AIAA-87-0006

Calculation of Unsteady Wake/Rotor

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Interact ions

Michael B. Giles
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

AlAA 25th Aerospace Sciences Meeting

4

January 12-15, 1987/Reno, Nevada

For permission to copy or republish, contact the American Institute of AeroMPutict and Mmnautlct
1633 Broadway, Ntw York. NY 10019

Calculation of Unsteady Wake/Rotor Interaction

Michael B. Giles
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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Abstract

Subscripts

Thin paper preseuta * nuruaricai analys;. uf nah-e/rotor

interaction using a time-marching solution of the unsteady,
nonlinear Euler equations. The incoming wakes are specified through the unsteady in0ow boundary conditions. The
lagged periodic boundary condition which arises due to unequal rotor/atator pitches is handled by a new technique
which inclines the computational plane in time. Comparison of results for a 0at plate cascade with results using a linear analytic theory demonstrate the methods capability to
accurately predict unsteady forces, moments and radiated
aound. Results for a low-speed turbine are in agreement
with earlier work.

is

in1
iW
08

Variables
C

c
D
E
H
J*

WI,l,S.4

W
a
7
P

AT

x
w

Introduction

In the past the calculation of the 00w in turbomachinery has been largely based upon the approximation that
the Bow in each stator or rotor row is steady in the frame
of reference of the stator or rotor. In actuality the Eow
is inherently unsteady. In two dimensions there are three
dominant causes of unsteadiness. The first is wakelrotor
interaction in which the wakes produced by a stator row
are then swept downstream into the next rotor row. The
second is vortex shedding at trailing edges. The third is
the potential stator/rotor interaction in which the pressure
field associated with the leading edge of a rotor sweeps past
the trailing edge of an upstream stator, causing additional
unsteadiness at the trailing edge and possibly affecting the
vortex shedding mechanisms.

Nomenclature
4

steady inlet variable in rotor frame

specified inlet variable in rotor frame
specified inlet variable in wake frame
steady outlet variable in rotor frame

speed of sound
axial chord length
maximum wake velocity defect
stagnation energy
stagnation enthalpy
Riemann invariants
preaaure
rotor and stator pitches
speed
velocity components
upstream axial velocity
wheel speed
characteristic variables
fractional wake width
coordinates

The purpose of this paper is to present and evaluate a

numerical method for the investigation of the wakelrotor
interaction. In the future this method will lead to a more
complete analysis of the full, unsteady viscous atator/rotor
interaction. The wakelrotor interaction problem is reiatively simple because it is essentially inviscid, meaning that
although viscous forces generated the stator wakes the visCOUB forces are not particularly important in the dynamics
of their subsequent interaction with the downstream stator row. Thus the problem can be modelled by solving the
Euler equations for the inviscid Bow through a rotor row,
with the wakes being imposed through the unsteady infiow
boundary conditions.

flow angle
ratio of specific heats
density
time lag in periodic b.c.s
ATIPr
frequency, %VIP,

Another important reason for calculating wakelrotor interaction is to be able to predict noise generation. One of
the questions in the development of counter-rotating p r o p
fans and ultra-high-bypass turbofans is the level of noise
which ia produced. Assuming that the fans are separated
sufficiently so that they are outside each others moving
potential Eeld, then one of the principal noise sources is
the wakelrotor interaction since the wakes decay very llt-

Charles Stark Draper Assistant Proleasor. Member A I A A .

Cowright QAmerlcsn Inatltute of Acronsutlc. and A s t r o nautic., h e . . 1087. All rlghta reserved.

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tle before entering the rotor passage. Because the fans are
transonic and highly loaded, simple linear theories are inadequate, and EO it is important to use the nonlinear, unsteady Euler equations to predict the noise generation, and
to check the accuracy on simple test cases for which linear
theory is d i d .
Experimental studies of wake/rotor interactions have
been performed by Kenebrock and Mkolajcaak 111 for compressors, and by Binder et d [2] and Hodson [3]for turbines.
These studies show that the dominant effects are inviscid,
with the leading order behavior being simply that the wake
vorticity and entropy is convected by the mean flow. The
next order effect is the wake migration, which is due to the
fact that the wake acts ad a 'negative jet' relative to the
mean Bow, and so afier the wake is cut inlo aegmenta Ly
the blade row the segments migrate towards the pressure
surface for compressors and towards the suction surface for
turbines.

