Lessons from Rotor 37

INTanDUCTIONhi1992theturbomachinerycommittee0ftheIoter-nationalGasTurbineInstitute(IGTI)decidedtosetuPatestcaseforCFDcalculations.Aftersomedebateitwasdecidedthatthetestcasesh0uldbecalculated'blind',i.e.thattheexperimentalresultssh0uldn0tbemadeawilableulltilafterthesolutionshadbeensubndtted.NASA(LewisResearchCenter)offeredasuitabletestca-seintheformofahighlyloadedtransoniccompressorrot0rwhichwasthenbeingtestedwitheXtensiveuseoflaseranemometrytomeasuretheiliternalflow.Themeasurementsw…

Lessons from rotor 37

NASA rotor 37 was used as a 'blind' test case for turbomachinery CFD by the Turbimachinery Com-mittee of the IGTI. The rotor is a transonic compressor with a tip speed of 454 m/s (15OO ft/s) anda relatively high pressure ratio of 2.1. It was tested in isolation with a circumferentially uniform inletflow so that the flow through it should be steady apart from any effects of passage to passage geometry variation and mechanical vibration. As such it represents the simplest possible type of test forthree-dimensional turbomachinery flow solvers. However, the rotor still presents a real challenge to3D viscous flow solvers because the shock wave-boundary layer interaction is strong and the effects ofviscosity are dominant in determining the flow deviation and hence the pressure ratio. Eleven 'blind'solutions were submitted and in addition a 'non-blind' solution was used to prepare for the exercise-This paper reviews the fiow in the test case and the comparisons of the CFD solutions with the testdata. Lessons for both the Flow Physics in transonic has and for the application of CFD to suchmachines are pointed out.