Comparison of turbulence methods in CFD analysis of compressible flows in radial turbomachines

The purpose of this paper is to show the superior turbulence method in CFD analysis of radial turbo machines and to introduce the best way to choose turbulence parameters whenever FLUENT user applies this software as a complementary design tool for high‐speed turbo machinery components.

One of the most important issues in CFD is analysis of flow field in turbo machines. Flow in high‐speed radial turbo machinery is a 3D, turbulent and unsteady behavior so needs suitable method for converging. It is clear that the turbulence model has an extraordinary effect on investigation of 3D flows in high‐speed turbo machinery. A centrifugal compressor of micro and radial turbines have been designed and simulated 3D using the commercial CFD‐code FLUENT 6. Three turbulence models k‐ε/standard, renormalization‐group (RNG) and RSM were considered and results of three models were compared with experimental and 1D design results.

The study showed numerical results are compatible with experimental performance data. It determined that RNG method in CFD analysis of radial turbo machines has provided better results than the standard k‐ε method. In addition, when using the RNG method, the phenomena of flow field were more visible than other methods.

This paper offers use of the RNG method as a superior turbulence method in CFD analysis of radial turbo machines.