Comparison of Various Turbulence Models in Rotating Machinery Blade-to-Blade Passages

Numerical calculations on four blade passages are done using Q3D Navier-Stokes solver with a simple mixing length turbulence model and two more advanced transport-equation approaches. Mixing length is simple and cheap but crude, while more sophisticated transport approaches are more physical but more expensive. Predicted results using different turbulent models are discussed and compared with the laminar flow and well documented experimental results. Studies show that the model with more transport-equation predicts improved result as it includes the effects of upstream history into the velocity scale.