Flow Development Through An S-Shaped Diffusing Duct

This paper focuses on the internal flow development of an S-shaped diffusing duct. Based on the experimental result of total pressure recovery coefficient, the Reynolds stress model (RSM) was selected as a suitable turbulence model for the present study. The numerical results show that 6.2 times the area ratio of the exit to inlet and the aggressive deflection at the first bend of the lower wall lead to strong adverse pressure gradient and very large flow separation, and create a pair of counter-rotating vortices along streamwise direction. The duct diffuser efficiency is 72.37 %. The area-averaged total pressure recovery coefficient at the exit of the duct is 0.9814, and the synthesis distortion index DC (60) is 0.7081.