The Development and Application of a Time-Domain Harmonic Balance Flow Solver

Time periodic unsteady flows are often encountered in turbomachinery. Simulating such flows using conventional time marching approach is very time-consuming and hence expensive. To handle this problem, several Fourier-based reduced order models have been developed recently. Among these, the time-domain harmonic balance method solves the governing equations purely in the time domain and there is also no need for the turbulence model to be linearized, making it easy to be implemented in an existing RANS code. Thus, the time-domain harmonic balance method was chosen and incorporated into an in-house Navier-Stokes flow solver. Several test cases were performed for the validations of the developed code. They cover standard unsteady test cases such as the low speed vortex shedding cylinder flow and the Sajben transonic diffuser under periodically oscillating back pressure. Further, two different practical turbomachinery unsteady flows were considered. One is a transonic fan under circumferential inlet distortion and the other is the rotor-stator interactions in a single stage compressor. The results illustrate the capability of the harmonic balance method in capturing the dominant nonlinear effects. The number of harmonics should be retained in the harmonic balance method is depend on the strength of the nonlinear unsteady effects and differs from case to case. With appropriate number of harmonics retained, it can resolve the unsteady flow field satisfactory, meanwhile, reducing the computational time significantly. In a word, the harmonic balance method promise to be an effective way to simulate time periodic unsteady flows.