Multi Stage Axial Compressor Design and Performance Evaluation

Author(s):  
Young Seok Kang ◽  
Tae Choon Park ◽  
Oh Sik Hwang ◽  
Soo Seok Yang

Recently, needs for Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) and small aircraft are increasing and demands for small turbo jet or turbo fan engines are also increasing. Then, size and weight are the two main restrictions in UAV or small aircraft propulsion system applications. One method for resolving such a problem is to increase the pressure rise per stage and to reduce the number of stages. Nowadays, matured compressor aerodynamic design techniques enable us to design highly loaded axial compressors. This paper covers from the design step of a highly loaded transonic axial compressor to the performance test result and its analysis. At the fore part of the paper, aerodynamic process of a multi stage axial compressor is introduced. To satisfy both of the mass flow and pressure rise, the compressor should rotate at a high rotational speed. Therefore the transonic flow field forms in the rotor stages and it is designed with a relatively high pressure rise per stage to satisfy its design target. Basically, one dimensional and quasi three dimensional compressor design were carried with compressor design codes. The compressor stage consists of 3 stages, and the bulk pressure ratio is 2.5. The first stage is burdened with the highest pressure ratio and less pressure rises occur in the following stages. Also it is designed that tip Mach number of the first rotor row does not exceed 1.3. The final design was confirmed by iterating three dimensional CFD calculations to satisfy design target and some design intentions. In the latter part of the paper, its performance test processes are briefly introduced. The performance test result showed that the overall compressor performance targets; pressure ratio and efficiency are well achieved. From the test results, we found some clues for further improvement and optimization of the compressor aerodynamic performance.

Author(s):  
Shashank Mishra ◽  
Shaaban Abdallah ◽  
Mark Turner

Multistage axial compressor has an advantage of lower stage loading as compared to a single stage. Several stages with low pressure ratio are linked together which allows for multiplication of pressure to generate high pressure ratio in an axial compressor. Since each stage has low pressure ratio they operate at a higher efficiency and the efficiency of multi-stage axial compressor as a whole is very high. Although, single stage centrifugal compressor has higher pressure ratio compared with an axial compressor but multistage centrifugal compressors are not as efficient because the flow has to be turned from radial at outlet to axial at inlet for each stage. The present study explores the advantages of extending the axial compressor efficient flow path that consist of rotor stator stages to the centrifugal compressor stage. In this invention, two rotating rows of blades are mounted on the same impeller disk, separated by a stator blade row attached to the casing. A certain amount of turning can be achieved through a single stage centrifugal compressor before flow starts separating, thus dividing it into multiple stages would be advantageous as it would allow for more flow turning. Also the individual stage now operate with low pressure ratio and high efficiency resulting into an overall increase in pressure ratio and efficiency. The baseline is derived from the NASA low speed centrifugal compressor design which is a 55 degree backward swept impeller. Flow characteristics of the novel multistage design are compared with a single stage centrifugal compressor. The flow path of the baseline and multi-stage compressor are created using 3DBGB tool and DAKOTA is used to optimize the performance of baseline as well novel design. The optimization techniques used are Genetic algorithm followed by Numerical Gradient method. The optimization resulted into improvements in incidence and geometry which significantly improved the performance over baseline compressor design. The multistage compressor is more efficient with a higher pressure ratio compared with the base line design for the same work input and initial conditions.


Author(s):  
Chengwu Yang ◽  
Ge Han ◽  
Shengfeng Zhao ◽  
Xingen Lu ◽  
Yanfeng Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract The blades of rear stages in small size core compressors are reduced to shorter than 20 mm or even less due to overall high pressure ratio. The growing of tip clearance-to-blade height ratio of the rear stages enhance the leakage flow and increase the possibility of a strong clearance sensitivity, thus limiting the compressor efficiency and stability. A new concept of compressor, namely diffuser passage compressor (DP), for small size core compressors was introduced. The design aims at making the compressors robust to tip clearance leakage flow by reducing pressure difference between pressure and suction surfaces. To validate the concept, the second stage of a two-stage highly loaded axial compressor was designed with DP rotor according to a diffuser map. The diffuser passage stage has the same inlet condition and loading as the conventional compressor (CNV) stage, of which the work coefficient is around 0.37. The predicted performance and flow field of the DP were compared with the conventional axial compressor in detail. The rig testing was supplemented with the numerical predictions. Results reveal that the throttle characteristic of DP indicates higher pressure rise and the loss reduction in tip clearance is mainly responsible for the performance improvement. For the compressor with DP, the pressure and flow angle are more uniform on exit plane. What’s more, the rotor with diffused passage reveals more robust than the conventional rotor at double clearance gap. Furthermore, the experimental data indicate that DP presents higher pressure rise at design and part speeds. At design speed, the stall margin was extended by 7.25%. Moreover, peak adiabatic efficiency of DP is also higher than that of CNV by about 0.7%.


