scholarly journals The Effect of Adding Roughness and Thickness to a Transonic Axial Compressor Rotor

1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. L. Suder ◽  
R. V. Chima ◽  
A. J. Strazisar ◽  
W. B. Roberts

The performance deterioration of a high-speed axial compressor rotor due to surface roughness and airfoil thickness variations is reported. A 0.025 mm (0.001 in.) thick rough coating with a surface finish of 2.54–3.18 rms μm (100–125 rms μin.) is applied to the pressure and suction surface of the rotor blades. Coating both surfaces increases the leading edge thickness by 10 percent at the hub and 20 percent at the tip. Application of this coating results in a loss in efficiency of 6 points and a 9 percent reduction in the pressure ratio across the rotor at an operating condition near the design point. To separate the effects of thickness and roughness, a smooth coating of equal thickness is also applied to the blade. The smooth coating surface finish is 0.254–0.508 rms μm (10–20 rms μin.), compared to the bare metal blade surface finish of 0.508 rms pm (20 rms μin.). The smooth coating results in approximately half of the performance deterioration found from the rough coating. Both coatings are then applied to different portions of the blade surface to determine which portions of the airfoil are most sensitive to thickness/roughness variations. Aerodynamic performance measurements are presented for a number of coating configurations at 60, 80, and 100 percent of design speed. The results indicate that thickness/roughness over the first 2 percent of blade chord accounts for virtually all of the observed performance degradation for the smooth coating, compared to about 70 percent of the observed performance degradation for the rough coating. The performance deterioration is investigated in more detail at design speed using laser anemometer measurements as well as predictions generated by a quasi-three-dimensional Navier–Stokes flow solver, which includes a surface roughness model. Measurements and analysis are performed on the baseline blade and the full-coverage smooth and rough coatings. The results indicate that adding roughness at the blade leading edge causes a thickening of the blade boundary layers. The interaction between the rotor passage shock and the thickened suction surface boundary layer then results in an increase in blockage, which reduces the diffusion level in the rear half of the blade passage, thus reducing the aerodynamic performance of the rotor.

Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Suder ◽  
Rodrick V. Chima ◽  
Anthony J. Strazisar ◽  
William B. Roberts

The performance deterioration of a high speed axial compressor rotor due to surface roughness and airfoil thickness variations is reported. A 0.025 mm (0.001 in.) thick rough coating with a surface finish of 2.54–3.18 RMS μm (100–125 RMS microinches) is applied to the pressure and suction surface of the rotor blades. Coating both surfaces increases the leading edge thickness by 10% at the hub and 20% at the tip. Application of this coating results in a loss in efficiency of 6 points and a 9% reduction in the pressure ratio across the rotor at an operating condition near the design point. To separate the effects of thickness and roughness, a smooth coating of equal thickness is also applied to the blade. The smooth coating surface finish is 0.254–0.508 RMS μm (10–20 RMS microinches), compared to the bare metal blade surface finish of 0.508 RMS μm (20 RMS microinches). The smooth coating results in approximately half of the performance deterioration found from the rough coating. Both coatings are then applied to different portions of the blade surface to determine which portions of the airfoil are most sensitive to thickness/roughness variations. Aerodynamic performance measurements are presented for a number of coating configurations at 60%, 80%, and 100% of design speed. The results indicate that thickness/roughness over the first 10% of blade chord accounts for virtually all of the observed performance degradation for the smooth coating, compared to about 70% of the observed performance degradation for the rough coating. The performance deterioration is investigated in more detail at design speed using laser anemometer measurements as well as predictions generated by a quasi-3D Navier-Stokes flow solver which includes a surface roughness model. Measurements and analysis are performed on the baseline blade and the full-coverage smooth and rough coatings. The results indicate that coating the blade causes a thickening of the blade boundary layers. The interaction between the rotor passage shock and the thickened suction surface boundary layer then results in an increase in blockage which reduces the diffusion level in the rear half of the blade passage, thus reducing the aerodynamic performance of the rotor.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashima Malhotra ◽  
Shraman Goswami ◽  
Pradeep A M

