Mechanical Engineering
1st PhD Graduate Seminar
NOTICE OF SEMINAR PRESENTATION
CANDIDATE: Amelia George
DEGREE SOUGHT: PhD
DATE: 7/4/2025
TIME: 11:30am
PLACE: Room 1102 CEI
TITLE: Aerodynamic design of a low-speed fan analogous to a transonic fan
Abstract
This presentation will discuss the process of designing a low-speed fan (LSF) rig, which is in development to produce validation data for novel computational models used for predicting fan stability limit with inlet distortion. The design constraints are unusual in that, rather than trying to maximize performance at a design point with suitable stall margin (as is typical), instead we aim to create a low-speed equivalent of a specific transonic fan: the open test case ECL5 Catana fan developed at Ecole Centrale de Lyon.
The design of the LSF is first carried out using John Denton’s MULTALL open-source turbomachinery design software to obtain desired design-point velocity triangles in the rotor. Then, the stability limit is verified using steady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) computations using the helicity-corrected Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model in OpenFOAM. Design iterations converge on an LSF design with similar design-point spanwise loading and similar stall margin to ECL5.