Flow Analyses in a Single-Stage Propulsion Pump

Abstract

Steady-state analyses of the incompressible flow past a single-stage stator/rotor propulsion pump are presented and compared to experimental data. The purpose of the current study is to validate a numerical method for the design application of a typical propulsion pump and for the acoustic analysis based on predicted flowfields. A steady multiple-blade-row approach is used to calculate the flowfields of the stator and the rotor. The numerical method is based on a fully conservative control-volume technique. The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are solved along with the standard two-equation k–ε turbulence model. Numerical results for both mean flow and acoustic properties compare well with measurements in the wake of each blade row. The rotor blade has a thick boundary layer in the last quarter of the chord and the flow separates near the trailing edge. These features invalidate many Euler prediction results. Due to the dramatic reduction of the turbulent eddy viscosity in the thick boundary layer, the standard k–ε model cannot predict the correct local flow characteristics near the rotor trailing edge and in its near wake. Thus, a modification of the turbulence length scale in the turbulence model is applied in the thick boundary layer in response to the reduction of the turbulent eddy viscosity.