The influence of the wake of a flapping wing on the production of aerodynamic forces

The effect of the wake of previous strokes on the aerodynamic forces of a flapping model insect wing is studied using the method of computational fluid dynamics. The wake effect is isolated by comparing the forces and flows of the starting stroke （when the wake has not developed） with those of a later stroke （when the wake has developed）. The following has been shown. （1） The wake effect may increase or decrease the lift and drag at the beginning of a half-stroke （downstroke or upstroke）, depending on the wing kinematics at stroke reversal. The reason for this is that at the beginning of the half-stroke, the wing “impinges” on the spanwise vorticity generated by the wing during stroke reversal and the distribution of the vorticity is sensitive to the wing kinematics at stroke reversal. （2） The wake effect decreases the lift and increases the drag in the rest part of the half-stroke. This is because the wing moves in a downwash field induced by previous half-stroke＇s starting vortex, tip vortices and attached leading edge vortex （these vortices form a downwash producing vortex ring）. （3） The wake effect decreases the mean lift by 6%-18% （depending on wing kinematics at stroke reversal） and slightly increases the mean drag. Therefore, it is detrimental to the aerodynamic performance of the flapping wing.

Computational Cavitation Flows at Inception and Light Stages on an Axial-Flow Pump Blade and in a Cage-Guided Control Valve

Cavitation flows induced around an axial-flow pump blade and inside a high pressure cage-type valve are simulated by a two-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes analysis with the simplest treatment of bubble dynamics. The fluid is assumed as a continuum of homogeneous dispersed mixture of water and vapor nuclei. The analysis is aimed to capture transient stages with high amplitude pressure change during the birth and collapse of the bubble especially at the stage of cavitation inception. By the pump blade analysis, in which the field pressure is moderate, cavitation number of the inception and locations of developed cavitation are found to agree with experimental results in a wide flow range between high incidence and negative incidence. In the valve flow analysis, in which the water pressure of 5MPa is reduced to 2MPa, pressure change responding to the bubble collapse between the vapor pressure lower than 1 KPa and the extreme pressure of higher than 104 KPa is captured through a stable computation. Location of the inception bubble and pressure force to the valve plug is found agree well with the respective experimental features.

Rotating Stall and Stall-Controlled Performance of a Single Stage Subsonic Axial Compressor

Activities by various authors on aerodynamics and control dynamics of rotating stall in axial compressor are first traced. Then, a process of stall cell evolution in a subsonic stage is discussed based on a 2-D CFD. A few numbers of vortices grow ahead of the rotor accumulating vorticity ejected from lightly stalled blades, and eventually organize a cell of circumferentially aligned huge vortices, which merge and recess repeatedly during the rotation. Such stall disturbance is intensified on trailing side of a circumferential inlet distortion and decays on the leading side. Considering these features, a new algorithm for stall warning is developed based on a correlation between pressure waveforms at each passing of a fixed blade. A remarkable change in the correlation level at near-stall provides a warning signal prior to the stall onset with sufficiently large time margin. This scheme is applied to achieve rotating stall prevention by actuating flaps installed on the hub. The last issue is on characteristics of forward swept blade which has much increased throttle margin with decreased tip loss. A 3-D computation shows that a secondary vortex generated in suction surface mid span interacts to reduce the tip leakage vortex that initiates the stall.

Design of a two spool contra-rotating turbine for a turbo-fan engine

Contra-rotating turbines offer enhanced performance over their conventional corotating configurations.In addition,vaneless contra-rotating turbine stages offer lesser stage length along with improved performance.Contra-rotating turbines with a vaned LP stages offer a controlled work-split between the stages over a wider range of operating conditions by maintaining inlet swirl to the second rotor.The objective of the present work is to design an equivalent vaned contra-rotating turbine for an existing co-rotating configuration of a two-spool turbo fan engine.The contra-rotating turbine is designed by retaining the existing flow path and HP turbine,and redesigning the LP turbine for fixed radial distributions of inlet total temperature,pressure and swirl.A comparative study between performance of the co-rotating and contra-rotating turbines is carried out for different speeds.Cascade testing of the LP stator and rotor mean sections was carried out to validate the analysis.The LP stage of contra-rotating turbine exhibits a performance improvement by 2%points at design point,as per flow predictions.The reduced flow deflection in stator row is the primary reason for significant reduction in profile and secondary losses in contra-rotating turbine,which contributed to the performance improvement.A significant reduction of 23%in blade weight and 45% in LP stator vane count is obtained.

Combined Experimental and Numerical Investigations on the Roughness Effects on the Aerodynamic Performances of LPT Blades

The aerodynamic performance of a high-load low-pressure turbine blade cascade has been analyzed for three different distributed surface roughness levels(Ra) for steady and unsteady inflows. Results from CFD simulations and experiments are presented for two different Reynolds numbers(300000 and 70000 representative of take-off and cruise conditions, respectively) in order to evaluate the roughness effects for two typical operating conditions. Computational fluid dynamics has been used to support and interpret experimental results, analyzing in detail the flow field on the blade surface and evaluating the non-dimensional local roughness parameters, further contributing to understand how and where roughness have some influence on the aerodynamic performance of the blade. The total pressure distributions in the wake region have been measured by means of a five-hole miniaturized pressure probe for the different flow conditions, allowing the evaluation of profile losses and of their dependence on the surface finish, as well as a direct comparison with the simulations. Results reported in the paper clearly highlight that only at the highest Reynolds number tested(Re=300000) surface roughness have some influence on the blade performance, both for steady and unsteady incoming flows. In this flow condition profile losses grow as the surface roughness increases, while no appreciable variations have been found at the lowest Reynolds number. The boundary layer evolution and the wake structure have shown that this trend is due to a thickening of the suction side boundary layer associated to an anticipation of transition process. On the other side, no effects have been observed on the pressure side boundary layer.