scholarly journals Effect of the Rear Stage Casing Treatment on the Overall Performance of a Multistage Axial-Flow Compressor

1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao-Lin Gao ◽  
Ke-Ming Li

This paper discusses the effect of tip treatment in the rear stages of a compressor on the high speed stall margin and efficiency. A nine stage engine compressor was tested in a rig with and without casing treatment on the tip sections of the last three rotors. Another series of tests were conducted on a modified compressor with twisted rotor blades in the rear stages. For both compressors, tip treatment improved high speed surge margin. The first compressor encountered no loss of efficiency with the addition of tip treatment, but the second compressor suffered a loss of efficiency.

2008 ◽  
Vol 131 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingen Lu ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Junqiang Zhu ◽  
Yangfeng Zhang

In order to advance the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of axial skewed slot casing treatment and their effects on the subsonic axial-flow compressor flow field, the coupled unsteady flow through a subsonic compressor rotor and the axial skewed slot was simulated with a state-of-the-art multiblock flow solver. The computational results were first compared with available measured data, that showed the numerical procedure calculates the overall effect of the axial skewed slot correctly. Then, the numerically obtained flow fields were interrogated to identify the physical mechanism responsible for improvement in stall margin of a modern subsonic axial-flow compressor rotor due to the discrete skewed slots. It was found that the axial skewed slot casing treatment can increase the stall margin of subsonic compressor by repositioning of the tip clearance flow trajectory further toward the trailing of the blade passage and retarding the movement of the incoming∕tip clearance flow interface toward the rotor leading edge plane.


Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Haoguang Zhang ◽  
Yanhui Wu

Recirculating casing treatment (RCT) was studied in a subsonic axial flow compressor experimentally and numerically. The RCT was parameterized with the injector throat height and circumferential coverage percentage (ccp) to investigate its influence on compressor stability and on the overall performance in the experimentation. The injector throat height varied from 2 to 6 times the height of the rotor tip clearance, and the ccp ranged from 8.3% to 25% of the casing perimeter. Various RCT configurations were achieved with a modular design procedure. The rotor casing was instrumented with fast-response pressure transducers to detect the stall inception, rotational speed of stall cells, and pressure flow fields. Whole-passage unsteady simulations were also implemented for the RCT and solid casing to understand the flow details. Results indicate that both the compressor stability and overall performance can be improved through RCT with appropriate geometrical parameters. The effect of injector throat height on the stability depends on the choice of ccp, i.e., interaction effect exists. In general, the RCT with a moderate injector throat height and a large circumferential coverage is the optimal choice. Phase-locked pattern of the casing wall pressure reveals a weakened tip leakage vortex under the effect of RCT compared with the solid casing. The numerical results show that the RCT has a substantial effect on tip blockage even when the blade passages break away from the domain of RCT. The reduction of tip blockage induced by the tip leakage vortex is the main reason for the extension of stable operation range. The unsteadiness of double-leakage flow is detected both in the experiment and in numerical simulations. The pressure fluctuations caused by double-leakage flow are depressed with RCT. This observation indicates reduced losses related with the double-leakage flow. Although the stall inception is not changed by implementing RCT, the stall pattern is altered. The stall with two cells is detected in RCT compared with the solid casing with only one stall cell.


Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Haoguang Zhang ◽  
Yanhui Wu

Parametric studies of recirculating casing treatment were experimentally performed in a subsonic axial flow compressor. The recirculating casing treatment was parameterized with injector throat height, injection position, and circumferential coverage percentage. Eighteen recirculating casing treatments were tested to study the effects on compressor stability and on the compressor overall performance at three blade speeds. The profiles of recirculating casing treatment were optimized to minimize the losses generated by air recirculation. In the experiment, the stalling mass flow rate, total pressure ratio, and adiabatic efficiency of the compressor were measured to study the steady-state effects on the compressor performance of recirculating casing treatments, and static pressure disturbances on the casing wall were monitored to study the influence on stall dynamics. Results indicate that both the compressor stability and overall performance can be improved through recirculating casing treatment with appropriate geometrical parameters for all the test speeds. The influence on stall margin of one geometric parameter often depends on the choice of others, i.e. the interaction effects exist. In general, the recirculating casing treatment with a moderate injector throat and a large circumferential coverage is the optimal choice to enhance compressor stability. The injector of recirculating casing treatment should be placed upstream of the blade tip leading edge and the injector throat height should be lower than four times the rotor tip gap for the benefits of compressor efficiency. At 71% speed, the blade tip loading is decreased through recirculating casing treatment at the operating condition of near peak efficiency and increased near stall. Moreover, the outlet absolute flow angle is reduced in the tip region and enhanced at lower blade spans for both operating conditions. The stall inceptions are not changed with the implementation of recirculating casing treatment for all the test speeds, but the stall patterns are altered at 33% and 53% speeds, i.e. the stall with two cells is detected in the recirculating casing treatment compared with the solid casing with only one stall cell.


