Compressor Stability Enhancement Using Discrete Tip Injection

2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Suder ◽  
Michael D. Hathaway ◽  
Scott A. Thorp ◽  
Anthony J. Strazisar ◽  
Michelle B. Bright

Mass injection upstream of the tip of a high-speed axial compressor rotor is a stability enhancement approach known to be effective in suppressing stall in tip-critical rotors. This process is examined in a transonic axial compressor rotor through experiments and time-averaged Navier-Stokes CFD simulations. Measurements and simulations for discrete injection are presented for a range of injection rates and distributions of injectors around the annulus. The simulations indicate that tip injection increases stability by unloading the rotor tip and that increasing injection velocity improves the effectiveness of tip injection. For the tested rotor, experimental results demonstrate that at 70 percent speed the stalling flow coefficient can be reduced by 30 percent using an injected massflow equivalent to 1 percent of the annulus flow. At design speed, the stalling flow coefficient was reduced by 6 percent using an injected massflow equivalent to 2 percent of the annulus flow. The experiments show that stability enhancement is related to the mass-averaged axial velocity at the tip. For a given injected massflow, the mass-averaged axial velocity at the tip is increased by injecting flow over discrete portions of the circumference as opposed to full-annular injection. The implications of these results on the design of recirculating casing treatments and other methods to enhance stability will be discussed.

Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Suder ◽  
Michael D. Hathaway ◽  
Scott A. Thorp ◽  
Anthony J. Strazisar ◽  
Michelle B. Bright

Mass injection upstream of the tip of a high-speed axial compressor rotor is a stability enhancement approach known to be effective in suppressing stall in tip-critical rotors. This process is examined in a transonic axial compressor rotor through experiments and time-average Navier-Stokes CFD simulations. Measurements and simulations for discrete injection are presented for a range of injection rates and distributions of injectors around the annulus. The simulations indicate that tip injection increases stability by unloading the rotor tip and that increasing injection velocity improves the effectiveness of tip injection. For the tested rotor, experimental results demonstrate that at 70% speed the stalling flow coefficient can be reduced by 30% using an injected massflow equivalent to 1% of the annulus flow. At design speed, the stalling flow coefficient was reduced by 6% using an injected massflow equivalent to 2% of the annulus flow. The experiments show that stability enhancement is related to the mass-averaged axial velocity at the tip. For a given injected massflow, the mass averaged axial velocity at the tip is increased by injecting flow over discrete portions of the circumference as opposed to full-annular injection. The implications of these results on the design of recirculating casing treatments and other methods to enhance stability will be discussed.


Author(s):  
Dale E. Van Zante ◽  
John J. Adamczyk ◽  
Anthony J. Strazisar ◽  
Theodore H. Okiishi

This paper addresses the significant differences in compressor rotor wake mixing loss which exist in a stage environment relative to a rotor in isolation. The wake decay for a rotor in isolation is due solely to viscous dissipation which is an irreversible process and thus leads to a loss in both total pressure and efficiency. Rotor wake decay in the stage environment is due to both viscous mixing and the inviscid strain imposed on the wake fluid particles by the stator velocity field. This straining process, referred to by Smith (1993) as recovery, is reversible and for a 2D rotor wake leads to an inviscid reduction of the velocity deficit of the wake. It will be shown that for the rotor/stator spacing typical of core compressors, wake stretching is the dominant wake decay process within the stator with viscous mixing playing a secondary role. A model for the rotor wake decay process is developed and used to quantify the viscous dissipation effects relative to those of inviscid wake stretching. The model is verified using laser anemometer measurements acquired in the wake of a transonic rotor operated in isolation and in a stage configuration at near peak efficiency and near stall operating conditions. Additional insight is provided by a time-accurate 3D Navier Stokes simulation of the compressor stator flow field at the corresponding stage loading levels. Results from the wake decay model exhibit good agreement with the experimental data. Data from the model, laser anemometer measurements, and simulations indicate that wake straining (stretching) is the primary decay process in the stator passage. The implications of these results on compressor stage design are discussed.


