APPLICATION OF A NAVIER-STOKES ANALYSIS TO FLOWS THROUGH PLANE CASCADES.

A newly developed method is used to compute a variety of laminar/turbulent, attached/separated flows through plane turbine or compressor cascades. The thin-layer or full Navier-Stokes equations are solved in a 2-D or quasi-2-D/quasi-3-D form taking into account variable axial velocity density ratio/cascade aspect ratio. The turbulence is modeled by the Baldwin-Lomax algebraic two-layer eddy viscosity approach. Improved mesh generation and discretization techniques are introduced. A fully implicit formulation of the flow problem is developed which ensures high stability and convergence. Numerous quantitative comparisons of viscous solutions with experiments and other existing solutions are performed to validate the method. First results on the applicability of the thin-layer assumption are included.