This paper reports results from numerical simulations of the flow in pre-swirl cooling air delivery systems. Two different systems have been investigated corresponding to experimental rigs for which measured data is available. The rigs are representative of aero-engine conditions. The difference in the performance of the two rigs has been addressed. The flow in the pre-swirl nozzles and in the pre-swirl chambers has been investigated separately. For the pre-swirl chamber a simplified model, in which the nozzle is replaced by a slot, has been used to reduce the computational effort required. Nevertheless numerical results are in good agreement with experimental measurements. It is shown that the difference in the geometry of the pre-swirl chambers is largely responsible for the difference in performance of the rigs. Numerical results have also been compared with predictions from a previously published simplified model. An adjustment of the empirical constants in the simple model has been proposed in order to improve the prediction of the moments in the pre-swirl chamber.
Results of fully unsteady numerical simulations of the flow in a direct transfer pre-swirl system are presented and compared with previously published experimental data from an aero-engine representative rig. The conditions considered include those where strong unsteady effects were observed experimentally. Two different rig builds are considered, with the main difference being in the design of the pre-swirl nozzles. The agreement between calculation and experiment is very good in terms of nozzle and receiver hole discharge coefficients and in identifying significant unsteady effects at certain conditions. Predicted cooling air delivery temperatures are lower than those measured. This may be due to heat transfer and other effects in the rig which have not been modelled. Present unsteady results also show agreement, where appropriate, with earlier steady CFD and an elementary model. Both calculations and measurements show similar performance in terms of delivery temperature for the two different builds studied, despite significant difference in pre-swirl nozzle discharge coefficients for the two builds. The calculations indicate that this is associated with the nozzle velocity coefficient being considerably higher than the discharge coefficient in one case.
The objective of the research described here is to develop and demonstrate use of automatic design methods for pre-swirl nozzles. Performance of pre-swirled cooling air delivery systems depends critically on the design of these nozzles which is subject to manufacturing and stress constraints. The best solution may be a compromise between cost and performance. Here it is shown that automatic optimisation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to evaluate nozzle performance can be useful in design. A parametric geometric model of a nozzle with appropriate constraints is first defined and the CFD meshing and solution are then automated. The mesh generation is found to be the most delicate task in the whole process. Direct hill climbing (DHC) and response surface model (RSM) optimisation methods have been evaluated. For the test case considered, significant nozzle performance improvements were obtained using both methods, but the RSM model was preferred.
The objective of the research described here is to develop and demonstrate use of automatic design methods for preswirl nozzles. Performance of preswirled cooling air delivery systems depends critically on the design of these nozzles which is subject to manufacturing and stress constraints. The best solution may be a compromise between cost and performance. Here it is shown that automatic optimization using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to evaluate nozzle performance can be useful in design. A parametric geometric model of a nozzle with appropriate constraints is first defined and the CFD meshing and solution are then automated. The mesh generation is found to be the most delicate task in the whole process. Direct hill climbing (DHC) and response surface model (RSM) optimization methods have been evaluated. For the test case considered, significant nozzle performance improvements were obtained using both methods, but the RSM model was preferred.
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