Abstract

In computational fluid dynamics (CFD), unsteady computations are cost-intensive. The Harmonic Balance (HB) method [7] represents a cost-efficient alternative. Here, for timeperiodic flows, the governing equations are recasted in the Fourier domain. In the low Mach regime, the compressible governing equations are stiff. Therefore, densitybased solvers converge slowly. Low Mach preconditioning equalizes the eigenvalues of the system of equations, to improve the condition number and remove the stiffness of the system [14]. In this paper, low Mach preconditioning is applied to the HB method, with emphasis on the non-reflecting boundary conditions (NRBCs). These boundary conditions have a crucial impact on the flow inside the truncated computational domains used in CFD. Improper boundary conditions reflect waves exiting the computational domain and deteriorate the quality of the solution. However, NRBCs [6] avoid spurious reflections. We explain that to precondition the NRBC its formulation in terms of characteristics has to be adapted. An academic wave propagation test case is computed for different wave configurations to validate the preconditioned boundary conditions. The use of non-preconditioned NRBCs in a preconditioned computation leads to instabilities and reflections at the boundaries of the domain. A consistent setup with preconditioned NRBCs improves the stability and leads to good non-reflecting properties for all presented wave configurations.

Abstract

Non-reflecting boundary condition at interfaces for flow simulations in turbomachinery using the method laid out by Giles [1] and Saxer [2] require averages or Fourier decomposition of the flow solution using stations of constant radius at the interface. On structured grids the grid generation process can easily enforce grids having element centers with this property while on unstructured grids this is rarely achievable. We describe an approach which works on an auxiliary mesh with a band structure created from the surface mesh at interfaces and study the influence of the prescribed distribution of the bands on the solution. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by applying it to the simulation of a compressor stage and comparing the results with results obtained by using the existing approach for creating bands and a simulation on a structured grid.