Influences of Turbulence Boundary Conditions on RANS and URANS Simulations for an Inter-Turbine Duct
Abstract In recent years, lot of turbine research is focused on the study and optimization of inter-turbine ducts, an aero-engine component for which the design is becoming more challenging due to the turbofan architecture evolution. Starting from the early design phase, the knowledge of the component performance and outlet flow pattern is crucial in the design of the low pressure turbine. To improve prediction, multi-row unsteady simulations are deployed. Unfortunately, some questions arise in the use of these simulations, among others the knowledge of the turbulent boundary conditions and the contribution of the unsteady simulations to the flow solution. In this paper steady and time resolved RANS simulations of a turning inter-turbine duct are investigated. Particularly, two questions are addressed. The first one is the influence of the turbulent quantities boundary conditions in the case of a k–ω Wilcox turbulence model in the flow field solution. The second one is the contribution of the unsteadiness to the mean flow prediction. It will be shown that the mean flow depends on inlet turbulence only if the turbulence length scale is relatively high; otherwise the flow field is almost turbulence-invariant. For the unsteady simulations, unsteadiness modifies the mean flow solution only with low inlet turbulence.