Numerical investigation of airfoil geometric variations impacts on flow structures in a subsonic fan using Large Eddy Simulation method

The numerical simulation of near-stall condition in a passage of an isolated subsonic rotor is studied in detail. The requirements of numerical simulation in order to resolve turbulent spectra around the blade are studied. According to the fact that most of unsteady aerodynamic phenomena incept from blades leading edge, and the role of this part in types and intensity of instabilities, the goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of changes in radius of leading edge of airfoil on flow phenomena in different scales of wave numbers. The governing equations of flow-field are solved using different numerical approaches. Resolution characteristics of different modeling and simulation techniques are investigated. The primary geometry of blade uses a standard NACA-65 series airfoil, which has been tolerated by 50% variation in circular leading edge radius. Mesh requirements of flow simulation for intended purposes are studied in detail and some recommendations are proposed to be implemented in numerical aeroelastic simulations. Accuracy and fidelity of LES results are studied with extraction of power spectra around the blade and the portion of resolved energy is also estimated. Results suggest that the order of accuracy and grid density highly affect the small-scale flow phenomena. The variations in leading edge radius also have great effect on energy distribution among resolved scales.