulation has furthermore the advantage that the effect of the non-uniform temperature distribution at the outlet of the combustor is accounted for in the determination of the thermal field of the turbine. A Smart Interface methodology permits a direct coupling between the different engine components, compressor-combustor-turbine, and allows the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to vary between each component within the same code. This allows the user to switch off, for instance, the combustion model in the turbine and compressor blocks. For the simulation of the combustion process, the Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) method is applied. While the approach is superior to classical tabulated chemistry approaches and reliably captures finite-rate effects, it is computationally inexpensive since it only requires the solution of a few extra scalars and the look-up of a combustion table. The model has been extended so that high-speed compressible flows can be simulated and the potential effects between the combustor and the adjacent blade rows can be accounted for. The Nonlinear Harmonic (NLH) method is used to model the unsteady interactions between the blade rows as well as the influence of the inhomogeneities at the combustor outlet on the downstream turbine blade rows. Compared to conventional time-accurate RANS simulations (URANS), this method is two to three orders of magnitude faster and makes time-accurate turbomachinery simulations affordable. With the aim of ensuring thermodynamic consistency between the different components of the engine, the same form of the energy equation is solved in all engine elements. Furthermore, the same thermodynamic coefficients, which are used to describe the reacting processes in the combustor, are used for a caloric description of the fluid in the compressor and turbine blocks. The thermodynamic data between the blocks is transferred using the OpenLabs™ module. The developed approach is described in detail and the potential of the novel full-engine methodology is exploited on the KJ66 micro-turbine gas engine case. The results of both the steady and the time-accurate, fully coupled approaches are analyzed and the interaction between the different components of the KJ66 engine discussed.