Assessment of Unsteady-RANS Approach against Steady-RANS Approach for Predicting Twin Impinging Jets in a Cross-flow

Abstract

A complex flow field is created when a vertical/short take-off and landing aircraft is operating near ground. One major concern
for this kind of aircraft in ground effect is the possibility of ingestion of hot gases from the jet engine exhausts back into the
engine, known as hot gas ingestion, which can increase the intake air temperature and also reduce the oxygen content in the
intake air, potentially leading to compressor stall, low combustion efficiency and causing a dramatic loss of lift. This flow field
can be represented by the configuration of twin impinging jets in a cross-flow. Accurate prediction of this complicated flow
field under the Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approach (current practise in industry) is a great challenge as previous
studies suggest that some important flow features cannot be captured by the Steady-RANS (SRANS) approach even with
a second-order Reynolds stress model (RSM). This paper presents a numerical study of this flow using the Unsteady-RANS
(URANS) approach with a RSM and the results clearly indicate that the URANS approach is superior than the SRANS approach
but still the predictions of Reynolds stress are not accurate enough.