Studies on Aerodynamic Characteristics of Dump Diffusers for Modern Aircraft Engines

The geometrical optimization of dump diffusers are extremely demanding as the flow fields and stress fields are very complex and must be well understood to achieve the required design efficiencies. In this paper parametric analytical studies have been carried out for examining the aerodynamics characteristics of different dump diffusers for modern aircraft engines. Numerical studies have been carried out using SST K- ω turbulence model. This code solves SST k- ω turbulence equations using the coupled second order implicit unsteady formulation. In the numerical study, a fully implicit finite volume scheme of the compressible, Reynolds-Averaged, Navier-Stokes equations is employed. We concluded that in addition to the dump gap ratio, the aerodynamic shape of the flame tube case and the other geometric variables are also need to be optimized judiciously after considering the fluid dynamic constraints for controlling the pressure recovery and the losses.