DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MECHANICS MOTI LAL NEHRU NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ALLAHABAD

SEMINAR REPORT
ANALYSIS OF FLOW CONTROLS IN Y-DUCT DEFFUSER

NITHIN HEGDE 2011FE12

CFD ANALYSIS OF FLOW CONTROLS IN Y-DUCT DIFFUSER

INTRODUCTION Aircraft propulsion systems often use Y-shaped subsonic diffusing duct as airintakes to supply the ambient air into the engine compressor to compress the air, so the thrust generation. For many military applications the inlet geometry is important for stealth requirement. A serpentine inlet can be used to hide the line of sight to the compressor face in order to reduce the infra-red signature.

Source of losses in intake diffuser:

Losses due to Friction on the walls of the duct. Flow separation due to adverse pressure gradient as well as due bends. Flow separation causes total pressure distortion, this cause flow nonuniformity at compressor inlet so the asymmetric loading on compressor blade. The distortion is a significant cause of premature engine surge.

Major separation control techniques used in intake diffuser:

Tangential blowing to directly energize the low momentum region near the wall. Wall suction to remove low momentum region. Vortex generator (VG) in the form of vanes. Forced excitation devices. 1st and 2nd are very effective in controlling separation. However, these strategies requires a high mass flux source, thus they are rarely used. In VG produces strong vortices which enhance the mixing between high momentum core flow and low momentum boundary layer flow, thus energizing the boundary layer flow.

Most of single engine military aircrafts consists of a Y-shaped twin airintake duct, which is mounted on either sides of the fuselage and carries atmospheric air in to the compressor. The air intake of the aircraft supplies the mass flow demand of the engine over a range of aircraft speeds and altitudes with high pressure recovery and at minimum flow distortion. Due to space constraint, the diffusers need to be curved, which causes severe flow non-uniformity at the engine face and separation on the curved surface causes flow distortion. Total pressure distortion at the engine face is one of the parameters that contribute to intake losses (Seddon and Goldsmith, 1995). The distortion causes premature engine surge and flow non-uniformity which may cause range of undesirable effects including asymmetric loading of the compressor blades.

OBJECTIVE The present study attempt to control flow in a mild-curved Y-duct diffuser using trapezoidal-shaped submerged co-rotating vortex generator (VG) attached on the top and bottom surface of inflection plane. Which ensures duct with co-rotating VG higher static pressure recovery, lower total pressure loss, minimum flow distortion and less flow non-uniformity as compared to bare Y-duct diffuser.

Geometry:
Bare duct: Y-duct diffuser with 20 turning angle (plane-B). Straight length of 75mm is added to outlet for proper boundary layer growth. Inlet area of diffuser was chosen as 75*75 mm2 (plane-A&F). The duct is tapered to an outlet width of 200mm (plane-D). The area ratio for the Y-duct is 1.33.

Top view of Y-duct diffuser

Isometric view of Yduct diffuser

Geometry of Y-duct with co-rotating VG at top and bottom surface at inflexion plane: Type Co-VG 13.5 h1 (mm) 2.0 h2 (mm) 4.0 L (mm) 11.0 l (mm) 10.7

Schematic diagram of VG

Isometric view of Y-duct with counter rotating VG

Grid generation:

Grid Independency test: Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 No. of Grid Csp Elements 60984 0.1313053 108000 164052 239250 261120 493848 0.127469 0.124053 0.122255 0.121075 0.121018 Total CPU Time* 1hr. 30min. 2hr. 15min. 2hr. 30min 3hr 3hr 20min 4 hr. 15min

CPU CAPACITY: 2.2GHz DUAL CORE PROCESSORS WITH 4GB RAM.

Skewness test:
1. For bare Duct:

Hexahedral meshing is done on whole domain. Total 261120 elements are crated. Boundary layer is created near the wall to capture near wall effects. Boundary conditions are given as; o Velocity inlet at plane A and F. o Pressure outlet, o Planes B, C, D, E are interiors. o And remaining walls.

2. Duct with Co-rotating VG:

Mesh Quality: Applying quality criteria for hexahedra cells. Maximum cell squish = 6.07381e-001 Maximum aspect ratio = 6.23260e+00

Solver:
For validation of result RNG k- turbulence model is used. In this model transport equation solved for turbulent Kinetic energy (k) and rate of dissipation (). This model is derived from instantaneous Navier-stokes equations, using a mathematical technique called renormalization group (RNG) method. The effect of swirl on turbulence is included in the RNG model, so enhancing accuracy for swirling flows. Transport equations for RNG - model:

Where:

o Gk and Gb are generation of turbulent K.E. due to mean velocity gradients and buoyancy resp. o YM is represents the contribution of the fluctuating dilatation in compressible turbulence to the overall dissipation rate. o k and are the inverse effective Prandtl numbers for and k resp. o S and S are user-defined source terms for and k resp.