On the theoretical side, Smith [4] developed a linear theory for subsonic flow, in which he considered small perturbations about uniform flow past a flat plate cascade at
zero incidence. The theory calculates the magnitudes of the
unsteady forces, moment, trailing edge vortex sheet and radiated pressure waves, in response to either incoming wakes
and pressure waves or blade flutter. The theory leads to an
integral equation which must be solved numerically, and
Whitehead has implemented this method in an extremely
fast program [5]. Unfortunately, Smith also showed that
in experiments the steady-state loading significantly affects
the results and EO his theory is best applied in only lightly
loaded cascades.
To calculate the nonlinear effects one must turn to more
recent computational methods. The most important work
in this area is by Rai [6],who has calculated the unsteady,
viscous rotor/stator interaction, using a sliding interface
between grids which are fixed in the rotor and stator frames
of reference. A limitation of his approach however is the
assumption that the rotor and stator have equal pitches, or
alternatively that there are an equal number of rotor blades
and stator blades. In practice the stator pitch is usually
greater than the rotor pitch, by a factor which can be up
to 1.5, or even larger. A numerical approach to treating
unequal pitches was developed by Erdos [7] for the analysis
of inviscid rotor/stator interaction. The same approach
was ala0 used by Hodson [SI in calculating a wakelrotor
interaction. In this paper we use a new approach which
requires fewer assumptions about the periodic nature of the
flow, and will allow the investigation of various interesting
phenomena which would not be possible using the Erdos
method.

process are the unsteady, two-dimensional Euler equations,

which allow for the effects of compressibility and only neglects viscous forces. The Euier equations, written in vector
form, are
au
aF aG
at = - (82 + %) I
where U,F and G are four component vectors given by,

The presmre and tot31 enthalpy are related to the density, velocities and total energy by the following two equ&
tions which assume a perfect gas with a constant specific
heat ratio.
p

(3)

H = E + -P

(4)

These equations also apply in the rotor frame of reference

if relative velocities, total energy and total enthalpy are
used. The use of the Euler equations in this conservative
form differs slightly from the approach used by Hodson [SI,
who replaced the energy equation by the convected entropy
equation, which limits its application to subsonic flows.
The numerical method which is used to solve these
unsteady Euler equations is Ni's explicit Lax-Wendroff
method. This method is already well-documented [9,lO]
and so the details will not be repeated here. The implementation of the method uses an unstructured grid composed
of quadrilateral cells, allowing flexibility in grid generation,
and a cell-coloring algorithm which enables the main portion of the program to be fully vectorized on both vector
processors and multi-processor architectures. Full details
are available in another report [ I l l . This paper will instead
concentrate on the boundary conditions which are applied
for both steady and unsteady flows.

3
3.1

Boundary Conditions
Solid Wall Faces

At solid walls the analytic boundary condition is that

there is no 0ow normal to the wall. Computationaliy this
is implemented by simply setting equal to zero the mass
flux through solid wall faces.

Numerical Method
3.2

= ( 7 - 1 ) ( P E - i P ( U 1 + u',)

The primary assumption in this paper is that viscous

forces are relatively unimportant in the interaction between
a rotor row and the wakes from an upstream stator row.
Consequently the equations which are used to model this

Periodic Nodes

For steady flows, and unsteady flows with equal wake and
rotor pitches, the periodic boundary condition is a s t a t e
ment that the 0ow on one periodic boundary is exactly the

The subscript in[ denotes a prescribed inlet Bow variable

and the subscript is denotes the steady inlet flow in the
absence of the wakes.

same as the flow at the corresponding point on the other

periodic boundary at the same time.