Author(s):  
C. H. Muller ◽  
A. Sabatiuk

The axial supersonic compressors of the “shock-in-rotor” type are under development for application to small gas turbines. A passage flow approach and passage criteria were used to design and develop the airfoils for the highly loaded rotor and stator blading of these 4 lb/sec machines. The overall stage performance values demonstrated to date are 2.06:1 pressure ratio at 78 percent adiabatic efficiency and 2.56:1 at 74.4 percent efficiency. The loss data and static pressure rise measured for the rotors and exit stators provide ample evidence that the higher design performance goals can be met.


Author(s):  
Jens Ortmanns

In order to increase the efficiency of a compressor module, several loss sources such as aerofoil profile loss, secondary loss and clearance flow phenomena must be taken into account and balanced in the most efficient way. This current document presents the results of a numerical investigation based on a conventionally loaded high pressure compressor stage with different inlet and exit swirls. The effects of changing the degree of reaction on the compressor stage flow pattern is analysed in detail. In general, the correlation between the overall stage efficiency at constant pressure ratio and the degree of stage reaction is low. Nevertheless, the results show a direct impact on the rotor tip leakage flow and the secondary flow phenomena in the stator end-wall region when the degree of reaction is modified which is driven by the change in static pressure rise between the rotor and the stator passages. The balance of these two loss sources might have an impact on the efficiency and the stall behaviour of a multi-stage compressor.


Author(s):  
M. A. Howard ◽  
S. J. Gallimore

An existing throughflow method for axial compressors, which accounts for the effects of spanwise mixing using a turbulent diffusion model, has been extended to include the viscous shear force on the endwall. The use of a shear force, consistent with a no-slip condition, on the annulus walls in the throughflow calculations allows realistic predictions of the velocity and flow angle profiles near the endwalls. The annulus wall boundary layers are therefore incorporated directly in the throughflow prediction. This eliminates the need for empirical blockage factors or independent annulus boundary layer calculations. The axisymmetric prediction can be further refined by specifying realistic spanwise variations of loss coefficient and deviation to model the three-dimensional endwall effects. The resulting throughflow calculation gives realistic predictions of flow properties across the whole span of a compressor. This is confirmed by comparison with measured data from both low and high speed multi-stage machines. The viscous throughflow method has been incorporated into an axial compressor design system. The method predicts the meridional velocity defects in the endwall region and consequently blading can be designed which allows for the increased incidence, and low dynamic head, near to the annulus walls.


Author(s):  
Christian Janke ◽  
Markus Goller ◽  
Ivo Martin ◽  
Lilia Gaun ◽  
Dieter Bestle

Compressor maps of aero engines show the relation between corrected mass flow, corrected shaft speed, pressure ratio, and efficiency, where different operating conditions of the compressor are represented by different speed lines. These speed lines are an important information for the compressor design process, since they show important operation bounds like surge and choke. Typically, 3D CFD compressor maps are computed with the so called hot geometry given by the aerodynamic design point. But in reality aerofoil shapes change depending on engine speeds and gas loads resulting in twist of the blades and changes of tip clearance. In order to obtain a higher quality compressor map, all these effects must be taken into account. Therefore, a process is utilized which uses coupled CFD and FE analyses to account for load adjusted geometries aside the design point. For transformation of FE results into the CFD model a cold-to-hot blade morphing technique is used. The studies are performed for a 4.5 stage high speed axial compressor, where effects of varying tip clearance and geometry deformation are considered separately from each other. Finally, their combined effects are studied.


Author(s):  
Magdy S. Attia ◽  
Christopher Hemerly

In an article published some time ago [1], the authors investigated the idea of breaking down the [multi-stage] compressor component of the typical turbofan engine into modules. The motivation for this work stems from a “Lean Engineering” approach to gas turbine engine design. Five (5) modules were created; they are the inlet, front, core, rear, and exit modules. The intent is to maximize the size of the core module, as represented by the number of stages. Thus, many different compressors can share the core module, which will greatly reduce the Lifecycle costs for the fleet. The next stage of this work focuses on the Meanline and Throughflow design and analysis of two different compressors that share an 8-stage core. The first compressor, HPC-1, is a 10-stage compressor operating at 9,000 rpm, having 100 Kg/sec inlet mass flow rate, and a 13.5:1 overall pressure ratio. HPC-2 is a 13-stage modular upgrade of HPC-1, operating at 9,700 rpm, having an inlet mass flow rate of 140 Kg/sec, and a 27:1 overall pressure ratio. Applying the modular concept, the first and last stages (of HPC-1) have been removed and replaced by 2 and 3 stages, respectively. Additionally the inlet and exit modules have been redesigned as well. Preliminary Meanline analysis showed that this concept could present challenging boundary conditions for the design of the interface stage; the name assigned to the first stage of the core module. The conditions entering that stage represent a critical hurdle to the viability of this method. Slight variations in corrected speed and pressure ratios for stages 1 and 2 of the modular upgrade, HPC-2, provided the necessary realignment of the core module. The pressure ratio of the core module differs by less than 1% for both compressors. And in both instances, the corrected speed is virtually identical. Throughflow analysis, conducted using T-AXI [2], confirms the redesign and the viability of the method.


