Degree
Master of Engineering Science
Program
Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Supervisor
Dr. Chao Zhang
2nd Supervisor
Dr. Eric Savory
Joint Supervisor
Abstract
Curvature effects are investigated in terms of a recently developed curvature corrected turbulence model in turbomachinery applications. Two centrifugal compressor stages and a curved geometry modelled after a centrifugal impeller are simulated using the curvature corrected SST (SST-CC) turbulence model. This work improves the understanding of how the SST-CC model predicts curvature effects. An analysis of the SST-CC production multiplier in both centrifugal cases reveals that the model is appropriately accounting for curvature effects, showing increased production near concave surfaces and decreased production near convex surfaces. This correlates well with the simplified geometry results and demonstrates that the simplified geometry is successfully capturing the curvature effects of the centrifugal stages. A detailed investigation of turbulence quantities in the simplified geometry further demonstrated how curvature effects are predicted by the SST-CC model. Future work will include experimentation on the 1C stage and further comparison with numerical results.
Recommended Citation
Elliott, Kevin J., "Numerical investigation of highly curved turbulent flows in centrifugal compressors and in a simplified geometry" (2012). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 556.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/556