Conservative interpolation of aeroacoustic sources in a hybrid workflow applied to fan

Abstract

In low Mach number aeroacoustics, the well known disparity of scales makes it possible to apply efficient hybrid simulation models using different meshes for flow and acoustics, which leads to a powerful computational procedure. Our study applies the hybrid workflow to the computationally efficient perturbed convective wave equation with only one scalar unknown, the acoustic velocity potential. The workflow of this aeroacoustic approach is based on three steps: 1. perform unsteady incompressible flow computations on a sub-domain; 2. compute the acoustic sources; 3. simulate the acoustic field using a mesh specifically suited for computational aeroacoustics. In general, hybrid aeroacoustic methods seek for robust and conservative mesh-to-mesh transformation of the aeroacoustic sources while high computational efficiency is ensured. In this paper, we investigate the accuracy of a cell-centroid based conservative interpolation scheme compared to the more accurate cut-volume cell approach and their application to the computation of rotating systems, namely an axial fan. The capability and robustness of the cut-volume cell interpolation in a hybrid workflow on different meshes are investigated by a grid convergence study. The results of the acoustic simulation are in good agreement with measurements thus demonstrating the applicability of the conservative cut-volume cell interpolation to rotating systems.