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This two part document contains copies of the text and figures for the papers presented at the symposium held at NASA Langley on 20 to 22 May, 1987. The papers are grouped in five subject areas. The areas covered by this part includes the following: Methods for vortex and viscous flows; Aeroelastic applications, and Experimental results and cascade flows.
A user-oriented computer program, CAS22, was developed that is applicable to aerodynamic analysis and transonic shock-free redesign of existing two-dimensional cascades of airfoils. This FORTRAN program can be used: (1) as an analysis code for full-potential, transonic, shocked or shock-free cascade flows; (2) as a design code for shock-free cascades that uses Sobieczky's fictitious-gas concept; and (3) as a shock-free design code followed automatically by the analysis in order to confirm that the newly obtained cascade shape provides for an entirely shock-free transonic flow field. A four-level boundary-conforming grid of an O type is generated. The shock-free design is performed by implementing Sobieczky's fictitious-gas concept of elliptic continuation from subsonic into supersonic flow domains. Recomputation inside each supersonic zone is performed by the method of characteristics in the rheograph plane by using isentropic gas relations. Besides converting existing cascade shapes with multiple shocked supersonic regions into shock-free cascades, CAS22 can also unchoke previously choked cascades and make them shock free.
Analysis of transonic flow through a cascade of airfoils is investigated using the finite element method. Development of a computational grid suitable for complex flow structures and different types of boundary conditions is presented. An efficient pseudo-time integration scheme is developed for the solution of equations. Modeling of the shock and the convergence characteristics of the developed scheme are discussed. Numerical results include a 45 deg staggered cascade of NACA 0012 airfoils with inlet flow Mach number of 0.8 and angles of attack 1, 0, and 1 deg.
The theory of cascades, made up of a series of flat plates placed one behind the other, is extended to the case where the impinging stream is not uniform, and the deduced properties of this cascade-flow are then applied to the study of the wall interference between such as cascade-like boundary and a vortex-source type of singularity. It is shown that the induced velocities, produced by the presence of such a wall, are equal to what is obtained by action of a suitably chosen 'reflected' singularity situated on one side of the wall, together with the action of another suitably chosen 'transmitted' singularity placed on the other side. The concepts of a reflection factor and a transmission factor are introduced to characterize various types of tunnel boundary, whether this is composed of solid wall, open and closed sequences, or just a free fluid surface. These ideas are then extended to cover the situation in which a pair of such walls are allowed to coalesce, especially in the event that one of the walls consists of open and closed portions and the other is a fluid surface. This latter particular combination of boundaries is called a perforated wall. Finally, the interference arising from an arbitrary general singularity placed symmetrically in between two such perforated walls is analyzed, and these results are then applied to the determination of the particular kinds of wall geometry that will produce no interference effects in the case of a slender lifting wing and also in the case of a symmetric profile having a finite thickness.
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The solution of two-dimensional full potential equation for the analysis of steady transonic flow through cascades is investigated. Finite element method is employed in the analysis. Accuracy and efficiency of the obtained numerical solutions are discussed in terms of the employed computational grid. Accurate modeling of subsonic and supersonic flow regions together with the shock is discussed. The choice of artificial viscosity and relaxation factors are examined and related to the design of a computational grid. Shock capturing and shock fitting procedures are compared for improved accuracy and efficiency. Numerical results include cascades of Gostelow and NACA 0012 airfoils.
A linearized unsteady aerodynamic analysis for axial-flow turbomachinery blading is described in this report. The linearization is based on the Euler equations of fluid motion and is motivated by the need for an efficient aerodynamic analysis that can be used in predicting the aeroelastic and aeroacoustic responses of blade rows. The field equations and surface conditions required for inviscid, nonlinear and linearized, unsteady aerodynamic analyses of three-dimensional flow through a single, blade row operating within a cylindrical duct, are derived. An existing numerical algorithm for determining time-accurate solutions of the nonlinear unsteady flow problem is described, and a numerical model, based upon this nonlinear flow solver, is formulated for the first-harmonic linear unsteady problem. The linearized aerodynamic and numerical models have been implemented into a first-harmonic unsteady flow code, called LINFLUX. At present this code applies only to two-dimensional flows, but an extension to three-dimensions is planned as future work. The three-dimensional aerodynamic and numerical formulations are described in this report. Numerical results for two-dimensional unsteady cascade flows, excited by prescribed blade motions and prescribed aerodynamic disturbances at inlet and exit, are also provided to illustrate the present capabilities of the LINFLUX analysis.
