Numerical Prediction of Flow and Heat Transfer on Lubricant Supplying and Scavenging Flow Path of An Aero-engine Lubrication System

This paper presents a numerical model of internal flows in a lubricant supplying and scavenging flow path of an aero-engine lubrication system. The numerical model was built in the General Analysis Software of Aero-engine Lubrication System, GASLS, developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University. The lubricant flow flux, pressure and temperature distribution at steady state were calculated. GASLS is a general purpose computer program employed a 1-D steady state network algorithm for analyzing flowrates, pressures and temperatures in a complex flow network. All kinds of aero-engine lubrication systems can be divided into finite correlative typical elements and nodes from which the calculation network be developed in GASLS. Special emphasis is on how to use combined elements which is a type of typical elements to replace some complex components like bearing bores, accessory gearboxes or heat exchangers. This method can reduce network complexity and improve calculation efficiency. Final computational results show good agreement with experimental data.