Enhanced wall treatment method is used to account for boundary layers formed during grid generation. Second order upwind discretization scheme is employed. For pressure and velocity coupling, SIMPLE (semi-implicit method for pressure linked equations) scheme is employed. Convergence criteria are set as 10-5 for all solutions. No-slip condition is set for duct walls.

Boundary conditions:
Turbulent kinetic energy k =1.5*(Uavi * I)2 , Turbulence dissipation rate = (C3/4 k 3/2 )/L Where; L=turbulence length scale=0.07*Lc, Lc=characteristic length, I = turbulent intensity = 0.16 (Re)-1/8, C = turbulent model constant.

Velocity inlet conditions;

Velocity profile is given at inlet. Re=1.009526*105, Lc =0.075m, C =0.0845. I=0.037897, k =0.83283 m2/s 2, = 22.689 m2/s 3.

Pressure outlet conditions;

Zero gauge pressure is set at exit condition. Lc =0.2m, C =0.0845. I=0.037897, k =0.83283 m2/s 2, = 8.5084 m2/s 3.

Residual curve:

Contour plots:
1. Contour of total pressure at plane-D:

Without VG

With VG

2. Static pressure contour at mid-plane of Y-duct diffuser:

Without VG

With Co-VG

3. Contour of velocity magnitude at mid-plane of the Y-duct diffuser:

Without VG

With Co-VG

Results and Discussion:

1. Static pressure recovery coefficient(C PR ): It is described as the ratio of rise in average static pressure with respect to the inlet to the average dynamic pressure at inlet. i.e. CPR = (PS PSi)/(0.5Uavi2) Where, PS and Psi are the static pressure at any point and at inlet respectively.

2. Total pressure loss coefficient (CPR) : It is defined as ratio of total pressure loss with respect to the inlet to the average dynamic pressure at inlet. i.e. CTL = (Pti Pt )/(0.5Uavi2) Where, Pti and Pt are total pressure at inlet and at any point. Validation of CPR and CTL for bare duct:

A.R Paul, P Ranjan, R.R upadhyay, A jain. Flow control in Y-shaped air-intakes using vortex generators.37th

National & 4th International conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power

Comparison of CPR and CTL for duct with co-rotating VG on top and bottom surface of the wall and Bare duct:

CTL

Static pressure recovery is improved in case of diffuser with co-rotating VG as compared to bare duct. It is noted that total pressure loss coefficient CTL variation is less in case of VG attached on top and bottom walls.

3. Secondary flow Non-uniformity (Sio): The non-uniformity index (Sio) at duct outlet (plane-D) i.e. Aerodynamic Inlet Plane (AIP) can be defined as the average of the sum of secondary velocities (Uyz in y-z plane), nondimensionalized by dividing by the average velocity at the inlet.

Sio=
i.e. where, Uyz = (u y 2 uz 2 ) , n=number of computed data point. Uavi=19.67m/s=average velocity at the duct inlet. o Below data is calculated by taking the data of velocities at y and z direction in plane-D. Bare duct; Sum (Uyz ) = 732.7766203, n = 3360, Uavi=19.67 m/s. i.e. Sio = 732.7766203/(3360*19.67) Sio = 0.011087355. Duct with co-VG: Sum (Uyz ) = 596.1312887, n = 2520, Uavi=19.67 m/s. i.e. Sio = 596.1312887/(2520*19.67) Sio = 0.0120264. Validation of Sio:

My result
Bare duct 0.01108 Co-vg 0.012026

Paper result*
Bare duct 0.010 Co-vg 0.011

From above table it is noted that S io value records only a slight increase in case of VG.

A.R Paul, P Ranjan, R.R upadhyay, A jain. Flow control in Y-shaped air-intakes using vortex

generators.37th National & 4th International conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power.

4. Axial flow Non-uniformity : It is the mean standard deviation in the axial velocity measured at a crossplane of air-intake and is expressed as,

Where, Ux is the longitudinal velocity, Uxav is the average of longitudinal velocity and n is the number of computed data points. o Below data is calculated by taking the x-velocity component at plane-D. Bare duct: Uxav=8.7684927, (Sum (Ux-Uxav))2 = 117093.8112, n=3360, 0.5 =(117093.8112/3360) = 5.903333 Duct with co-vg: Uxav = 10.97623351, (Sum (Ux-Uxav))2 = 77044.24644, n=2520 0.5 =(77044.24644/2520) = 5.5292959. From above it is noted that, axial flow non-uniformity( ) is decreases in case co-rotating VG attached on top and bottom surface of the duct as compared to bare duct.

