General Equation Set Solver for Compressible and Incompressible Turbomachinery Flows

Turbomachines for pro pulsion applications operate with many different working fluids and flow conditions. The flow may be incompressible, such as in the liquid hydrogen pump in a rocket engine, or supersonic, such as in the turbine that may drive the hydrogen pump. Separate codes have traditionally been used to solve incompressible and compressible flows. The General Equation Set (GES) method can be used to solve both incompressible and compressible flows, and it is not restricted to perfect gases, as are many compressible -flow turbomachinery solvers. It also contains preconditioning for acceleration of steady -state simulations or rapid elimination of initial transients in unsteady simulations. An unsteady GES turbomachinery flow solver has been developed and applied to flow s through turbomachinery components operating in both liquids and gases. It has been shown to be a versatile technique for solving a wide range of turbomachinery flow problems. NOMENCLATURE