Active Flow Control on a Highly Loaded Compressor Cascade with Non-steady Boundary Conditions

Author(s):  
Marcel Staats ◽  
Wolfgang Nitsche ◽  
Inken Peltzer
Author(s):  
M Hecklau ◽  
C Gmelin ◽  
W Nitsche ◽  
F Thiele ◽  
A Huppertz ◽  
...  

This article presents experimental and numerical results for a compressor cascade with active flow control. Steady and pulsed blowing has been used to control the secondary flow and separation characteristics of a highly loaded controlled diffusion airfoil. Investigations were performed at the design incidence for blowing ratios from approximately 0.7 to 3.0 (jet-to-inlet velocity) and a Reynolds number of 840 000 (based on axial chord and inlet velocity). Detailed flow field data were collected using a five-hole pressure probe, pressure taps on the blade surfaces, and time-resolved Particle Image Velocimetry. Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations were performed for a wide range of flow control parameters. The experimental and numerical results are used to understand the interaction between the jet and the passage flow. The benefit of the flow control on the cascade performance is weighted against the costs of the actuation by introducing an efficiency which takes the presence of the jets into account.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Gmelin ◽  
Vincent Zander ◽  
Martin Hecklau ◽  
Frank Thiele ◽  
Wolfgang Nitsche ◽  
...  

This paper presents experimental and numerical results for a highly loaded, low speed, linear compressor cascade with active flow control. Three active flow control concepts employing steady jets, pulsed jets, and zero mass flow jets (synthetic jets) are investigated at two different forcing locations: at the end walls and the blade suction side. Investigations are performed at the design incidence for jet-to-inlet velocity ratios of approximately 0.7 to 3.0 and two different Reynolds numbers. Detailed flow field data are collected using a five-hole pressure probe, pressure tabs on the blade surfaces, and time-resolved particle image velocimetry. Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations are performed for a wide range of flow control parameters. The experimental and numerical results are used to understand the interaction between the jet and the passage flow. Variation of jet amplitude, forcing frequency and blowing angle of the different control concepts at both locations allows determination of beneficial control parameters and offers a comparison between similar control approaches. This paper combines the advantages of an expensive yet reliable experiment and a fast but limited numerical simulation. Excellent agreement in control effectiveness is found between experiment and simulation.


Author(s):  
Christoph Gmelin ◽  
Vincent Zander ◽  
Martin Hecklau ◽  
Frank Thiele ◽  
Wolfgang Nitsche ◽  
...  

The paper presents experimental and numerical results for a highly loaded, low speed, linear compressor cascade with active flow control. Three active flow control concepts by means of steady jets, pulsed jets, and zero mass flow jets (synthetic jets) are investigated at two different forcing locations, i.e. at the end walls and the blade suction side. Investigations are performed at the design incidence for jet-to-inlet velocity ratios from approximately 0.7 to 3.0 and two different Reynolds numbers. Detailed flow field data are collected using a five-hole pressure probe, pressure tabs on the blade surfaces, and time-resolved particle image velocimetry. Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations are performed for a wide range of flow control parameters. The experimental and numerical results are used to understand the interaction between the jet and the passage flow. Variation of jet amplitude, forcing frequency, and blowing angle of the different control concepts at both locations allows determination of beneficial control parameters and offers a comparison between similar control approaches. The paper combines the advantages of an expensive but accurate experiment and a fast but limited numerical simulation.


Author(s):  
V Zander ◽  
M Hecklau ◽  
W Nitsche ◽  
A Huppertz ◽  
M Swoboda

This article presents the potential of active flow control to increase the aerodynamic performance of highly loaded turbomachinery compressor blades. Experimental investigations on a large-scale compressor cascade equipped with 30 synthetic jet actuators mounted to the sidewalls and the blades themselves have been carried out. Results for a variation of the inflow angle, the jet amplitude, and the actuation frequency are presented. The wake measurements show total pressure loss reductions of nearly 10 per cent for the synthetic jet actuation. An efficiency calculation reveals that the energy saved by actuation is nearly twice the energy consumption of the synthetic jets.