 Validation of axial flow non-uniformity( ): My result Bare duct 5.903 Duct with Co-vg 5.529 Paper result* Bare duct 5.420 Duct with Co-vg 5.208

A.R Paul, P Ranjan, R.R upadhyay, A jain. Flow control in Y-shaped air-intakes using vortex generators.37th

National & 4th International conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power.

5. Momentum thickness ():

Momentum thickness () value is an indicative of momentum deficit in the boundary layer. This deficit increase the chances of the flow separation in yduct diffusers .

Calculations: o For bare duct:

Velocity profile at plane-D along y-axis line

Boundary layer thickness =0.021104mm Then, momentum thickness () = (2/15)* i.e. =2.813867mm

o For duct with co-vg:

Velocity profile at plane-D along y-axis line

Boundary layer thickness =0.02004mm Then, momentum thickness () = (2/15)* i.e. =2.672mm

 Validation of momentum thickness (): My result Bare duct 2.814 Duct with co-vg 2.672 Paper result Bare duct 2.60 Duct with co-vg 2.48

6. Distortion pressure coefficient (DC60):

Since the total pressure distortion causes surge or buzz at the exit of the y-duct and is responsible for the intake losses. This phenomenon leads to a range of undesirable effects including asymmetric loading of the compressor blades.
The distortion is designed in terms of distortion coefficient (DC60) in worst 600 sectors. i.e.

DC60 = (Pte P60)/(0.5Uavi2)

Where Pte is the total at the duct exit (plane-D) and P60 represents

the total pressure at the duct exit.

Bare duct total pressure contour map at exit plane-D

Worst 600 sector:

Avg. total pressure at exit plane-D = 103.42638 pa Avg. total pressure at worst 600 sector at exit = 41.15 pa Now, DC60 = (103.42638-41.15)/(0.5*1.225*19.672) DC60 = 0.2627898

For duct with co-VG total pressure contour map at exit plane-D:

At worst 600 sector:

Avg. total pressure at exit plane-D = 101.26767 pa Avg. total pressure at worst 600 sector at exit = 45.62256 pa Now, DC60 = (101.26767-45.62256)/(0.5*1.225*19.672)
DC60 = 0.2348

The use of VG on the inner surface of the duct promotes better mixing of two flow fields and results in decrease in DC 60 values in the Y-duct diffuser.

Validation of DC60:
My result Bare duct 0.2627898 Duct with co-vg 0.2348 Paper result Bare duct 0.259 Duct with co-vg 0.223

Boundary layer at inflexion plane:

u= 0.99*Uavg = 0.99*19.5 u = 19.305m/s, Boundary layer thickness =4.448mm

Hence height of VG used less than 4.448 mm, therefore we can say that VG used is submerged vortex generator type (SVG).

Summary of results: Bare duct Type DC60 Sio

My result paper result % error

Co-VG at top and bottom surface of the duct

My result paper result % error

0.263 0.01108 5.903 2.814

0.259 0.010 5.420 2.60

1.52 9.74 8.18 7.6

0.2348 0.01203 5.53 2.672

0.223 0.011 5.208 2.48

5.02 8.56 5.82 7.18

Conclusion:
VG attached to top and bottom walls of the Y-duct diffuser have an effect on flow uniformity at its outlet. It is noted that axial flow non-uniformity( ) is decreases in case co-rotating VG attached on top and bottom surface of the duct as compared to bare duct. Static pressure recovery is improved in case of diffuser with corotating VG as compared to bare duct. Momentum thickness is decreases in case co-rotating VG attached on top and bottom surface of the duct as compared to bare duct, which indicates delay in flow separation. Attaching the VG distortion at the exit of the duct is decreases as compared to bare duct.

REFERRENCES: 1. A.R Paul, P Ranjan, R.R upadhyay, A jain. Flow control in Y-shaped airintakes using vortex generators.37th National & 4th International conference on fluid mechanics and fluid power December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India. 2. Control of Compressor Face Total Pressure Distortion on a High Bypass Turbofan Intake using Air-Jet Vortex Generators. S.D. Erbsloh and Dr. W.J. Crowther The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, M13 9PL J.R. Frutos FEMTO-ST Institute, LPMO Department, 25044 Besanon, France. 3. Ansys Fluent 12.0 theory guide, April 2009. 4. Flow Control Analysis of S-duct Diffuser Inlet. Lian.Xiaochun Zhang.Lifen Wu.Dingyi School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shaanxi 710072. 5. Flow Improvement in Rectangular Air Intake by Submerged Vortex Generators. A.R. Paul, K. Kuppa, M.S. Yadav and U. Dutta, Journal of Applied Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 4, No. 2, Issue 1, pp. 77-86, 2011.

Remarks: