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Whole-annulus aeroelasticity analysis of a 17-bladerow WRF compressor using an unstructured Navier-Stokes solver

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 23:20 authored by X Wu, M Vahdati, A Sayma, M Imregun
This paper describes a large-scale aeroelasticity computation for an aero-engine core compressor. The computational domain includes all 17 bladerows, resulting in a mesh with over 68 million points. The Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are used to represent the flow in a non-linear time-accurate fashion on unstructured meshes of mixed elements. The structural model of the first two rotor bladerows is based on a standard finite element representation. The fluid mesh is moved at each time step according to the structural motion so that changes in blade aerodynamic damping and flow unsteadiness can be accommodated automatically. An efficient domain decomposition technique, where special care was taken to balance the memory requirement across processors, was developed as part of the work. The calculation was conducted in parallel mode on 128 CPUs of an SGI Origin 3000. Ten vibration cycles were obtained using over 2.2 CPU years, though the elapsed time was a week only. Steady-state flow measurements and predictions were found to be in good agreement. A comparison of the averaged unsteady flow and the steady-state flow revealed some discrepancies. It was concluded that, in due course, the methodology would be adopted by industry to perform routine numerical simulations of the unsteady flow through entire compressor assemblies with vibrating blades not only to minimise engine and rig tests but also to improve performance predictions.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics

ISSN

1061-8562

Issue

3

Volume

19

Page range

211-223

Pages

13.0

Department affiliated with

  • Engineering and Design Publications

Notes

This paper presents large-scale Aeroelasticity computations of an entire aero-engine intermediate pressure compressor. The computational method leads to the prediction of the performance and forced response levels of all compressor blades in a single calculation. The method presented in this paper was used for the first time in the certification programme of the Trent-900 aero-engine which powers the Airbus A380. The methodology developed is now being used at Rolls-Royce plc during the design and certification of new engines and for the analysis and troubleshooting of in-service problems. For more details, contact George Simpson from Rolls-Royce plc: Tel: 01332244980

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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