U ( z , y , t )= U ( z , y + P , t )

(5)

w , , w ~ and w, are the incoming entropy, pressure and

vorticity waves respectively and so these are set equal to
zero to impose the condition that there are no incoming
waves other than the wakes which are prescribed through
the specified inlet Bow model. ws is the outgoing pressure
characteristic and so this is extrapolated from an interior
node just inside the boundary. Thus new values for p , u,v
and p can be determined and the solution updated along
the inEow boundary.

Computationally it is implemented by adding the u p

date contributions that one periodic node obtains from its
contributing cella to the Contributions that the other corresponding periodic node obtains from its cells, and using
the sum to update the Eow variables at both nodes, eo that
the solution is identical at the two nodes.

3.3

Steady Farfield Boundary Conditions

A similar implementation is used at the outflow bouudary except that now w ~ , w aand wd are extrapolated from
an interior node and wg Is specified to be zero. The characteristic variables are now defined by,

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The three analytic boundary conditions at the inflow are

specifled total enthalpy, total pressure and Bow angle. To
complete the equations for the inflow piane an additional
numerical boundary condition is required, and so the outgoing Riemann invariant J - defined by

w,

=
WJ

w,

- P o s ) - (P - P o s ) / 4 s
(u - U08) + (P - Pos)/PosCos
(P

= -(. - U O S )
=
(v - %a)

(8)

+ (P - P o s ) / P o s ~ o s

is extrapolated from an interior node just inside the boundary. The entire solution vector is then found in closed form
from these four conditions.

where the subscript o s denotes the steady outlet flow. This

formulation can be modifled to include the effect of potential interactions from a downstream stator row [ll].

The analytic boundary condition at the outtlow is chosen

to be the specified static pressure and the three numerical
boundary conditions which are use t o complete the system
are the extrapolation of the entropy, Eow angle and outgcing Riemann invariant J+ from the interior node.

The major shortcoming of this characteristic approach

is the quasi-lD aseumption which results in the partial reEection of pressure waves whose wavecrests are not parallel
to the inflow or outflow boundaries, as will be seen later
in the results. Fortunately, the errom produced by this
false reflection appear to be small. An improved boundary
treatment would be to use the higher-order non-reflecting
boundary condition proposed by Engquist and Majda [15].
This would produce much smaller reflections, but to the
authors knowledge this haa not yet been attempted for the
Euler equations.

3.4

Unsteady Farfield Boundary Conditions

The unsteady far-Eeld boundary conditions are based

upon unsteady I-D characteristic theory. The solution at
the intlow is split into two parts, a specitled unsteady inflow given by a wake model which will be dicussed in the
next section, and a perturbation part which corresponds
to outgoing pressure wavee generated by the wake/rotor
interaction. This perturbation approach to the boundary
conditions is similar to the perturbation methods used for
the interior equations by Chow [12] and Roberts [13]. The
assumption is now made that the perturbation waves are
plane waves with minimal variation in the circumferential
direction, and so one-dimensional characteristic theory can
be applied to End the form of the outgoing and incoming
characteristics.

3.5

Wake Models

The wake model which ie currently used assumes that

in the stator frame the wake flow is parallel, with uniform
static pressure and uniform total enthalpy, and some prescribed periodic velocity defect distribution.
Piw
uiw
viw

= Pis
= Pia (1 - / ( v ) ) cos(qs)
= Pia (1 - f ( v ) ) s i n ( q s )

(9)

Following the work of Yee et d., [14], the perturbation

characteritics can be expressed as,
w,

(P

= (u - U i n l ) + (P - Pinl)/Piscis
= -(u - U i n l ) + (P -Pini)/piacis

w,

(V

The subscript iW denotes inlet-wake values in the wake

frame of reference and is denotes inlet-steady values, which
are obtained from a prior calculation of a steady Eow in the
rotor frame. 7 is defined as,

- Pini) - (P - Pini)/cia

wa

w2

(7)

- Vini)
3

and f ( q ) is a periodic function (with period 1)which defines

the velocity defect distribution. Three models which have
been used for different applications are;
I. Sinusoidal:

f(n)

= D sin('&$)

2. Gaussian: f(7)= D exp(-qa/2Wa)

3. Hodson [SI: f(n) = D (max(0,l

- 131a l a )) a

-4

4,

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These equations define f($) for

< v < and perifor other values of q . D is the maxodicity defines I($)
imum fractional velocity defect, and W is the fractional
wake width.
The assumption that the total enthalpy is uniform is an
approximation for adiabatic blades. One could also specify a periodic variation in the total enthalpy to model the
effects of injected film cooling or cooled blades.
The Bow variables in the rotor frame of reference, which
are required for the inlet boundary conditions, are obtained
from the values in the wake frame by a straightforward
Galilean transformation.

