Dr. Jen-Ping Chen, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at The Ohio State University, is working to improve the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that engineers use to simulate and evaluate the operation of turbomachinery. Chen was the chief architect of that type of computer code, named TURBO, which he developed earlier for NASA.
Chen is leveraging the computational power of the Ohio Supercomputer Center to refine the software as it validates the flow field of engine components, specifically as it applies to high-pressure compressors and low-pressure turbines.
While traditional wind tunnel testing is often the most straightforward approach, it also comes with high costs and severe constraints on placing the measurement probes. Numerical simulation, using CFD, has provided an alternative for studying such flows at a lower cost and with unconstrained probe placement. Yet, the accuracy of a simulation depends on the accuracy of the mathematical model behind the simulation.
Chen’s team is investigating three specific areas of current industrial interest: coupled fluid-structure interaction, active flow control, and turbine film cooling. Improved numerical simulation will allow engineers to analyze complex flow fields and aeroelastic phenomena, such as flutter, limit-cycle oscillations, forced response, nonsynchronous vibrations, and separated-flow vibrations, which arise from fluid-structure interaction.
Application of a newly developed flow control simulation model for vortex-generating jets in low-pressure turbines will help improve engineers’ understanding of how flow control can be used to increase the performance and operability of gas turbine engines. Simulations can help engineers accurately predict the effectiveness of film cooling on heat transfer in a three-dimensional, unsteady, rotating environment with actual engine geometry.
