Axisymmetric viscous flow modeling for meridional flow calculation in aerodynamic design of half-ducted blade rows

A flow modeling for the meridional flow calculation in the aerodynamic design of the half-ducted turbomachinery blade rows has been presented. It is assumed that the meridional flow is axisymmetric and viscous one. To take into account the blade loading, a blade force is introduced as a body force to the axisymmeric Navier-Stokes equations. The blade force contains the inviscid blade effect only, namely, the pressure difference across a blade. Numerical examples have been presented for a wind-lens turbine and a half-ducted propeller fan in order to demonstrate the validity of the present flow modeling. For the wind-lens turbine, the present flow modeling can predict non-uniform flow distributions at the inlet and outlet of the turbine rotor. For the half-ducted propeller fan, however, the formation of the several separated and vortical flow structures results in the well prediction of the inlet flow angle only. It is found that the present flow modeling is useful to the blade row design tool.