Author(s):  
X Lu ◽  
W Chu ◽  
Y Zhang ◽  
J Zhu

On the basis of the test results of discrete axial and blade angle slot casing treatment, a new type of casing treatment was designed for a subsonic axial flow compressor rotor by optimizing various geometry parameters. To obtain a wide operating range and to minimize penalties in terms of isentropic efficiency, seven compressor configurations incorporating casing treatments of 0, 16.6, 33.3, 50, 66.6, 83.3, and 100 per cent rotor exposures were experimentally investigated. The results showed that significant improvements in stall margin are possible in all exposures and insignificant isentropic efficiency sacrifices are recorded in some exposures. Nearly 21.43 per cent stall margin improvement in terms of the corrected mass flow-rate was achieved with 33.3 per cent rotor blade tip axial chord exposure. The compressor built with 16.6 per cent rotor exposure was the best configuration in terms of maximum isentropic efficiency gain. The second issue of the paper was to offer a contribution to the understanding of the physical mechanism by which bend-skewed slot-casing treatment improves stall margin under subsonic conditions. By applying a concept similar to ‘Domain scaling’ approach (as often used in multistage turbomachinery flow-fields) to the interface between the rotor blade passage and end-wall treatments, a time-dependent three-dimensional numerical simulation was performed for the subsonic axial-flow compressor rotor with bend-skewed slot-casing treatment. The numerical results agreed well with the available experimental results. Detailed analyses of the coupled flow through bend-skewed slot-casing treatment and rotor blade passage under subsonic conditions led to some preliminary conclusions as to the flow physics involved in the stall margin improvements afforded by the use of bend-skewed slot-casing treatment.


Author(s):  
Mitesh Goswami ◽  
Dilipkumar Bhanudasji Alone ◽  
Harish S. Choksi

This paper deals with the numerical studies on the combined effect of tip clearance and axisymmetric circumferential grooves casing treatment (CGCT) on the overall performance and stall margin of a single stage transonic axial flow compressor. Steady state numerical analysis was carried out by solving three dimensional Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) Equations using the Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω Turbulence Model. The numerical stall inception point was identified from the last converged point by the convergence criteria, and the stall margin was numerically predicted. Additionally, the stall margin and the isentropic peak stage efficiencies of the circumferential casing grooves with various tip clearances were compared and evaluated in order to explore the influence of the tip clearance. Results obtained were compared with those obtained on the baseline compressor with the smooth casing (SC). Further computational studies were conducted to study the role of the tip leakage flow in axial compressor in triggering the stall. The relationship between the tip clearance flow, flow field and surge margin extension from circumferential groove casing treatment with various rotor tip clearances were studied numerically. The application of the circumferential groove casing treatment with varying clearance leads to significant improvement in the operating stability of compressor with slight reduction in the isentropic peak stage efficiency for small tip clearances, whereas there was slight increment in the isentropic peak stage efficiency at higher tip clearance of 2.5 mm.


Author(s):  
Dilipkumar B. Alone ◽  
Subramani Satish Kumar ◽  
Shobhavathy Thimmaiah ◽  
Janaki Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
A. M. Pradeep ◽  
...  

Bend skewed casing treatment was designed to improve the stable operating range of single stage transonic axial flow compressor and also to understand the effects of its plenum chamber volume on the performance. This paper presents the original experimental research work undertaken to study the effect of plenum chamber depth and thus its volume on the performance of single stage transonic axial flow compressor coupled with the bend skewed casing treatment. The bend skewed casing treatment with porosity of 33% was selected for the present experimental study. The bend skewed casing treatment has slot width equal to the maximum thickness of the rotor blade. The casing treatment geometry has an axial front segment and a 45° staggered rear segment following the blade tip stagger. Both the segments were skewed by 45° in the radial plane, in such a way that the flow emerging from the casing slots would do so with swirl contrary to the direction of rotor rotation. The plenum chamber which can also be called as stagnation zone exists above the skewed slots. The plenum chamber has an axial length equal to the axial length of the casing treatment slots. The maximum depth of the plenum chamber was 11 mm and which was equal to the depth of bend skewed casing slots. The depth of plenum chamber was varied from zero, half the slot depth, and equal to slot depth in order to get variable volume. The porosity and axial location of the casing treatment relative to the rotor tip chord were chosen from the earlier experimental programs on effect of bend skewed casing treatment porosities and axial coverages for the present compressor stage. Optimum performance of the transonic compressor stage was obtained at 20% and 40% axial coverages and for 33% porosity configurations. The axial coverages of 20% and 40% were chosen for the present study to understand the effects of plenum chamber volume on the performance of single stage transonic axial flow compressor. The performance of the compressor stage with solid casing and casing treatment with different plenum volume was obtained and compared at different operating speeds. The compressor performance was derived for the fixed casing treatment porosity of 33% and for three different configurations of plenum chamber volumes at two different axial coverages. Experimental investigations reveal that the plenum chamber volume does have an impact on the stable operating range of the compressor. The compressor stall margin improves with increase in the plenum chamber volume. Bend skewed casing treatment coupled with plenum chamber of depths equal to the slots depth results in maximum stall margin improvement of 37.62% as compared to 26.40% without plenum chamber over the solid casing at 40% axial coverage. For this combination 0.8% improvement in the peak stage efficiency above the solid casing was noticed at 60% design speed.