Author(s):  
Adam R. Hickman ◽  
Scott C. Morris

Flow field measurements of a high-speed axial compressor are presented during pre-stall and post-stall conditions. The paper provides an analysis of measurements from a circumferential array of unsteady shroud static pressure sensors during stall cell development. At low-speed, the stall cell approached a stable size in approximately two rotor revolutions. At higher speeds, the stall cell developed within a short amount of time after stall inception, but then fluctuated in circumferential extent as the compressor transiently approached a stable post-stall operating point. The size of the stall cell was found to be related to the annulus average flow coefficient. A discussion of Phase-Locked Average (PLA) statistics on flow field measurements during stable operation is also included. In conditions where rotating stall is present, flow field measurements can be Double Phase-Locked Averaged (DPLA) using a once-per-revolution (1/Rev) pulse and the period of the stall cell. The DPLA method provides greater detail and understanding into the structure of the stall cell. DPLA data indicated that a stalled compressor annulus can be considered to contained three main regions: over-pressurized passages, stalled passages, and recovering passages. Within the over-pressured region, rotor passages exhibited increased blade loading and pressure ratio compared to pre-stall values.


2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tan ◽  
Yuanchao Li ◽  
Ian Wilkes ◽  
Rinaldo L. Miorini ◽  
Joseph Katz

A new optically index matched facility has been constructed to investigate tip flows in compressor-like settings. The blades of the one and a half stage compressor have the same geometry, but lower aspect ratio as the inlet guide vanes (IGVs) and the first stage of the low-speed axial compressor (LSAC) facility at NASA Glenn. With transparent blades and casings, the new setup enables unobstructed velocity measurements at any point within the tip region and is designed to facilitate direct measurements of effects of casing treatments on the flow structure. We start with a smooth endwall casing. High speed movies of cavitation and time-resolved PIV measurements have been used to characterize the location, trajectory, and behavior of the tip leakage vortex (TLV) for two flow rates, the lower one representing prestall conditions. Results of both methods show consistent trends. As the flow rate is reduced, TLV rollup occurs further upstream, and its initial orientation becomes more circumferential. At prestall conditions, the TLV is initially aligned slightly upstream of the rotor passage, and subsequently forced downstream. Within the passage, the TLV breaks up into a large number of vortex fragments, which occupy a broad area. Consequently, the cavitation in the TLV core disappears. With decreasing flow rate, this phenomenon becomes more abrupt, occurs further upstream, and the fragments occupy a larger area.


Author(s):  
Joel M. Haynes ◽  
Gavin J. Hendricks ◽  
Alan H. Epstein

A three-stage, low speed axial research compressor has been actively stabilized by damping low amplitude circumferentially travelling waves which can grow into rotating stall. Using a circumferential array of hot wire sensors, and an array of high speed individually positioned control vanes as the actuator, the first and second spatial harmonics of the compressor were stabilized down to a characteristic slope of 0.9, yielding an 8% increase in operating flow range. Stabilization of the third spatial harmonic did not alter the stalling flow coefficient. The actuators were also used open loop to determine the forced response behavior of the compressor. A system identification procedure applied to the forced response data then yielded the compressor transfer function. The Moore-Greitzer, 2-D, stability model was modified as suggested by the measurements to include the effect of blade row time lags on the compressor dynamics. This modified Moore-Greitzer model was then used to predict both the open and closed loop dynamic response of the compressor. The model predictions agreed closely with the experimental results. In particular, the model predicted both the mass flow at stall without control and the design parameters needed by, and the range extension realized from, active control.


Fluids ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Motoyuki Kawase ◽  
Aldo Rona

A proof of concept is provided by computational fluid dynamic simulations of a new recirculating type casing treatment. This treatment aims at extending the stable operating range of highly loaded axial compressors, so to improve the safety of sorties of high-speed, high-performance aircraft powered by high specific thrust engines. This casing treatment, featuring an axisymmetric recirculation channel, is evaluated on the NASA rotor 37 test case by steady and unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulations, using the realizable k-ε model. Flow blockage at the recirculation channel outlet was mitigated by chamfering the exit of the recirculation channel inner wall. The channel axial location from the rotor blade tip leading edge was optimized parametrically over the range −4.6% to 47.6% of the rotor tip axial chord c z . Locating the channel at 18.2% c z provided the best stall margin gain of approximately 5.5% compared to the untreated rotor. No rotor adiabatic efficiency was lost by the application of this casing treatment. The investigation into the flow structure with the recirculating channel gave a good insight into how the new casing treatment generates this benefit. The combination of stall margin gain at no rotor adiabatic efficiency loss makes this design attractive for applications to high-speed gas turbine engines.