Abstract The aerodynamic performance of a compressor rotor is known to deteriorate due to surface roughness. It is important to understand this deterioration as it impacts the overall performance of the engine. This paper, therefore, aims to numerically investigate the impact of roughness on the performance of an axial compressor rotor at different rotational speeds. In this numerical study, the simulations are carried out for NASA Rotor37 at 100%, 80%, and 60% of its design speed. with and without roughness on the blade surface. These speeds are chosen because they represent different flow regimes. The front stages of a multistage compressor usually have a supersonic or transonic regime whereas the middle and aft stages have a subsonic regime. Thus, these performance characteristics can give an estimate of the impact on the performance of a multistage compressor. At 100% speed (design speed), the relative flow is supersonic, at 80% of design speed, the relative flow is transonic and at 60% of design speed, the relative flow is subsonic. Detailed flow field investigations are carried out to understand the underlying flow physics. The results indicate that, for the same amount of roughness, the degradation in the performance is maximum at 100% speed where the rotor is supersonic, while the impact is minimum at 60% speed where the rotor is subsonic. Thus, the rotor shock system plays an important role in determining the performance loss due to roughness. It is also observed that the loss increases with increased span for 100% and 80% speeds, but for 60% speed, the loss is almost constant from the hub to the shroud. This is because, with the increased span, the shock strength increases for 100% and 80% speeds, whereas at 60% speed flow is subsonic.


2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Semiu A. Gbadebo ◽  
Tom P. Hynes ◽  
Nicholas A. Cumpsty

Surface roughness on a stator blade was found to have a major effect on the three-dimensional (3D) separation at the hub of a single-stage low-speed axial compressor. The change in the separation with roughness worsened performance of the stage. A preliminary study was carried out to ascertain which part of the stator suction surface and at what operating condition the flow is most sensitive to roughness. The results show that stage performance is extremely sensitive to surface roughness around the leading edge and peak-suction regions, particularly for flow rates corresponding to design and lower values. Surface flow visualization and exit loss measurements show that the size of the separation, in terms of spanwise and chordwise extent, is increased with roughness present. Roughness produced the large 3D separation at design flow coefficient that is found for smooth blades nearer to stall. A simple model to simulate the effect of roughness was developed and, when included in a 3D Navier–Stokes calculation method, was shown to give good qualitative agreement with measurements.


Author(s):  
Chenkai Zhang ◽  
Jun Hu ◽  
Zhiqiang Wang ◽  
Chao Yin ◽  
Wei Yan

This paper presents numerical optimization of a compressor rotor, to deepen the knowledge of endwall flow in the large-scale axial subsonic compressor, accordingly reduce its endwall loss and improve its aerodynamic performance. With numerical simulation and numerical optimization tools, three-dimensional stacking principle is optimized to improve the design operation point performance for the rotor. Results show that, hub region of the rotor cannot undertake large blade loading; compared to the prototype rotor, obvious aerodynamic performance improvements locate near the hub area, and a certain degree of positive dihedral in this region effectively helps to reduce its flow loss. The effect of “loaded leading edge and unloaded trailing edge” due to positive dihedral was shown, which suppresses flow separation near the trailing edge, consequently obviously reduces the flow loss and largely improves the rotor aerodynamic performance.


Author(s):  
Semiu A. Gbadebo ◽  
Tom P. Hynes ◽  
Nicholas A. Cumpsty

Surface roughness on a stator blade was found to have a major effect on the three-dimensional (3D) separation at the hub of a single-stage low-speed axial compressor. The change in the separation with roughness worsened performance of the stage. A preliminary study was carried out to ascertain which part of the stator suction surface and at what operating condition the flow is most sensitive to roughness. The results show that stage performance is extremely sensitive to surface roughness around the leading edge and peak-suction regions, particularly for flow rates corresponding to design and lower values. Surface flow visualization and exit loss measurements show that the size of the separation, in terms of spanwise and chordwise extent, is increased with roughness present. Roughness produced the large 3D separation at design flow coefficient that is found for smooth blades nearer to stall. A simple model to simulate the effect of roughness was developed and, when included in a 3D Navier-Stokes calculation method, was shown to give good qualitative agreement with measurements.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1230
Author(s):  
Zhaohui Dong ◽  
Jinxin Cheng ◽  
Tian Liu ◽  
Gaolu Si ◽  
Buchuan Ma

