Analysis of fan-stage gap-flow data to inform simulation of fan broadband noise

Time-resolved simulations present a new opportunity for studying the disturbances responsible for the broadband interaction noise created by the fan stage. In this paper, two vane configurations from the source diagnostic test at the approach rotor speed were computed with PowerFLOW's very large-eddy simulation (VLES) method using two solution strategies: a coarser mesh near the rotor and a trip to trigger turbulent transition on the rotor; and a much finer mesh near the rotor with no trip. The simulated data allow for an investigation of the potential effect from the vane configuration and an in-depth study of the mean and turbulent flow in the interstage gap. A challenge related to post-processing of high-resolution simulations is discussed. Comparison of the flow quantities with previously obtained Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes simulation results indicates that little advantage is gained by running a lattice Boltmann method (LBM)/VLES to simply recover the gap flow parameters for use with a lower-order fan broadband interaction noise calculation method. The true benefit of the LBM/VLES is that the noise calculation can be directly and simultaneously completed with the flow simulation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Frontiers of aeroacoustics research: theory, computation and experiment’.