A Computational Fluid Dynamics Study of Circumferential Groove Casing Treatment in a Transonic Axial Compressor

2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haixin Chen ◽  
Xudong Huang ◽  
Ke Shi ◽  
Song Fu ◽  
Mark Ross ◽  
...  

Numerical investigations were conducted to predict the performance of a transonic axial compressor rotor with circumferential groove casing treatment. The Notre Dame Transonic Axial Compressor (ND-TAC) was simulated at Tsinghua University with an in-house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code (NSAWET) for this work. Experimental data from the ND-TAC were used to define the geometry, boundary conditions, and data sampling method for the numerical simulation. These efforts, combined with several unique simulation approaches, such as nonmatched grid boundary technology to treat the periodic boundaries and interfaces between groove grids and the passage grid, resulted in good agreement between the numerical and experimental results for overall compressor performance and radial profiles of exit total pressure. Efforts were made to study blade level flow mechanisms to determine how the casing treatment impacts the compressor's stall margin and performance. The flow structures in the passage, the tip gap, and the grooves as well as their mutual interactions were plotted and analyzed. The flow and momentum transport across the tip gap in the smooth wall and the casing treatment configurations were quantitatively compared.

Author(s):  
Haixin Chen ◽  
Xudong Huang ◽  
Ke Shi ◽  
Song Fu ◽  
Matthew A. Bennington ◽  
...  

Numerical investigations were conducted to predict the performance of a transonic axial compressor rotor with circumferential groove casing treatment. The Notre Dame Transonic Axial Compressor (ND-TAC) was simulated by Tsinghua University with an in-house CFD code (NSAWET) for this work. Experimental data from the ND-TAC were used to define the geometry, boundary conditions and data sampling method for the numerical simulation. These efforts, combined with several unique simulation approaches, such as non-matched grid boundary technology to treat the periodic boundaries and interfaces between groove grids and the passage grid, resulted in good agreement between the numerical and experimental results for overall compressor performance and radial profiles of exit total pressure. Efforts were made to study blade level flow mechanisms to determine how the casing treatment impacts the compressor’s stall margin and performance. The flow structures in the passage, the tip gap and the grooves as well as their mutual interactions were plotted and analyzed. The flow and momentum transport across the tip gap in the smooth wall and the casing treatment configurations were quantitatively compared.


Author(s):  
Kirubakaran Purushothaman ◽  
Sankar Kumar Jeyaraman ◽  
Ajay Pratap ◽  
Kishore Prasad Deshkulkarni

This study discusses in detail the aeroelastic flutter investigation of a transonic axial compressor rotor using computational methods. Fluid structure interaction approach is used in this method to evaluate the unsteady aerodynamic force and work done of a vibrating blade in CFD domain. Energy method and work per cycle approach is adapted for this flutter prediction. A framework has been developed to estimate the work per cycle and aerodynamic damping ratio. Based on the aerodynamic damping ratio, occurrence of flutter is estimated for different inter blade phase angles. Initially, the baseline rotor blade design was having negative aerodynamic damping at part speed conditions. The main cause for this flutter occurrence was identified as large flow separation near blade tip region due to high incidence angles. The unsteadiness in the flow was leading to aerodynamic force fluctuation matching with natural frequency of blade, resulting in excitation of the blades. Hence axially skewed slot casing treatment was implemented to reduce the flow separation at blade tip region to alleviate the onset of flutter. By this method, the stall margin and aerodynamic damping of the test compressor was improved and flutter was avoided.


Author(s):  
Yan-Ling Li ◽  
Abdulnaser I Sayma

Gas turbine axial compressor blades may encounter damage during service for various reasons such as damage by debris from casing or foreign objects impacting the blades, typically near the rotor’s tip. This may lead to deterioration of performance and reduction in the surge margin. The damage breaks the cyclic symmetry of the rotor assembly; thus, computational fluid dynamics simulations have to be performed using full annulus compressor assembly. Moreover, downstream boundary conditions are unknown during rotating stall or surge, and simulations become difficult. This paper presents unsteady computational fluid dynamics analyses of compressor performance with tip curl damage. Computations were performed near the stall boundary. The primary objectives are to understand the effect of the damage on the flow behaviour and compressor stability. Computations for the undamaged rotor assembly were also performed as a reference case. A transonic axial compressor rotor was used for the time-accurate numerical unsteady flow simulations, with a variable area nozzle downstream simulating an experimental throttle. Computations were performed at 60% of the rotor design speed. Two different degrees of damage for one blade and multiple damaged blades were investigated. Rotating stall characteristics differ including the number of stall cells, propagation speed and rotating stall cell characteristics. Contrary to expectations, damaged blades with typical degrees of damage do not show noticeable effects on the global compressor performance near stall.


Author(s):  
HaoGuang Zhang ◽  
Feng Tan ◽  
YanHui Wu ◽  
WuLi Chu ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
...  

For compressor blade tip stall, one effective way of extending stable operating range is with the application of circumferential grooved casing treatment and its validity was proved by a lot of experimental and numerical investigations. The emphases of most circumferential grooved investigations are focused on the influence of groove depth and groove number on compressor stability, and there is few investigations dealt with the center offset degree of circumferential grooves casing treatment. Hence, an axial compressor rotor with casing treatment (CT) was investigated with experimental and numerical methods to explore the effect of center offset degree on compressor stability and performance. In the work reported here, The center offset degree is defined as the ratio of the central difference between rotor tip axial chord and CT to the axial chord length of rotor tip. When the center of CT is located within the upstream direction of the center of rotor tip axial chord, the value of center offset degree is positive. The experimental and numerical results show that stall margin improvement gained with CT is reduced as the value of center offset degree varies from 0 to 0.33 or −0.33, and the CT with −0.33 center offset degree achieves the lowest value of stall margin improvement at 53% and 73% design rotational speed. The detailed analysis of the flow-field in compressor tip indicates that there is not positive effect made by grooves on leading edge of rotor blade tip when the value of center offset degree is −0.33. As the mass flow of compressor reduces further, tip clearance leakage flow results in the outlet blockage due to the absence of the positive action of grooves near blade tip tail when the value of center offset degree is 0.33. Blockage does not appear in rotor tip passage owing to utilizing the function of all grooves with CT of 0 center offset degree.