The unsteady flow field around an oscillating cascade of flat plates with zero stagger was studied by using a time marching Euler code. This case had an exact solution based on linear theory and served as a model problem for studying pressure wave propagation in the numerical solution. The importance of using proper unsteady boundary conditions, grid resolution, and time step size was shown for a moderate reduced frequency. Results show that an approximate nonreflecting boundary condition based on linear theory does a good job of minimizing reflections from the inflow and outflow boundaries and allows the placement of the boundaries to be closer to the airfoils than when reflective boundaries are used. Stretching the boundary to dampen the unsteady waves is another way to minimize reflections. Grid clustering near the plates captures the unsteady flow field better than when uniform grids are used as long as the 'Courant Friedrichs Levy' (CFL) number is less than 1 for a sufficient portion of the grid. Finally, a solution based on an optimization of grid, CFL number, and boundary conditions shows good agreement with linear theory.
A preliminary investigation was conducted to establish the theoretical basis of perturbation techniques with the objective of minimizing computational requirements associated with parametric studies of transonic flows in turbomachines. The theoretical analysis involved the development of perturbation methods for determining first order changes in the flow solution due to variations of one or more geometrical or flow parameters. The formulation is primarily directed toward transonic flows on the blade to blade surface of a single blade row compressor. Two different perturbation approaches were identified and studied. Applications and results of these methods for various perturbations are presented for selected two dimensional transonic cascade flows to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. Additionally, it was found that, for flows with shock waves, proper account of shock displacement was crucial.
A frequency domain linearized unsteady aerodynamic analysis is presented for three-dimensional unsteady vortical flows around a cascade of loaded airfoils. The analysis fully accounts for the distortion of the impinging vortical disturbances by the mean flow. The entire unsteady flow field is calculated in response to upstream three-dimensional harmonic disturbances. Numerical results are presented for two standard cascade configurations representing turbine and compressor bladings for a reduced frequency range from 0.1 to 5. Results show that the upstream gust conditions and blade sweep strongly affect the unsteady blade response.
By use of the methods of thin airfoil theory, which include effects of compressibility, relations are developed which permit the rapid determination of the pressure distribution over an unstaggered cascade of airfoils of a given profile, and the determination of the profile shape necessary to yield a given pressure distribution for small chord/gap ratios. For incompressible flow the results of the theory are compared with available examples obtained by the more exact method of conformal transformation. Although the theory is developed for small chord/gap ratios, these comparisons show that it may be extended to chord/gap ratios of order unity, at least for low-speed flows. Choking cascades, a phenomenon of particular importance in compressor design, is considered.
Boundary value problems for incompressible inviscid flow past partially cavitating cascade of cambered blades
Three-dimensional flow field measurements are presented for a large scale transonic turbine blade cascade. Flow field total pressures and pitch and yaw flow angles were measured at an inlet Reynolds number of 1.0 x 10(exp 6) and at an isentropic exit Mach number of 1.3 in a low turbulence environment. Flow field data was obtained on five pitchwise/spanwise measurement planes, two upstream and three downstream of the cascade, each covering three blade pitches. Three-hole boundary layer probes and five-hole pitch/yaw probes were used to obtain data at over 1200 locations in each of the measurement planes. Blade and endwall static pressures were also measured at an inlet Reynolds number of 0.5 x 10(exp 6) and at an isentropic exit Mach number of 1.0. Tests were conducted in a linear cascade at the NASA Lewis Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade Facility. The test article was a turbine rotor with 136 deg of turning and an axial chord of 12.7 cm. The flow field in the cascade is highly three-dimensional as a result of thick boundary layers at the test section inlet and because of the high degree of flow turning. The large scale allowed for very detailed measurements of both flow field and surface phenomena. The intent of the work is to provide benchmark quality data for CFD code and model verification.
