The design/analysis of flows through turbomachinery - A viscous/inviscid approach

A new design/analysis system for the flows through turbomachinery is currently being developed for studying turbomachinery problems with an axisymmetric viscous/inviscid 'average-passage' throughflow code. The advantage of this approach, compared to streamline curvature codes, is that the solutions obtained simulate some of the unsteadiness, compressibility and viscous effects of a multistage turbomachine. The design/analysis system consists of three elemental parts, the axisymmetric block grid generator, the blade surface element code, and the axisymmetric flow code. Each element of the system will be discussed and the flow solutions for three axisymmetric geometries will be shown compared to experimental data where available. The computations are shown to be in very good agreement with test data for SR7 spinner body and transonic boattail geometry obtained in the wind tunnels at NASA Lewis Research Center. The VIADAC Rotor 67 Fan results were compared to PARC2D calculated results and shown to be in very good agreement.