4
4.1
'4

Arbitrary Wake/Rotor Pitch Ratios

Lagged Periodic Condition

(11)

meaning that what is happening on the lower periodic line

is exactly the same as is happening on the upper periodic
line at exactly the same time. When the stator pitch is
differentfrom the rotor pitch this has to be changed. Taking
the usual case in which the stator pitch is larger than the
rotor pitch, then an incoming wake (moving downwards in
the rotor frame) crosses the inlet boundary/upper periodic
boundary junction a small time AT after the neighboring
wake crosses the inlet/lower periodic junction, see Fig. 1.
The time lag is equal to the difference in pitches divided by
the rotor wheel speed.

AT = (Ps - P,)/V

One advantage of the numerical implementation to be

discussed is that nowhere is it assumed that the Bow is temporally periodic (satisfying U ( z ,y,t) = U ( z , y , t t P 8 / V ) in
the rotor frame). The original approach to the lagged p e
riodic condition due to Erdos 171, and used by Hodson [Si,
requires this assumption which places an additional restriction on the validity of the solution.

Computational Approach

Computationally it is very easy to enforce the spatial periodicity for steady fiows, as described in an earlier section.
For unsteady Bows with the lagged periodicity condition
it was desired to have as simple an implementation. This
led to the following idea: suppose that instead of a computational %me level' being at a iixed time, it is sloped in
time such that if a node at y=O is at time t , then the corresponding periodic node at y =Pr is at time t+AT, and so
once again one has simple spatial periodicity in this inclined
computational plane. Fig. 2 illustrates this concept.
Mathematically this corresponds to the following coordinate transformation.

= z
Y) = Y
2)

(14)

(12)

Thus the inlet boundary conditions satisfy the lagged

periodic condition,

U(z,y,f) = U(z,y+P,,f+AT).

As an example, consider vortex shedding from a turbine row. Imposition of spatially periodic boundary conditions forces the solution to exhibit synchronous shedding,
in which each blade sheds vortices of the same sign at the
same time. However it may be true that in actuality the
blades shed at the same time, but shed vortices of alternating sign, with one blade shedding a vortex of positive sign
at the same time that its two neighbors shed vortices of negative sign. This would be an example of a spatial subharmonic whose period is ZP,. Mathematically, the spatially
periodic solution produced by the program would be a valid
solxtion to the unsteady Eulerequationa, but it waul2 have
a linear, subharmonic instability which would grow into
the fully nonlinear, subharmonic shedding. In this case to
compute the true solution would require a computational
domain spanning two blade passages. .

4.2

As discussed earlier, when the pitch ratio is unity the

periodic boundary condition is simply,
U(Z,Y,t) = U ( z , y + P , O ,

timevarying coefficients) produce solutions with a subharmonic component, a component whose period is a multiple
of the original period.

(13)

The next step is to apply this lagged periodic condition to

the upper and lower periodic lines. Strictly speaking this
is an assumption about the nature of the Bow produced by
the wake rotor interaction. There are many examples in
mathematics (including some fairly simple examples in dynamics) in which periodic terms (either as forcing terms or

In this new coordinate system each computational plane

corresponds to t' =constant. When one transforms the unsteady Euler equations the resultant equations are,
B
aF OG
-(U- XG) +
+ --j = o
(15)
at'
azt a y
with X = AT/P,. Thus, the conservation state variables
have changed from U to U - AG. An alternative way of
arriving at the same conclusion is to consider the conservation cell shown in Fig. 3 in the original (y,t) plane. The flux
through the %me-like" face is UAy GAf = (U-AG)Ay.

