The Design of Highly Loaded Axial Compressors

2010 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Dickens ◽  
Ivor Day

Increasing compressor pressure ratios (thereby gaining a benefit in cycle efficiency), or reducing the number of stages (to reduce weight, cost, etc.), will require an increase in pressure rise per stage. One method of increasing the pressure rise per stage is by increasing the stage loading coefficient, and it is this topic, which forms the focus of the present paper. In the past, a great deal of effort has been expended in trying to design highly loaded blade rows. Most of this work has focused on optimizing a particular design, rather than looking at the fundamental problems associated with high loading. This paper looks at the flow physics behind the problem, makes proposals for a new design strategy, and explains sources of additional loss specific to highly loaded designs. Detailed experimental measurements of three highly loaded stages (Δh0/U2≈0.65) have been used to validate a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The calibrated CFD has then been used to show that, as the stage loading is increased, the flow in the stator passages breaks down first. This happens via a large corner separation, which significantly impairs the stage efficiency. The stator can be relieved by increasing stage reaction, thus shifting the burden to the rotor. Fortunately, the CFD calculations show that the rotor is generally more tolerant of high loading than the stator. Thus, when stage loading is increased, it is necessary to increase the reaction to achieve the optimum efficiency. However, the design exercise using the calibrated CFD also shows that the stage efficiency is inevitably reduced as the stage loading is increased (in agreement with the experimental results). In the second part of the paper, the role that the profile loss plays in the reduction in efficiency at high stage loading is considered. A simple generic velocity distribution is developed from first principles to demonstrate the hitherto neglected importance of the pressure surface losses in highly loaded compressors.

Author(s):  
Tony Dickens ◽  
Ivor Day

Increasing compressor pressure ratios (thereby gaining a benefit in cycle efficiency), or reducing the number of stages (to reduce weight, cost, etc.), will require an increase in pressure rise per stage. One method of increasing the pressure rise per stage is by increasing the stage-loading coefficient and it is this topic which forms the focus of the present paper. In the past, a great deal of effort has been expended in trying to design highly loaded blade rows. Most of this work has focused on optimizing a particular design rather than looking at the fundamental problems associated with high loading. This paper looks at the flow physics behind the problem, makes proposals for a new design strategy and explains sources of additional loss specific to highly loaded designs. Detailed experimental measurements of three highly loaded stages (Δh0/U2 ≈ 0.65) have been used to validate a CFD code. The calibrated CFD has then been used to show that as the stage loading is increased the flow in the stator passages breaks down first. This happens via a large corner separation which significantly impairs the stage efficiency. The stator can be relieved by increasing stage reaction, thus shifting the burden to the rotor. Fortunately, the CFD calculations show that the rotor is generally more tolerant of high loading than the stator. Thus, when stage loading is increased, it is necessary to increase the reaction to achieve the optimum efficiency. However, the design exercise using the calibrated CFD also shows that the stage efficiency is inevitably reduced as the stage loading is increased (in agreement with the experimental results). In the second part of the paper, the role profile loss plays in the reduction in efficiency at high stage loading is considered. A simple generic velocity distribution is developed from first principles to demonstrate the hitherto neglected importance of the pressure surface losses in highly loaded compressors.


Author(s):  
Chengwu Yang ◽  
Xingen Lu ◽  
Yanfeng Zhang ◽  
Shengfeng Zhao ◽  
Junqiang Zhu

The clearance size of cantilevered stators affects the performance and stability of axial compressors significantly. Numerical calculations were carried out using the commercial software FINE/Turbo for a 2.5-stage highly loaded transonic axial compressor, which is of cantilevered stator for the first stage, at varying hub clearance sizes. The aim of this work is to improve understanding of the impact mechanism of hub clearance on the performance and the flow field in high flow turning conditions. The performance of the front stage and the compressor with different hub clearance sizes of the first stator has been analyzed firstly. Results show that the efficiency decreases as clearance size varies from 0 to 3% of hub chordlength, but the operating range has been extended. For the first stage, the efficiency decreases about 0.5% and the stall margin is extended. The following analysis of detailed flow field in the first stator shows that the clearance leakage flow and elimination of hub corner separation is responsible for the increasing loss and stall margin extending respectively. The effects of hub clearance on the downstream rotor have been discussed lastly. It indicates that the loss of the rotor increases and the flow deteriorates due to increasing of clearance size and hence the leakage mass flow rate, which mainly results from the interaction of upstream leakage flow with the passage flow near pressure surface. The affected region of rotor passage flow field expands in spanwise and streamwise direction as clearance size grows. The hub clearance leakage flow moves upward in span as it flows toward downstream.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan J. Gunn ◽  
Cesare A. Hall

