Numerical Modeling of an Aero-Engine Bearing Chamber Using the Meshless Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Method

The prediction of the two-phase flow in an aero-engine bearing chamber using the meshless Lagrangian Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is presented in this paper. The prediction of the prevailing flow types, like shear-driven wallfilms, droplet-wall- and droplet-film-interactions require an accurate numerical method, which is robust and efficient. Therefore, a code based on the SPH method was developed and validated to numerically predict such technical relevant multi-phase flows in gas turbines.

The simulations to be presented in this paper are focused on an aero-engine bearing chamber configuration, which was experimentally investigated previously. For time saving reasons, the bearing chamber is modeled as two-dimensional problem. This requires special boundary conditions for the oil- and sealing-air flow inlet and outlet, which must physically reflect those of the experiments. In the experiments different operating regimes at different boundary conditions could be identified.

The major objective of the simulations is to investigate if those different flow regimes can be captured by the numerical method. The simulations do reproduce the different flow regimes highly accurate and demonstrate the ability of this new approach.