.
)

The change in the conservation variables requires juat

minor changes to the Lax-Wendroff algorithm, because fortunately one can calculate U from 0 = U-XG in closed
form for a perfect gas.

[ Pitch/chord

I 0.57735

(PJC)
nola>
angle)
..o__

Stagger angle (steady Bow

Mach number (steady Bow)
Pitch ratio ( P 8 / P r )

30"
30
..
0.7

1.0

Table 1: Parameters for Bat plate caacade test case

q,

-+,P(u

7-1

-+i(u
(77_p1

+ul)-Xw

+Ul)

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5.1
Eliminating u and v using the laat three equations gives
a quadratic equation for p.

-Z B ~ +=
Co

(20)

(21)

This has solutions.

Table 1 lists the relevant parameters for the geometry,

steady Eow and wakes. These values were chosen somewhat arbitrarily to give a good comprehensive test case,
with the negative wake Bow angle chosen to correspond to
a compressor. The magnitude of the wake velocity defect
was however considered very carefully. The value of 5%
which waa used was found to be large enough to avoid difficulties with machine accuracy (which would be a problem if
a value such as 0.01% had been used) and small enough that
the solution remained linear. This latter part was verified
by Fourier transforming the resultant pressure distribution
on the blade, and checking that the magnitude of the second Fourier mode of both the lift and the moment, wan less
than 1% of the first, linear mode.

The positive root is chosen because this gives the correct

value in the limit A = O . u , u and p are then obtained from,

Comparison with linear theory

To quantitatively validate the program UNSFLO which

implements the method described above, we consider a relatively simple linear test case, the addition of low amplitude
sinusoidal wakes to a steady uniform flow past an unloaded
Eat plate cascade. As discussed in the introduction, this
case can be analyzed using the program LINSUB, developed by Whitehead [ 5 ] baaed upon the theory of Smith (41.
The sinusoidal wake is clearly not a good approximation to
an actual physical wake, but a real wake can be decomposed
into its Fourier components and with this linear theory each
component can be analyzed separately and then the results
summed to obtain the unsteady lift and moment. Anyway,
for the purposes of validating the current method a single
sinusoidal wake is a perfectly good test case.

where,

= (7+1)AP
B = p i -.\'IS
c = (7-1)(2919. - 9: - 9

Results

91

1 - xu

To modify the usual Ni method this process of converting

from A Q to AU needs to be done for both the changes in
U for each cell (needed to calculate the second order Eux
terms) and the changes in U for each node (after summing
the Bux contributions from the neighboring cella). The total additional work which these changes require is approximately 15%, a surprisingly small cost.

Computational results using UNSFLO,the new program,

were carried out on two grids, 200x25 and 500x40, with
both grids extending one axial chord length upstream and
downstream from the blade row. On each grid the calculation waa continued for enough periods to ensure that the
unsteady lift and moment were converged to within 1%.
For the coarse grid, which started from uniform Bow initial
conditions, this took 15 periods, requiring 20 CPU minutes
per period on a MicroVax II. For the Bne grid, which started
from the coarse grid results, this took 6 periods, requiring
2.5 CPU hours per period.

This same procedure can also be applied to any other numerical method for solving the Euler equations. A future
paper will discuss the numerical stability of these modifred
schemes and will show that for transonic 00ws the maximum time step can be increased (sometimea by a large
factor) leading to significant overall savings in CPU for the
calculation of steady and unsteady transonic Bows.

Fig. 4 shows contour plots of the entropy and pressure

at one instant in time, using the results from the fine grid.