Author(s):  
Maoyi Li ◽  
Wei Yuan ◽  
Xizhen Song ◽  
Yajun Lu ◽  
Zhiping Li ◽  
...  

The traditional annulus casing treatment often pays the price of lowered efficiency for improving the stall margin of a compressor under inlet distortion. In view of the unsymmetry of the inlet flow-field of compressors, partial casing treatment was used to control the flow in a transonic axial-flow compressor with arc-skewed-slots deployed at different circumferential positions under inlet distortion. The experimental results indicate that when the partial casing treatment is arranged on the undistorted and distorted sectors, the stall margin is enhanced by 8.02%, with the relative peak efficiency improved simultaneously by 2.143%, compared with the case of solid casing at 98% rotating speed. By contrast, the traditional casing treatment increases the stall-margin by 23.13%, but decreases the relative peak efficiency by 0.752%. By analyzing dynamic and static experimental data, the mechanism underlying the partial casing treatment was also studied in detail here. The disturbances of inlet flow were restrained by annulus casing treatment, nevertheless the total pressure ratio was decreased obviously in the distorted sector. As a result, the stall-margin is improved, but the relative peak efficiency is decreased too. When the partial casing treatment was arranged on the undistortded and distorted sectors, the stall disturbances was thereby restrained. So the stall margin was enhanced. In addition, the total pressure ratio was improved by the partial casing treatment in the distorted and transition sectors, and thus the relative peak efficiency was also increased markedly.


Author(s):  
Dilipkumar B. Alone ◽  
Subramani Satish Kumar ◽  
Shobhavathy Thimmaiah ◽  
Janaki Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
A. M. Pradeep ◽  
...  

The performance of an aero-engines to a large extend depends on the performance behavior of axial flow compressors and is restricted by the compressor instabilities like rotating stall and surge. In the present study, attempts have been made to design and develop the bend skewed casing treatment geometries with lower porosities to improve the stable operating range of single stage axial flow compressor. Experimental investigations were undertaken to study the impact of axial position of one of the casing treatment geometry on the single stage transonic axial flow compressor. The transonic compressor used for the current experimental studies has a stage total to total pressure ratio of 1.35, corrected mass flow rate of 22 kg/s at an operating speed of 12930 rpm. The compressor stage steady and unsteady state response for 20%, 40%, 60% and 100% axial chord coverage relative to the rotor tip chord of the bend skewed casing treatment with a porosity of 33% was studied experimentally. The objective was to identify the optimum axial location; which will give maximum improvement in the stall margin with minimal loss of compressor stage efficiency. Through an experimental study it was observed that the axial location of bend skewed casing treatment plays a very crucial role in governing the performance of the transonic compressor. For all the investigated axial coverages, compressor stall margin increases but the optimum performance in terms of stall margin improvement and efficiency gains were observed at 20% and 40% of the rotor chord. This trend shows good agreement with existing published literature. An improvement of 31.7% in the stall margin with an increase in the stage efficiency was obtained at one of the axial coverage. Maximum improvement of 37% in the stall margin above the solid casing was noticed at 60% axial coverage. The stalling characteristics of the compressor stage also changes with the axial positions. In the presence of solid casing the nature of stall was abrupt and stalls cells travels at half the rotor speed. The blade element performance also studied at the rotor exit using pre-calibrated aerodynamic probe.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
DilipkumarBhanudasji Alone ◽  
S. Satish Kumar ◽  
Shobhavathy M. Thimmaiah ◽  
Janaki Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
A.M. Pradeep ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Xingen Lu ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Junqiang Zhu ◽  
Yanhui Wu

Based on the test results of discrete axial and blade angle slot casing treatment, a new type of casing treatment was designed for a subsonic axial flow compressor rotor by optimising various geometry parameters. To obtain a wide operating range and to minimize penalties in terms of isentropic efficiency, seven compressor configurations incorporating casing treatments of 0%, 16.6%, 33.3%, 50%, 66.6%, 83.3% and 100% rotor exposure were experimentally investigated. The results showed that significant improvements in stall margin are possible in all exposures and insignificant isentropic efficiency sacrifices are recorded in some exposures. Nearly 21.43% stall margin improvement in terms of the corrected mass flow rate was achieved with 33.3% rotor blade tip axial chord exposure. The compressor build with 16.6% rotor exposure was the best configuration in terms of maximum isentropic efficiency gain. The second issue of the paper was to offer a contribution to the understanding of the physical mechanism by which bend skewed slot casing treatment improve stall margin under subsonic conditions. By applying a concept similar to “Domain Scaling” approach (as often used in multistage turbomachinery Flow-fields) to the interface between the rotor blade passage and end-wall treatments, a time-dependent 3-dimentional numerical simulation was performed for the subsonic axial-flow compressor rotor with bend skewed slot casing treatment. The numerical results agreed well with experimental results. Detailed analyses of the coupled flow through bend skewed slot casing treatment and rotor blade passage under subsonic conditions led to some preliminary conclusions as to the flow physics involved in the stall margin improvements afforded by the use of bend skewed slot casing treatment.


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