Simulation of unsteady turbomachinery flows using an implicitly coupled nonlinear harmonic balance method
A nonlinear harmonic balance method for the simulation of turbomachinery flows is presented. The method is based on representing an unsteady, time periodic flow by a Fourier series in time and then solving a set of mathematically steady-state equations to obtain the Fourier coefficients. The steady-state solutions are stored at discrete time levels distributed throughout one period of unsteadiness and are coupled via the physical time derivative and at periodic boundaries. Implicit coupling between time levels is achieved in a computationally efficient manner through approximate factorization of the linear system that results from the discretized equations. Unsteady, rotor-stator interactions are performed to validate the implementation. Results based on the harmonic balance method are compared against those obtained using a full unsteady, time-accurate calculation using moving meshes. The implicitly coupled nonlinear harmonic balance method is shown to produce a solution of reasonable accuracy compared to the full unsteady approach but with significantly less computational cost. Copyright © 2011 by ASME.
