ALBERT

Description: A computer program, QSONIC, has been developed for calculating the full potential, transonic quasi-three-dimensional flow through a rotating turbomachinery blade row. The need for lighter, more efficient turbomachinery components has led to the consideration of machines with fewer stages, each with blades capable of higher speeds and higher loading. As speeds increase, the numerical problems inherent in the transonic regime have to be resolved. These problems include the calculation of imbedded shock discontinuities and the dual nature of the governing equations, which are elliptic in the subcritical flow regions but become hyperbolic for supersonic zones. QSONIC provides the flow analyst with a fast and reliable means of obtaining the transonic potential flow distribution on a blade-to-blade stream surface of a stationary or rotating turbomachine blade row. QSONIC combines several promising transonic analysis techniques. The full potential equation in conservative form is discretized at each point on a body-fitted period mesh. A mass balance is calculated through the finite volume surrounding each point. Each local volume is corrected in the third dimension for any change in stream-tube thickness along the stream tube. The nonlinear equations for all volumes are of mixed type (elliptic or hyperbolic) depending on the local Mach number. The final result is a block-tridiagonal matrix formulation involving potential corrections at each grid point as the unknowns. The residual of each system of equations is solved along each grid line. At points where the Mach number exceeds unity, the density at the forward (sweeping) edge of the volume is replaced by an artificial density. This method calculates the flow field about a cascade of arbitrary two-dimensional airfoils. Three-dimensional flow is approximated in a turbomachinery blade row by correcting for stream-tube convergence and radius change in the through flow direction. Several significant assumptions were made in developing the QSONIC program, including: (1) the flow is inviscid and adiabatic, (2) the flow relative to the blade is steady, (3) the fluid is a perfect gas with constant specific heat, (4) the flow is isentropic and any discontinuities (shocks) are weak enough to be approximated as isentropic jumps, (5) there is no velocity component normal to the stream surface, and (6) the flow relative to a fixed frame in space (absolute velocity) is completely irrotational. These assumptions place some limitations on the application of QSONIC. Sharp leading edges at high incidence and high-Mach-number turbine blade trailing edges with substantial deviation will both cause large velocity peaks on the blade. In addition, the program may have difficulty converging if the passage is nearly choked. Input to QSONIC consists of case control parameters, a geometry description, upstream boundary conditions, and a rotor description. Output includes solution scheme parameters and flow field parameters. A data file is also output which contains data on the solution mesh, surface Mach numbers, surface static pressures, isomachs, and the velocity vector field. This data may be used for further processing or for plotting. The QSONIC is written in FORTRAN IV for batch execution and has been implemented on an IBM 370 series computer with a central memory requirement of approximately 500K of 8 bit bytes. QSONIC was developed in 1982.