The award will support collaborative research between Dr. B. Lakshminarayana, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, and Professor Francis Leboeuf, Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics Laboratory, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France. The objective of this project is to develop and validate models for turbulence. The flow phenomena in turbines is extremely complex. It is three dimensional, turbulent and unsteady, with substantial influence of rotation, curvature and heat transfer effects. Attempts to predict this flow have not been successful due to inadequate turbulence models. The inability of the Navier- Stokes codes to capture the physical phenomena in turbines and pumps has hampered improvements in design and analytical procedures for the development of high performance turbo- machinery. The aim of this cooperative research effort is to develop turbulence models that incorporate the effects of rotation, curvature, compressibility, three dimensionality and heat transfer. The turbulence transport equation (based on density averaging) and velocity-density covariance transport equations will be modelled to derive algebraic stress transport and Algebraic heat flux equations respectively. These equations, coupled with the turbulent kinetic energy and the dissipation equations, and mean momentum equations, should provide accurate prediction of flow and heat transfer field in turbines and pumps. A validation experiment is also proposed to check the accuracy of modelling, including evaluation of various terms contributing to the turbulent stress and energy, and turbulent heat flux transport equations. This research will benefit from the extensive and complementary expertise of the US and French investigators in turbulence modeling of turbomachinery.