Author(s):  
James H. Page ◽  
Paul Hield ◽  
Paul G. Tucker

Semi-inverse design is the automatic re-cambering of an aerofoil, during a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation, in order to achieve a target lift distribution while maintaining thickness, hence “semi-inverse”. In this design method, the streamwise distribution of curvature is replaced by a stream-wise distribution of lift. The authors have developed an inverse design code based on the method of Hield (2008) which can rapidly design three-dimensional fan blades in a multi-stage environment. The algorithm uses an inner loop to design to radially varying target lift distributions, an outer loop to achieve radial distributions of stage pressure ratio and exit flow angle, and a choked nozzle to set design mass flow. The code is easily wrapped around any CFD solver. In this paper, we describe a novel algorithm for designing simultaneously for specified performance at full speed and peak efficiency at part speed, without trade-offs between the targets at each of the two operating points. We also introduce a novel adaptive target lift distribution which automatically develops discontinuous changes of calculated magnitude, based on the passage shock, eliminating erroneous lift demands in the shock vicinity and maintaining a smooth aerofoil.


2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Fischer ◽  
Walter Riess ◽  
Joerg R. Seume

The FVV sponsored project “Bow Blading” (cf. acknowledgments) at the Turbomachinery Laboratory of the University of Hannover addresses the effect of strongly bowed stator vanes on the flow field in a four-stage high-speed axial compressor with controlled diffusion airfoil (CDA) blading. The compressor is equipped with more strongly bowed vanes than have previously been reported in the literature. The performance map of the present compressor is being investigated experimentally and numerically. The results show that the pressure ratio and the efficiency at the design point and at the choke limit are reduced by the increase in friction losses on the surface of the bowed vanes, whose surface area is greater than that of the reference (CDA) vanes. The mass flow at the choke limit decreases for the same reason. Because of the change in the radial distribution of axial velocity, pressure rise shifts from stage 3 to stage 4 between the choke limit and maximum pressure ratio. Beyond the point of maximum pressure ratio, this effect is not distinguishable from the reduction of separation by the bow of the vanes. Experimental results show that in cases of high aerodynamic loading, i.e., between maximum pressure ratio and the stall limit, separation is reduced in the bowed stator vanes so that the stagnation pressure ratio and efficiency are increased by the change to bowed stators. It is shown that the reduction of separation with bowed vanes leads to a increase of static pressure rise towards lower mass flow so that the present bow bladed compressor achieves higher static pressure ratios at the stall limit.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3860
Author(s):  
Song Huang ◽  
Jinxin Cheng ◽  
Chengwu Yang ◽  
Chuangxin Zhou ◽  
Shengfeng Zhao ◽  
...  

Due to the complexity of the internal flow field of compressors, the aerodynamic design and optimization of a highly loaded axial compressor with high performance still have three problems, which are rich engineering design experience, high dimensions, and time-consuming calculations. To overcome these three problems, this paper takes an engineering-designed 2.5-stage highly loaded axial flow compressor as an example to introduce the design process and the adopted design philosophies. Then, this paper verifies the numerical method of computational fluid dynamics. A new Bezier surface modeling method for the entire suction surface and pressure surface of blades is developed, and the multi-island genetic algorithm is directly used for further optimization. Only 32 optimization variables are used to optimize the rotors and stators of the compressor, which greatly overcome the problem of high dimensions, time-consuming calculations, and smooth blade surfaces. After optimization, compared with the original compressor, the peak efficiency is still improved by 0.12%, and the stall margin is increased by 2.69%. The increase in peak efficiency is mainly due to the rotors. Compared with the original compressor, for the second-stage rotor, the adiabatic efficiency is improved by about 0.4%, which is mainly due to the decreases of total pressure losses in the range of above 30% of the span height and 10%–30% of the chord length. Besides, for the original compressor, due to deterioration of the flow field near the tip region of the second-stage stator, the large low-speed region eventually evolves from corner separation into corner stall with three-dimensional space spiral backflow. For the optimized compressor, the main reason for the increased stall margin is that the flow field of the second-stage stator with a span height above 50% is improved, and the separation area and three-dimensional space spiral backflow are reduced.


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