INVESTIGATION OF THE DIFFUSER FLOW QUALITY IN AN ICING RESEARCH WIND-TUNNEL

In this paper, the flow in the diffuser section of the Icing Research Tunnel at the NASA Lewis Research Center is both numerically and experimentally investigated. To accomplish the numerical portion of the work, an existing computer code is utilized. The code, known as PARC3D, is based on the Beam-Warming algorithm applied to the strong conservation law form of the complete Navier-Stokes equations. Following a brief description of the diffuser geometry, the measured flow characteristics are described. A brief discussion of the code work is also provided. The flow measurements show a highly nonuniform velocity profile across the diffuser exit with boundary-layer growth more prevalent near the centers of the walls rather than in the corners of the diffuser. Predicted velocity profiles at the centerline are similar to those measured; however, the code did not accurately predict the boundary-layer behavior near the corners.