Author(s):  
Longxin Zhang ◽  
Le Cai ◽  
Bao Liu ◽  
Jun Ding ◽  
Songtao Wang

As a promising active flow control method, boundary layer suction (BLS) can be used to enhance the aerodynamic performance of the highly-loaded compressor effectively, and due to this reason, extensive studies have been carried out on it. However, contrast to those abundant studies focusing on the flow control effects of BLS, little attention has been paid on the design method of the aspiration flow path. This work presents a 3-D steady numerical simulation on a highly-loaded aspirated compressor cascade. The aspiration slot is implemented at its best location based on the previous experimental studies and the aspiration flow rate is fix to 1.5% of the inlet massflow. The plenum configuration follows the blade shape and remains unchanged. One-side-aspiration manner is adopted to simplify the aspiration devices. Two critical geometry parameters, slot angle and slot width, are varied to study the effects of blade aspiration slot configuration on the cascade loss, radial distribution of the aspiration flow rate and inner flow structures within the aspiration flow path. Results show that the slot configuration does affect the cascade performance. In comparison with the throughflow performance, it is especially true once the flow loss caused by the aspiration flow path is also taken into account, and higher flow loss will be generated within the aspiration flow path if an inappropriate scheme is adopted. In the present investigation, apart from the cases with larger negative slot angle, a wider slot is more preferable to a narrower one, since it could enhance the aspiration capacity near the endwall regions and lower the dissipation loss within the aspiration flow path. In terms of the slot angle, a larger negative value, i.e., the slot direction more aligned with the incoming flow, is not beneficial to improve the throughflow performance, while concerning the flow loss yield by the aspiration flow path, a proper negative slot angle is always optimal.


Author(s):  
Marcel Staats ◽  
Wolfgang Nitsche

We present results of experiments on a periodically unsteady compressor stator flow of the type which would be expected in consequence of pulsed combustion. A Reynolds number of Re = 600000 was used for the investigations. The experiments were conducted on the two-dimensional low-speed compressor testing facility in Berlin. A choking device downstream the trailing edges induced a periodic non-steady outflow condition to each stator vane which simulated the impact of a pressure gaining combuster downstream from the last stator. The Strouhal number of the periodic disturbance was Sr = 0.03 w.r.t. the stator chord length. Due to the periodic non-steady outflow condition, the flow-field suffers from periodic flow separation phenomena, which were managed by means of active flow control. In our case, active control of the corner separation was applied using fluidic actuators based on the principle of fluidic amplification. The flow separation on the centre region of the stator blade was suppressed by means of a fluidic blade actuator leading to an overall time-averaged loss reduction of 11.5%, increasing the static pressure recovery by 6.8% while operating in the non-steady regime. Pressure measurements on the stator blade and the wake as well as PIV data proved the beneficial effect of the active flow control application to the flow field and the improvement of the compressor characteristics. The actuation efficiency was evaluated by two figures of merit introduced in this contribution.


2011 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Vorreiter ◽  
Susanne Fischer ◽  
Horst Saathoff ◽  
Rolf Radespiel ◽  
Joerg R. Seume

Airfoil active flow control has been attempted in the past in order to increase the permissible loading of boundary layers in gas turbine components. The present paper presents a stator with active flow control for a high-speed compressor using a Coanda surface near the trailing edge in order to inhibit boundary layer separation. The design intent is to reduce the number of vanes while—in order to ensure a good matching with the downstream rotor—the flow turning angle is kept constant. In a first step, numerical simulations of a linear compressor cascade with circulation control are conducted. The Coanda surface is located behind an injection slot on the airfoil suction side. Small blowing rates lead to a gain in efficiency associated with a rise in static pressure. In a second step, this result is transferred to a four-stage high-speed research compressor, where the circulation control is applied in the first stator. The design method and the first results are based on steady numerical calculations. The analysis of these results shows performance benefits of the concept. For both the cascade and the research compressor, the pressure gain and efficiency are shown as a function of blowing rate and jet power ratio. The comparison is performed based on a dimensionless efficiency, which takes into account the change in power loss.


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