Numerical Study of Nonreacting Gas Turbine Combustor Swirl Flow Using Reynolds Stress Model

Abstract

This paper presents recent research on the use of a Reynolds stress turbulence model (RSTM) for three-dimensional flowfield simulation inside gas turbine combustors. It intends to show the motivations for using the RSTM in engine flow simulation, to present a further validation of the RSTM implementation in the KIVA code using the available experimental data, and to provide comparisons between RSTM and k-ε turbulence model results for chemically nonreacting swirling flows. The results show that, for high-degree swirl flow, the RSTM can provide predictions in favorable agreement with the experimental data, and that the RSTM predicts recirculations and high velocity gradients better than does the k-ε turbulence model. The results also indicate that the choice of swirler has a significant influence on the structure of the combustor flowfield.