2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 309-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaojuan Geng ◽  
Hongwu Zhang ◽  
Jingyi Chen ◽  
Weiguang Huang

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (3) ◽  
pp. 730-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuj Dhingra ◽  
Yedidia Neumeier ◽  
J. V. R. Prasad ◽  
Andrew Breeze-Stringfellow ◽  
Hyoun-Woo Shin ◽  
...  

A stability measure rooted in the unsteady characteristics of the flow field over the compressor rotor has been previously developed. The present work explores the relationship between the stochastic properties of this measure, called the correlation measure, and the compressor stability boundary. A stochastic model has been developed to gauge the impact of the correlation measure’s stochastic nature on its applicability to compressor stability management. The genesis of this model is in the fundamental properties of a specific stochastic process, one that is created by the threshold crossings of a random process. The model validation utilizes data obtained on three different axial compressor facilities. These include a single-stage low-speed axial compressor, a four-stage low-speed research compressor, and an advanced technology demonstrator high-speed compressor. This paper presents details of the model development and validation, as well as closed loop experimental results to demonstrate correlation measure’s usefulness in compressor stability management.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Cameron ◽  
Matthew A. Bennington ◽  
Mark H. Ross ◽  
Scott C. Morris ◽  
Juan Du ◽  
...  

Experimental and numerical studies were conducted to investigate tip-leakage flow and its relationship to stall in a transonic axial compressor. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results were used to identify the existence of an interface between the approach flow and the tip-leakage flow. The experiments used a surface-streaking visualization method to identify the time-averaged location of this interface as a line of zero axial shear stress at the casing. The axial position of this line, denoted xzs, moved upstream with decreasing flow coefficient in both the experiments and computations. The line was consistently located at the rotor leading edge plane at the stalling flow coefficient, regardless of inflow boundary condition. These results were successfully modeled using a control volume approach that balanced the reverse axial momentum flux of the tip-leakage flow with the momentum flux of the approach fluid. Nonuniform tip clearance measurements demonstrated that movement of the interface upstream of the rotor leading edge plane leads to the generation of short length scale rotating disturbances. Therefore, stall was interpreted as a critical point in the momentum flux balance of the approach flow and the reverse axial momentum flux of the tip-leakage flow.


Author(s):  
Guang Wang ◽  
Wuli Chu

Abstract In order to weaken the negative effect of tip leakage flow and improve the tip flow condition, this paper introduces synthetic jet into the flow control field of axial compressor, and proposes a method of active flow control by arranging synthetic jet at the tip. A high-speed axial compressor rotor of the author’s research group is taken as the numerical simulation object. On the basis of keeping geometric parameters of the synthetic jet actuator unchanged, this paper studies the influence of applying tip synthetic jet on aerodynamic performance of the compressor rotor at three axial positions of −10%Ca, 0%Ca and 21.35%Ca respectively. The results show that when tip synthetic jet is in the above three positions, comprehensive stability margin of the compressor rotor increases by 2.62%, 3.77% and 12.46% respectively, and efficiency near stall point increases by 0.22%, 0.25 and 0.47% respectively. This shows that when tip synthetic jet is far away from blade, the aerodynamic performance improvement of the compressor rotor is limited, and when tip synthetic jet is just above the leading edge, the effect of expanding stability is the best and the efficiency is the most improved. The mechanism of tip synthetic jet can increase the stability of the compressor rotor is that when the actuator is in the blowing stage, it can blow the low-speed air flow of blade top to downstream, and when the actuator is in the suction stage, it can suck the low-speed air flow of blade top into slot, so as to alleviate the top blockage and realize the stability expansion. The mechanism of tip synthetic jet can improve the efficiency of compressor rotor is that the blowing and suction of actuator weaken the intensity of tip leakage flow, reduce the size of vortex core and also reduce the flow loss of the compressor rotor correspondingly.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document