CFD analysis during the design of fuel equipment

Abstract

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are increasingly used to apprehend the hydraulic behaviour of fuel equipment in helicopter engines. However, most problematics at stake involve fluid-structure interactions and remain unreachable for traditional mesh-based CFD approaches. The present study investigates the capability of Lattice-Boltzmann methods to cope with the main fluid-structure applications encountered in fuel systems. The first case involves one-way interactions where the pressure generated by a low-pressure pump impeller is modelled. The second case study covers two-way interactions where the dynamic coupling between a deltaP constant poppet, subjected to pressure loads and a spring force, and a controlled metering valve is computed. In the last case, instabilities of a check valve are reproduced and oscillations eigenfrequencies are correlated with experimental data. XFlow Latice-Boltzmann solver shows good capability to handle all of those complex applications. Obtained results and reference data are in very good agreement with a significant improvement in computational time. Those methods open new perspectives to deal with a large panel of fuel system problematics like gear pumps or fire test scenarii.