Aerodynamic Response of a Serpentine Inlet to Horizontal Periodic Gusts

Gust is a common atmospheric turbulence phenomenon encountered by aircraft and is one major cause of several undesired instability problems. Although the response of aircraft to the incoming gust has been widely investigated within the subject of external-flow aerodynamics in the past decades, little attention is paid to its effects on the internal flow within aircraft engines. In this paper, a newly implemented Field Velocity Method (FVM) in OpenFOAM is used to simulate the flow field and aerodynamic responses of a serpentine inlet exposed to non-stationary horizontal sinusoidal gusts. Validations are performed on the results obtained based on the baseline Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver and the gust modeling method. Finally, the flow field and aerodynamic characteristics of the serpentine inlet under horizontal sinusoidal gust conditions are comprehensively investigated. It is found that the gusts not only significantly change the flow structure but also play an unfavorable role in the total pressure distortion of the serpentine inlet. This finding shows the necessity to consider gust effects when designing and evaluating the performance of aircraft engines.