'.c/

The entropy plot shows there is a small amount of nnmerical diffusion which tend. to reduce the peak values, thereby
eliminating the peak contonn. Note the slight distortion of
the entropy contour linea in the blade passage, with the
maximum entropy l i n g spreading out on the pressure surface and the minimum entropy linea spreading out on the
suction surface. This is consistent with the observations
and theory of Kerrebrock and Mikolajczak [lI for a compressor. Alao, the shearing of the entropy lines behind the
blade is an indication of the unsteady vortex sheet which
extends from the trailing edge.
The pressure plot shows that upstream of the blade row
there is an outgoing plane pressure wave, resulting from the
wake/rotor interaction, with a small amount of a pressure
wave of phase angle 0 = 380'. For sxbscnit 9 ~ a a, p r e s
snre wave of the form ezp(ikz i++y/P, - i w t ) will only
propagate for values of 4 in a flnite range. In this case the
relevant range is -220' < < 5 S 0 , and given the periodic
boundary conditions this further restricts to jnat the two
0 and 360' seen in the reanlts. Furthermore,
poaibilitiea '
)
the ratio of the amplitude of these two ( A ~ s o / A ogiven
by LINSUB is approximately 0.15 which is consistent with
the preasnre contonn produced by UNSFLO. On the downstream side the corresponding ratio is 1.04, and this is again
in qualitative agreement with the UNSFLO resnlta which
have a mnch more complicated contour pattern downstream
of the blade. There is some indication in the contour plot
of peculiarities in the neighborhood of the ontEow bonndary. This might be due to the trailing vortex sheet passing
through the boundary, or may be due to the quasi-normal
assumption used in formulating the non-reflecting bonndary conditions. However, as we will now aee, this has no
apparent effect on the blade pressures.

111 1 i
I

UNSFLO

LINsuB

200x25
400x50
extrap.

Lift
I
Real
hag
-0.480 -0.311
-0.497 -0.468
-0.503 -0.520
-0.501 -0.517

Moment
I
Real
hag
-0.296 -0.064
-0.337 -0.141
-0.351 -0.167
-0.347 -0.166

Table 2: Unsteady lifts and moments for flat plate caacade

table also presents extrapolated results. The extrapolation

uses the information that for Ni's numerical method, uaing
a smoothing coetacient which is proportional to the mesh
spacing, as w a s done here, the leading order error is proportional to the square of the mesh spacing. Thus,

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++

'w

To obtain a quantitative comparison the unsteady preasure8 from UNSFLO were Fourier transformed, and then
non-dimenaionalized in exactly the same manner aa LINSUB, using the product of the mean density, the mean
speed, and the maximum wake velocity normal to the blade.
To be able to compare phase results the wake definitiona at
the inflow are specifled such that the centeriine of the wake
pasaes through the blade leading edge at the beginning of
the period. Figs. 5 and 6 show the real and imaginary components of the complex amplitude of the first Fourier mode
of the pressure jump acroea the blade. The aymbola are
the resnits obtained from LINSUB, using sufficiently many
terms in the solution of the integral equation arising from
the analytic theory that the integral lift and moment are
correct to within 0.1%. The solid lines are the UNSFLO
results from the fine grid. Qualitatively the agreement is
very good although the l/\/j;singularity at the leading edge
cauaes some minor oscillations. Quantitatively the agreement is within about 5% over most of the blade, the excep
tiona being at the leading edge and near z = 0.25. which is
the point on the blade which is nearest to the leading edge
on the neighboring blade.
Table 2 compares the unsteady lift and moment coefficients. On the c o m e grid the error is approximately 30%,
while on the flne grid the error is approximately 7%. The

The extrapolated values are in excellent agreement with

the LWSUB values, to within 1% which is the same order
of magnitude as errors due to nonlinearitiea and not being
completely converged to a periodic solution.
This test case shows that UNSFLO is capable of correctly predicting the unsteady lift and moments due to
a wake/vortex interaction provided the grid is sufficiently
flne. It is also reasonable to infer that the radiated pressure waves are being correctly calculated, and a 0 UNSFLO
is also capable of predicting the noise generated. Additional post-processing software will need to be developed
to extract this information from the results. The third conclusion is that there seem to be no aigniflcant adverse conaeqnences from using the quasi-normal approximation in the
non-reflecting boundary conditions. For practical purposes
if the error that is introduced is lesa than 1%then it is not
necessary to develop higher order treatments such as that
suggested by Engqniat and Majda 1151.

