• CN: 11-2187/TH
  • ISSN: 0577-6686

Journal of Mechanical Engineering ›› 2026, Vol. 62 ›› Issue (12): 398-413.doi: 10.3901/JME.260156

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RGPowerFlow:High-order Numerical Platform for Real Gas Flows with Strongly Variable Thermal Properties in High-speed Rotating Machines

ZHANG Enbo, WU Yiming, FENG Yanli, SHEN Mingyu, ZHAO Kunpeng, BAI Bofeng   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049
  • Received:2025-08-17 Revised:2025-12-03 Published:2026-08-03

Abstract: A high-order numerical platform has been developed to address the problems of low simulation accuracy and difficulty in analyzing aerodynamic characteristics caused by sudden changes in real gas thermal properties in high-speed rotating machines. The numerical platform includes a pre-processing module, a flow solver and a post-processing module, which can realize the functions of fluid domain modeling and meshing, solving the steady and transient real gas flows, and presenting the results. The coupled iterative method accurately can predict the nonlinear abrupt behaviors of real gas thermophysical properties, the finite-volume third-order flux reconfiguration scheme can capture the shock waves within the complex structure, and the preconditioning implicit time-stepping method can solve the problem of numerical oscillations and pseudo-physical results due to characteristic velocity differences in low-velocity fields. The performance d platform is verified using the numerical examples and experiments, and applied to analysis the internal flow fields of supercritical CO2 (S-CO2) centrifugal compressor. The results show that platform can realize fluid domain modeling, mesh generation, flow fields simulation and results presentation, and can simulate complex flow processes, with better convergence and stability than traditional schemes. The flow fields inside the S-CO2 centrifugal compressor can be simulated using this developed platform, and the results of aerodynamic characterization are similar to those of experiments. Therefore, the developed numerical platform is expected to provide a solution for the analysis of real gas flow fields and aerodynamic characteristics in high-speed rotating machines.

Key words: numerical platform, rotating machines, real gas flow, nonlinear thermophysical properties, high-order scheme

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