Author(s):  
S. Subbaramu ◽  
Quamber H. Nagpurwala ◽  
A. T. Sriram

This paper deals with the numerical investigations on the effect of trailing edge crenulation on the performance of a transonic axial compressor rotor. Crenulation is broadly considered as a series of small notches or slots at the edge of a thin object, like a plate. Incorporating such notches at the trailing edge of a compressor cascade has shown beneficial effect in terms of reduction in total pressure loss due to enhanced mixing in the wake region. These notches act as vortex generators to produce counter rotating vortices, which increase intermixing between the free stream flow and the low momentum wake fluid. Considering the positive effects of crenulation in a cascade, it was hypothesized that the same technique would work in a rotating compressor to enhance its performance and stall margin. However, the present CFD simulations on a transonic compressor rotor have given mixed results. Whereas the peak total pressure ratio in the presence of trailing edge crenulation reduced, the stall margin improved by 2.97% compared to the rotor with straight edge blades. The vortex generation at the crenulated trailing edge was not as strong as reported in case of linear compressor cascade, but it was able to influence the flow field in the rotor tip region so as to energize the low momentum end-wall flow in the aft part of the blade passage. This beneficial effect delayed flow separation and allowed the mass flow rate to be reduced to still lower levels resulting in improved stall margin. The reduction in pressure ratio with crenulation was surprising and might be due to increased mixing losses downstream of the blade.


Author(s):  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Hongwei Ma

This paper presents a numerical investigation of effects of sloped trench casing treatment over the rotor tip on the aerodynamic performance and stability of a transonic axial compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37). The axially cutting tip of blade is the marked characteristic of the casing treatment which is differ with casing treatments without adjustment of the blade tip. The numerical method has been verified by experimental results in the case of the smooth casing with the tip clearance of 0.356 mm at the design wheel speed (17188.7 rpm). The simulation results are well consistent with the measurement results. The experiment results of NASA Rotor 37 cite from NASA Lewis Research Center. The simulation results show a performance improvement of the compressor on the sloped trench casing. The flow fields of the smooth and sloped trench casings were compared, and results show the sloped trench geometry provides a barrier to minimize the forward flow from the tip clearance vortex. In addition, the sloped trench allows the forward facing step at the aft end to be replaced by an aerodynamically smooth transition to guide the flow from the recess into the mainstream. These results show a performance improvement of the compressor.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
S Satish Kumar ◽  
Dilipkumar Bhanudasji Alone ◽  
Shobhavathy Thimmaiah ◽  
J Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
Lakshya Kumar ◽  
...  

Abstract For successful implementation of casing treatment designs in axial compressors, apart from the stall margin improvement benefits, aeroelasticity also plays a major role. This manuscript addresses the not often discussed aeroelastic aspects of a new discrete type of passive Self-Recirculating Casing Treatment (RCT) designed for a transonic axial compressor stage. Experiments are carefully designed for synchronized measurement of the unsteady fluidic disturbances and vibrations during rotating stall for compressor with baseline solid casing and Self-RCT. The modal characteristics of the axial compressor rotor-disk assembly are studied experimentally and numerically. Experimentally it is observed that the rotating stall cells excite the blades in their fundamental mode in a compressor with baseline solid casing at the stall flow condition. In contrast, there is no excitation of the blades in the compressor with self-recirculating casing treatment at the same solid casing stall flow condition. Also, the self-recirculating casing treatment compared to the solid casing can significantly reduce the overall vibration levels of the blades that are excited at the stall flow condition. The casing treatment is able to alter the flow field near the tip region of the rotor blade, and hence influencing the forcing function of the rotating cantilever blades to have the aeroelastic benefit.


Author(s):  
Yanling Li ◽  
Abdulnaser Sayma

Gas turbine axial compressor blades may encounter damage during service for various reasons. Debris from casing or foreign objects may impact blades causing damage near the rotor’s tip. This may result in deterioration of performance and reduction in the surge margin. Ability to assess the effect of damaged blades on the compressor performance and stability is important at both the design stage and in service. The damage to compressor blades breaks the cyclic symmetry of the compressor assembly. Thus computations have to be performed using the whole annulus. Moreover, if rotating stall or surge occurs, the downstream boundary conditions are not known and simulations become difficult. This paper presents an unsteady CFD analysis of compressor performance with tip curl damage. Tip curl damage typically occurs when rotor blades hit a loose casing liner. The computations were performed up to the stall boundary, predicting rotating stall patterns. The aim is to assess the effect of blade damage on stall margin and provide better understanding of the flow behaviour during rotating stall. Computations for the undamaged rotor are also performed for comparison. A transonic axial compressor rotor is used for the time-accurate numerical unsteady flow simulations, with a variable choked nozzle downstream simulating an experimental throttle. One damaged blade was introduced in the rotor assembly and computations were performed at 60% of the design rotational speed. It was found that there is no significant effect on the compressor stall margin due to one damaged blade despite the differences in rotating stall patterns between the undamaged and damaged assemblies.


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