5.2

Hodson's low-speed turbine

The second teat case is a low-apeed turbine which was

teated by Hodacn, and which Hodson also simulated numerically using a method developed by Denton. The pnrpose of this teat case is to demonstrate the capability of
the method to analyze cases in which the wake and rotor
pitches differ. Table 3 lists the relevant flow parameters.
Problems arise with this case because of the extremely
low inlet Mach number. The numerical integration procedure has the restriction that the time step cannot be greater
than the time taken for a pressure wave to crosa a computational cell. This is an unavoidable restriction for explicit
achemea because one cannot violate domain of dependence
limits. Since the time scale for convection of vorticity and
entropy is mnch longer this means that the number of time
steps needed per period is greatly increased at low Mach
numbers. The second problem is that there is also a dcmain of dependency limit on A, the factor which defines

This paper has presented an analysis of wakejrotor interaction using Nis Lax-Wendroff timemarching method
to solve the unsteady, nonlinear Euler equations. The
boundary condition treatment splits the solution into a prescribed part, which defines the incoming wakes, and a perturbation part which corresponds to the outgoing pressure
waves and which is handled using simple quasi-normal onedimensional characteristic theory.

Inflow angle

0.15

Table 3: Parameters for Hodson low-speed turbine

Results for an unloaded flat plate cascade compared with

an analytic, linear t h e o j s&oW t i i t ;

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the extent to which the computational plane is inclined in

time. The restriction is that the plane cannot be inclined
more than any of the pkyjical Zharacteristics, beczxs? the2
one would essentially be reversing time. At low Mach numbers this problem is more severe and so in this caae one
must modify the numerical procedure outlined earlier. Instead of performing the calculation with one wake and one
blade pasaage, we perform it with two wakes and three blade
passages. Now if the pitch ratio were exactly 1.5 then no
further changes would b e needed. Since the actual value is
1.417, X in chosen to make up the difference, by exactly the
same procedure as before but with 2Ps and 3Pr replacing
Pa and P, respectively. Further details on this procedure
are given in reference Ill]. The one obvious disadvantage
with this multi-passage approach is that the computational
work increaaes. Fortunately, at higher Mach numbers more
typical of aero gas turbines this is much less of a problem.

Given a sufficiently fine grid the Euler calculation produces the correct unsteady lift and moment to within
1%,

At least qualitatively the Euler calculations predict the

correct noise generation and unsteady pressures on the
blades,
There appears to be no significant adverse consequences from the quasi-normal onedimensional assumption in the non-reflecting boundary conditions.
Results for a low-speed turbine agree qualitatively with
previous numerical work and demonstrate the ability to analyze cases with different wake and rotor pitches using a
new numerical technique in which the computational plane
is inclined in time.

At present we do not have any quantitative comparisons

with Hodsona calculation. However, we do have qualitative
comparisons. Fig. 7 shows the entropy contours and unsteady flow vectors obtained by Hodson [e]. The unsteady
Bow vectors are obtained by subtracting the mean flow vectors from the instantaneous flow vectors. Fig. 8 show the
results calculated by UNSFLO. The grid which waa used
waa 1oOr25 for each blade passage and this required 8 minutes CPU per period on a threeprocesaor ALLIANT FX/8,
a vector/paraUel minisupercomputer which for thia method
is approximately 20 times faster than a McroVax II. Ten
periods were calculated to achieve a fairly periodic solution.
The velocity vectors are drawn to approximately the same
scale but the entropy contour levela are not the same. For
the sake of clarity, the velocity vectors for both the Hodson results and the present results are drawn at only one
quarter of the computational nodes.

.,

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Denia Whitehead and Dr. Howard

Hodson for their help in providing the test cases. This
research waa supported by Rolls-Royce, Inc. and the Office
of Naval Research under Contract No. N00014-81-K-0024.

References
[l] J. L. Kerrebrock and A. A. Mikolajczak. Intra-Stator
l h w p o r t of Rotor Wakes and Its effect on Compressor

Performance. ASME Paper 70-GT-39, 1970.

