High Fidelity Turbofan Engine Simulation (NASA)

CFD is used to perform a full engine simulation on the GE-90 Turbofan engine. The engine was broken up into components: the HP compressor, the combustor, and the HP turbine. Each component was run to convergence in series. The HP compressor flow simulation was generated using the flow solver APNASA. The exit profiles of the compressor were used as boundary condition input to the National Combustor Code. The NCC was used to generate a flow and chemistry simulation in the combustor. The exit conditions to the combustor simulation was used as boundary condition input to the turbine flow simulation, which was also generated by the flow solver APNASA.

In addition to verification and validation of the constantly developing flow solver APNASA, the goal of generating the full engine simulation was to verify the engine station conditions with those generated by the thermodynamic cycle code. As a result, performance assessments of the individual stages or the entire component can be examined in greater detail than what is provided by typical cycle codes.