THE DEVELOPMENT OF FLOW DISTORTIONS AT THE FAN FACE FOR AN AXISYMMETRIC SUPERSONIC INLET

摘要

As a parallel effort to complement the experimental study on the aeroacoustics of an axisymmetric supersonic inlet, a computational study was conducted to provide a better understanding of the mechanism that generates the circumferential flow distortion at the fan face. A three-dimensional, compressible Navier-Stokes code using a finite volume method was used to calculate the flow field of the inlet with the struts located near the fan face. At 60% design fan speed, the computational results revealed a large region of three-dimensional separation on the centerbody downstream of the inlet throat. The influence of the struts on this separated flow resulted in a strong secondary flow pattern, creating a region of large circumferential distortion at the fan face near the centerbody. While the distortion caused by the strut wake shows significant reduction in a distance of half a strut chord downstream from the trailing edge of the strut, the distortion created by the secondary flow is much more persistent, and shows little sign of decay as it is converted downstream. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited. [References: 20]