In a boundary layer ingesting (BLI) fan system, the inlet flow field is highly nonuniform. In this environment, an axisymmetric stator design suffers from a nonuniform distribution of hub separations, increased wake thicknesses, and casing losses. These additional loss sources can be reduced using a nonaxisymmetric design that is tuned to the radial and circumferential flow variations at exit from the rotor. In this paper, a nonaxisymmetric design approach is described for the stator of a low-speed BLI fan. First, sectional design changes are applied at each radial and circumferential location. Next, this approach is combined with the application of nonaxisymmetric lean. The designs were tested computationally using full-annulus unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the complete fan stage with a representative inlet distortion. The final design has also been manufactured and tested experimentally. The results show that a 2D sectional approach can be applied nonaxisymmetrically to reduce incidence and diffusion factor at each location. This leads to reduced loss, particularly at the casing and midspan, but it does not eliminate the hub separations that are present within highly distorted regions of the annulus. These are relieved by nonaxisymmetric lean where the pressure surface is inclined toward the hub. For the final design, the loss in the stator blades operating with BLI was measured to be 10% lower than that for the original stator design operating with undistorted inflow. Overall, the results demonstrate that the nonaxisymmetric design has the potential to eliminate any additional loss in a BLI fan stator caused by the nonuniform ingested flow field.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Hazby ◽  
Michael Casey ◽  
Ryusuke Numakura ◽  
Hideaki Tamaki

This paper describes the design of a transonic mixed flow compressor stage for an extreme duty, with an extremely high flow coefficient (φ) of 0.25 and a high isentropic pressure rise coefficient (ψ) of 0.56. The impeller design makes use of modern aerodynamic practice from radial and transonic axial compressors, whereby the aerodynamic blade shape involved arbitrary surfaces on several spanwise sections. Some aspects of the aerodynamic optimization of the design were limited by mechanical considerations, but nevertheless the test data obtained on a prototype stage demonstrates that acceptable performance levels can be achieved at these extreme design conditions, although map width enhancement (MWE) devices were needed to obtain an acceptable operating range. The test data are compared with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions to demonstrate the validity of the design methods used.


Author(s):  
Baojie Liu ◽  
Du Fu ◽  
Xianjun Yu

Tandem blades are widely reported to be superior to a single-blade configuration under the aerodynamic circumstance with a large flow turning in a stator or a high work input in a rotor. Aiming at the design of a highly loaded rear stage of a high pressure compressor with the advanced concept, the maximum loading capacity of a tandem-blade configuration, which is rarely described in open literature, is fundamentally necessary to be explicit in order to determine a stable operation range. A diffuser analogy is carefully carried out between the tandem-blade geometry and the diffuser passage using a reliable and robust numerical method. The analysis approach to effectively predicting the maximum static pressure rise is verified by the limited results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experiments. In addition, the maximum loading capacity of the tandem-blade configuration is compared with that of the single-blade configuration to define a more favorable design range of meanline parameters. The results indicate that the tandem blade outperforms the conventional blade in a specific design space and the approach can be a potential design tool to guide the selection of one-dimensional parameters of tandem blades in a highly loaded axial compressor.


2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Gwiasda ◽  
Matthias Mohr ◽  
Martin Böhle

Suction performance, pressure rise, and efficiency for four different inducers are examined with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and experiments performed with 18,000 rpm and 24,000 rpm. The studies originate from a research project that includes the construction of a new test bench in order to judge the design of the different inducers. This test bench allows to conduct experiments with a rotational speed of up to 40,000 rpm and high pressure ranges from 0.1 bar to 40 bar with water as working fluid. Experimental results are used to evaluate the accuracy of the simulations and to gain a better understanding of the design parameter. The influence of increasing the rotating speed from 18,000 rpm to 24,000 rpm on the performance is also shown.