Theoretical analyses and computer codes are being developed for predicting compressible unsteady inviscid and viscous flows through blade rows. Such analyses are needed to determine the impact of unsteady flow phenomena on the structural durability and noise generation characteristics of turbomachinery blading. Emphasis is being placed on developing analyses based on asymptotic representations of unsteady flow phenomena. Thus, flow driven by small-amplitude unsteady excitations in which viscous effects are concentrated in thin layers are being considered. The resulting analyses should apply in many practical situations, lead to a better understanding of the relevent physics, and they will be efficient computationally, and therefore, appropriate for aeroelastic and aeroacoustic design applications. Under the present phase (Task 3), the effort was focused on providing inviscid and viscid prediction capabilities for subsonic unsteady cascade flows.
The three-dimensional flow in a turbomachinery blade row was approximated by correcting for streamtube convergence and radius change in the throughflow direction. The method is a fully conservative solution of the full potential equation incorporating the finite volume technique on body fitted periodic mesh, with an artificial density imposed in the transonic region to insure stability and the capture of shock waves. Comparison of results for several supercritical blades shows good agreement with their hodograph solutions. Other calculations for these profiles as well as standard NACA blade sections indicate that this is a useful scheme analyzing both the design and off-design performance of turbomachinery blading.
Supercavitating flow past straight cascade with arbitrary blade shapes, considering lift and drag coefficients, cavitation number, cavity shape and exit flow conditions
The design of turbomachinery blades requires the prevention of flutter for all operating conditions. However, flow field predictions used for aeroelastic analysis are not well understood for all flow regimes. The present research focuses on numerical solutions of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations using an ADI procedure to model two-dimensional, transonic flow through oscillating cascades. The model prescribes harmonic pitching motions for the blade sections for both zero and nonzero interblade phase angles. The code introduces the use of a deforming grid technique for convenient specification of the periodic boundary conditions. Approximate nonreflecting boundary conditions were coded for the inlet and exit boundary conditions. Sample unsteady solutions were performed for an oscillating cascade and compared to experimental data. Also, test cases were run for a flat plate cascade to compare with the unsteady, small-perturbation, subsonic analyis. The predictions for oscillating cascades with nonzero interblade phase angle cases, which were near a resonant condition, differ from the experiment and theory. The zero degree interblade phase angle cases, which were near a resonant condition, differ from the experiment and theory. Studies on reflecting versus nonreflecting inlet and exit boundary conditions show that the treatment of the boundary can have a significant effect on the first harmonic, unsteady pressure distributions for certain flow conditions.
The design of turbomachinery blades requires the prevention of flutter for all operating conditions. However, flow field predictions used for aeroelastic analysis are not well understood for all flow regimes. The present research focuses on numerical solutions of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations using an ADI procedure to model two-dimensional, transonic flow through oscillating cascades. The model prescribes harmonic pitching motions for the blade sections for both zero and nonzero interblade phase angles. The code introduces the use of a deforming grid technique for convenient specification of the perioidic boundary conditions. Approximate nonreflecting boundary conditons were coded for the inlet and exit boundary conditions. Sample unsteady solutions were performed for an oscillating cascade and compared to experimental data. Also, test cases were run for a flat plate cascade to compare with the unsteady, small-perturbation, subsonic analysis. The predictions for oscillating cascades with nonzero interblade phase angle cases, which were near a resonant condition, differ from the experiment and theory. The zero degree interblade phase angle cases, which were near a resonant condition, differ from the experiment and theory. Studies on reflecting versus nonreflecting inlet and exit boundary conditions show that the treatment of the boundary can have a significant effect on the first harmonic, unsteady pressure distribution for certain flow conditions.