On Understanding the Effect of Plenum Chamber of a Bend Skewed Casing Treatment on the Performance of a Transonic Axial Flow Compressor

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):  
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.


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

A bend skewed casing treatment was designed, to study the influence of one of its geometrical parameter porosity on the stable performance of single stage transonic axial flow compressor. The compressor was designed for the stage total-to-total pressure ratio of 1.35, corrected mass flow rate of 22 kg/s at corrected design speed of 12930 RPM. Bend skewed casing treatment has an axial inlet segment till 50% of the total length and rear segment that is skewed by 45° in the direction of the rotor tip section stagger. Both the sections were oriented at a skew angle of 45° to the radial plane such that the flow exiting the slot is in counter-clockwise direction to that of the rotor direction. The casing treatment slot width was equal to the maximum thickness of the rotor blades. Three casing treatment configurations were identified for the current experimental investigation. All the treatment geometries considered for the experimental research have lower porosities than reported in the open literatures. The effect of the porosity parameter on the performance of transonic compressor stage was evaluated at two axial coverages of 20% and 40% relative to the rotor tip axial chord. Performance maps were obtained for the solid casing and casing treatment with three different porosities. Comparative studies were carried out and experimental results showed a maximum of 65% improvement in the stable operating range of the compressor for one of the treatment configurations. It was also observed that the stable operating range of the compressor increases with an increase in the casing treatment porosity. All the casing treatment configurations showed that the compressor stall occurs at lower mass flows as compared to the solid casing. Compressor stage peak efficiency shows significant degradations with increase in the porosity as compared to solid casing. Detailed blade element performances were also obtained using calibrated multi-hole aerodynamic probe. Comparative variations of flow parameters like absolute flow angle, Mach number were studied at full flow and near stall conditions for the solid casing and casing treatment configurations. Hot wire measurements show very high fluctuation in the inlet axial velocity in the presence of solid casing as compared to casing treatments. Experimental investigation revealed that the porosity of the casing treatments has strong influence on the transonic compressor stage performance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilipkumar Bhanudasji Alone ◽  
S. Satish Kumar ◽  
Shobhavathy M. Thimmaiah ◽  
Janaki Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
A. M. Pradeep ◽  
...  

This paper presents experimental results of a single stage transonic axial flow compressor coupled with low porosity bend skewed casing treatment. The casing treatment has a plenum chamber above the bend slots. The depth of the plenum chamber is varied to understand its impact on the performance of compressor stage. The performance of the compressor stage is evaluated for casing treatment and plenum chamber configurations at two axial locations of 20% and 40%. Experimental results reveal that the stall margin of the compressor stage increases with increase in the plenum chamber volume. Hot-wire measurements show significant reduction in the turbulence intensity with increase in the plenum chamber volume compared to that with the solid casing at the stall condition. At higher operating speeds of 80% and at 20% axial coverage, the stall margin of the compressor increases by 20% with half and full plenum depth. The improvement in the peak stage efficiency observed is 4.6% with half plenum configuration and 3.34% with the full plenum configuration. The maximum improvement in the stall margin of 29.16% is obtained at 50% operating speed with full plenum configurations at 40% axial coverage.


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):  
Anand P. Darji ◽  
Dilipkumar Bhanudasji Alone ◽  
Chetan S. Mistry

A transonic axial flow compressor undergoes severe vibrations due to instabilities like stall and surge when it operates at lower mass flow rate in the absence of any control devices. In present study, the attempt was made to understand the combine impact of circumferential casing grooves (CCG) of constant aspect ratio and different axial spacing between rotor and stator on the operating stability of single stage transonic axial compressor and that of rotor alone using numerical simulation. The optimum rotor-stator gap in the presence of grooved casing treatment was identified. The steady state numerical analysis was performed by using three-dimensional Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes equation adapting shear stress transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model. The study is reported in two sections. First section includes the detailed numerical study on baseline case having smooth casing wall (SCW). The computational results were validated with the experimental results available at Propulsion Division of CSIR-NAL, Bangalore. The computational study shows good agreement with experimental results. The second section comprises the effects of optimum designs of CCG and various axial spacing on the stall margin improvement of transonic compressor. Current computational study shows that the axial spacing between rotor and stator is an important parameter for improvement in stall margin not only for SCW but also for CCG. Therefore, the highest stall margin improvement of 9% has achieved for 75% axial spacing.


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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 106587
Author(s):  
S Satish Kumar ◽  
Dilipkumar Bhanudasji Alone ◽  
Shobhavathy M Thimmaiah ◽  
Janaki Rami Reddy Mudipalli ◽  
Lakshya Kumar ◽  
...  

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):  
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.


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.


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