EFFECT OF PITCH TO CHORD RATIO AND SIDE WALL EXPANSION ANGLE ON FLOW THROUGH VANE SWIRLERS

摘要

This paper is concerned with the computational study of steady flow through the vane swirlers. Swirl flow field characteristics for various pitch chord ratio (s/c) at swirler mean radius are studied for a 45° vane swirler under both sudden and gradual expansions with side-wall expansion angles of 90° and 45° respectively. In the computational study the geometry and meshing is done using pre-processor GAMBIT. Three-dimensional flow within the geometry and through the swirler has been simulated by solving the appropriate governing equations viz. conservation of mass and momentum using FLUENT code. Turbulence effects are taken care of by the Reynolds stress model and shear stress transport k-ε model for high swirls and standard k-e model for low and medium swirls. The effect of pitch to chord ratio (s/c) on flow characteristics have been studied. The predicted results are validated with the experimental data available in the literature for s/c ratio of 1. The numerical results of axial velocity profiles downstream of the swirler at various axial planes are found to be in close agreement with the experimental results. It is found that the s/c ratio of 1 provides good turning efficiency.