Author(s):  
E. J. Gunn ◽  
C. A. Hall

In a Boundary Layer Ingesting (BLI) fan system the inlet flow field is highly non-uniform. In this environment, an axisymmetric stator design suffers from a non-uniform distribution of hub separations, increased wake thicknesses and casing losses. These additional loss sources can be reduced using a non-axisymmetric design that is tuned to the radial and circumferential flow variations at exit from the rotor. In this paper a non-axisymmetric design approach is described for the stator of a low-speed BLI fan. Firstly sectional design changes are applied at each radial and circumferential location. Next, this approach is combined with the application of non-axisymmetric lean. The designs were tested computationally using full-annulus unsteady CFD of the complete fan stage with a representative inlet distortion. The final design has also been manufactured and tested experimentally. The results show that a 2D sectional approach can be applied non-axisymmetrically to reduce incidence and diffusion factor at each location. This leads to reduced loss, particularly at the casing and midspan, but it does not eliminate the hub separations that are present within highly distorted regions of the annulus. These are relieved by non-axisymmetric lean where the pressure surface is inclined towards the hub. For the final design, the loss in the stator blades operating with BLI was measured to be 10% lower than for the original stator design operating with undistorted inflow. Overall, the results demonstrate that non-axisymmetric design has the potential to eliminate any additional loss in a BLI fan stator caused by the non-uniform ingested flow-field.


Author(s):  
Wenfeng Zhao ◽  
Bin Jiang ◽  
Qun Zheng

Hub corner is the high-loss area in the blade passages of turbo machinery. It is well known that the flow separation and vortex development in this area affects directly not only the energy losses and efficiency, but also the stability of axial compressors. Linear compressor cascades with partial gaps and trailing gaps which can blow away the corner separation by the pressure difference between the suction surface and pressure surface are numerically simulated in this paper. A proposed linear cascade model with gaps has been built. The steady flow field in a linear cascade with different length gaps is studied by numerical simulation of RANS with SST turbulence model and γ-Reθ transition model focusing on the streamline structure between the corner separation vortex and the gap leakage vortex, especially the interaction of the two vertical vortex. When the length of trailing edge gaps is enough (in this paper, the optimal length of the gap is 30% chord), the corner vortex basically disappears completely. At the same time, the mode of flow field changes from the closed separation to the open separation.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1178
Author(s):  
Hao Guo ◽  
Song Zhou ◽  
Jiaxuan Zou ◽  
Majed Shreka

The combustion emissions of the hydrogen-fueled engines are very clean, but the problems of abnormal combustion and high NOx emissions limit their applications. Nowadays hydrogen engines use exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) technology to control the intensity of premixed combustion and reduce the NOx emissions. This study aims at improving the abnormal combustion and decreasing the NOx emissions of the hydrogen engine by applying a three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a single-cylinder hydrogen-fueled engine equipped with an EGR system. The results indicated that peak in-cylinder pressure continuously increased with the increase of the ignition advance angle and was closer to the top dead center (TDC). In addition, the mixture was burned violently near the theoretical air–fuel ratio, and the combustion duration was shortened. Moreover, the NOx emissions, the average pressure, and the in-cylinder temperature decreased as the EGR ratio increased. Furthermore, increasing the EGR ratio led to an increase in the combustion duration and a decrease in the peak heat release rate. EGR system could delay the spontaneous combustion reaction of the end-gas and reduce the probability of knocking. The pressure rise rate was controlled and the in-cylinder hot spots were reduced by the EGR system, which could suppress the occurrence of the pre-ignition in the hydrogen engine.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kaluza ◽  
Christian Landgraf ◽  
Philipp Schwarz ◽  
Peter Jeschke ◽  
Caitlin Smythe

In aero-engine applications, centrifugal compressors are often close-coupled with their respective diffusers to increase efficiency at the expense of a reduced operating range. The aim of this paper is to show that state-of-the art steady-state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations can model a hubside cavity between an impeller and a close-coupled diffuser and to enhance the understanding of how the cavity affects performance. The investigated cavity is located at the impeller trailing edge, and bleed air is extracted through it. Due to geometrical limitations, the mixing plane is located in the cavity region. Therefore, the previous analyses used only a cut (“simple”) model of the cavity. With the new, “full” cavity model, the region inside the cavity right after the impeller trailing edge is not neglected anymore. The numerical setup is validated using the experimental data gathered on a state-of-the art centrifugal compressor test-rig. For the total pressure field in front of the diffuser throat, a clear improvement is achieved. The results presented reveal a drop in stage efficiency by 0.5%-points caused by a new loss mechanism at the impeller trailing edge. On the hubside, the fundamentally different interaction of the cavity with the coreflow increases the losses in the downstream components resulting in the mentioned stage efficiency drop. Finally, varying bleed air extraction is investigated with both cavity models. Only the full cavity (FC) model captures the changes measured in the experiment.


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