[2] A. Binder, W. Forster, H. Kruse, and H. Rogge. A n

The results appear very similar although the entropy contours produced by U N S F M are rather more ragged because entropy is derived from the solution, whereaa in Hodsons calculation entropy is one of the primary variables
because he replaced the energy equation by the entropy
equation. The entropy results show the deformation of the
wake due to the faster flow in the center of the blade p w
sage, and the wake migration towards the suction surface.
The unsteady velocity vectors clearly show the negative
jet behavior of the wake and the generation of two counterrotating vortices due to the rolling up of the two halves of
the cut wake segment.

Ezperimentd Inuedigation into the Efects of Wakes on

the Unstendy lbrbinc Rotor Flow. ASME Paper 84GT-178, 1984.
[3] H. P. Hodson. Mewurements of Wake-Generated Un.
steadiness in the Rotor Pwsages of A z i d Flow lbrbinrs.
ASME Paper 84GT-189, 1984, . . . ?~ . . ?.

<*

[4]

S. N. Smith. Discrete Frequency Sound Generation

in A z i d Flow Turbomachinea. University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering Report CUED/ATurboJTR 29, 1971.

[SI D.

S. Whitehead. LINSUB Users Guide. Peraonal

communication, 1986.

[GI M. M. Rai. Navicr-Stokes Simulation6 of Rotor-Stator

Interaction Udng Patched ond Overlaid Gridr. AIAA
Paper 85-1519, 1985.

[7] J. I. Erdos, E. f i n e r , and W. McNally. Numerical

Solution of Periodic Transonic Flow Through a Fan
Stage. AIAA Journal, Vol. 15:pp. 1559-1568, Nov
1977.

Downloaded by PURDUE UNIVERSITY on August 5, 2016 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.1987-6

[8]H. P. Hodaon. An Inviscid Blode-to-Blade Prediction

of a Wake-Generated Umtcady Flow. ASME Paper 84GT-43, 1984.

[SI R.-H. Ni. A Multiple Grid Scheme for Soiving the Euler Equations. AIAA Journal, VOl. 2O:PP. 1565-1571,
Nov 1981.

Figure I: Origin of lagged periodic boundary condition

[lo] M.G. Hall. CelbVerfez Multigrid Schemes for Solution

of the Euler EquafiOM. Technical Report 2029, Royal
Aircraft Establishment, Mar 1985.
1111 M. Giles. UNSFLO: A Numcricol Method for Colculat-

ing Umteody Stator/Rotor Interaction Technical Report TR-858, MIT Computational Fluid Dynamics
Laboratory, 1986.

T. H.Pulliam, and J.L. Steger. A Gcnerd Perturbation Approach f o r the Equation6 of Fluid
Dynamics. AIAA Paper 83-1903, 1983.

[12] L. J. Chow,

[13] T. W. Roberts and E. M. Murman. Eulcr Solutiona f o r

the Flow Around a Hovering Helicopter Rotor. AIAA

Paper 861784, 1986.

[14] H. C. Yee, R. M. Beam, and R. F. Warming. Stable Boundary Approzimation6 for the One-Dimenaional
J
AIAA Paper 81Inviscid Equations of G ~ Dynamics.
1009, 1981.

Pr

Figure 2 : Concept of inclined computational plane

1151 B. Engquiet and A. Majda. Absorbing Boundary Conditions for the Numerical Simulation of Waves. Mathematics of Computation, Vol. 31:pp. 629-651, July 1977.

Figure 3: Inclined conservation cell

il

4.

2.

-0.

APi
.-2.

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3.5

3.0

-UNSFLO

-4.

LINSUB

2.5

-6.
(

2.0

0.2

0.4

0.0

1.o

0.8

Figure 5: Real component of flat plate pressure jump

1.5

Y
W

1.

8.
0.5

6.

0.0

-0.5

-UNSFLO

4.

LINSUB

AP~
-1.0
2.
-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

0.

Figure 4: Flat plate pressure and entropy contours

-2.
(

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Figure 6: Imaginary component of eat plate pressure jump

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3.h

10