A novel parametric control method for the compressor blade, the full-blade surface parametric method, is proposed in this paper. Compared with the traditional parametric method, the method has good surface smoothness and construction convenience while maintaining low-dimensional characteristics, and compared with the semi-blade surface parametric method, the proposed method has a larger degree of geometric deformation freedom and can account for changes in both the suction surface and pressure surface. Compared with the semi-blade surface parametric method, the method only has four more control parameters for each blade, so it does not significantly increase the optimization time. The effectiveness of this novel parametric control method has been verified in the aerodynamic optimization field of compressors by an optimization case of Stage35 (a single-stage transonic axial compressor) under multi-operating conditions. The optimization case has brought the following results: the adiabatic efficiency of the optimized blade at design speed is 1.4% higher than that of the original one and the surge margin 2.9% higher, while at off-design speed, the adiabatic efficiency is improved by 0.6% and the surge margin by 1.3%.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. T. Hsu ◽  
A. M. Wo

This paper demonstrates reduction of stator unsteady loading due to forced response in a large-scale, low-speed, rotor/stator/rotor axial compressor rig by clocking the downstream rotor. Data from the rotor/stator configuration showed that the stator response due to the upstream vortical disturbance reaches a maximum when the wake impinges against the suction surface immediately downstream of the leading edge. Results from the stator/rotor configuration revealed that the stator response due to the downstream potential disturbance reaches a minimum with a slight time delay after the rotor sweeps pass the stator trailing edge. For the rotor/stator/rotor configuration, with Gap1 = 10 percent chord and Gap2 = 30 percent chord, results showed a 60 percent reduction in the stator force amplitude by clocking the downstream rotor so that the time occurrence of the maximum force due to the upstream vortical disturbance coincides with that of the minimum force due to the downstream potential disturbance. This is the first time, the authors believe, that beneficial use of flow unsteadiness is definitively demonstrated to reduce the blade unsteady loading.


2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
William B. Roberts ◽  
Albert Armin ◽  
George Kassaseya ◽  
Kenneth L. Suder ◽  
Scott A. Thorp ◽  
...  

Aircraft fan and compressor blade leading edges suffer from atmospheric particulate erosion that reduces aerodynamic performance. Recontouring the blade leading edge region can restore blade performance. This process typically results in blades of varying chord length. The question therefore arises as to whether performance of refurbished fans and compressors could be further improved if blades of varying chord length are installed into the disk in a certain order. To investigate this issue the aerodynamic performance of a transonic compressor rotor operating with blades of varying chord length was measured in back-to-back compressor test rig entries. One half of the rotor blades were the full nominal chord length while the remaining half of the blades were cut back at the leading edge to 95% of chord length and recontoured. The rotor aerodynamic performance was measured at 100, 80, and 60% of design speed for three blade installation configurations: nominal-chord blades in half of the disk and short-chord blades in half of the disk; four alternating quadrants of nominal-chord and short-chord blades; nominal-chord and short-chord blades alternating around the disk. No significant difference in performance was found between configurations, indicating that blade chord variation is not important to aerodynamic performance above the stall chord limit if leading edges have the same shape. The stall chord limit for most civil aviation turbofan engines is between 94–96% of nominal (new) blade chord.


2012 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William B. Roberts ◽  
Scott A. Thorp ◽  
Patricia S. Prahst ◽  
Anthony J. Strazisar

Back-to-back testing was done using NASA fan rotor 67 in the Glenn Research Center W8 Axial Compressor Test Facility. The rotor was baseline tested with a normal industrial root-mean-square (RMS) surface finish of 0.5 μm to 0.6 μm (20 microinches to 24 microinches) at 60, 80, and 100% of design speed. At design speed the tip relative Mach number was 1.38. The blades were then removed from the facility and ultrapolished to a surface finish of 0.125 μm (5 microinch) or less and retested. At 100% speed near the design point, the ultrapolished blades showed approximately 0.3% to 0.5% increase in adiabatic efficiency. The difference was greater near maximum flow. Due to increased relative measurement error at 60 and 80% speed, the performance difference between the normal and ultrapolished blades was indeterminate at these speeds.


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