scholarly journals Experimental Aerodynamic and Aeroelastic Investigation of a Transonic Compressor Rotor with Reduced Blade Count

Author(s):  
Daniel Franke ◽  
Daniel Möller ◽  
Maximilian Jüngst ◽  
Heinz-Peter Schiffer ◽  
Thomas Giersch ◽  
...  

This study investigates the aerodynamic and aeroelastic characteristics of a transonic axial compressor, focusing on blade count reduced rotor behavior. The analysis is based on experiments, conducted at the Transonic Compressor Darmstadt test rig at Technical University of Darmstadt and compulsory simulations. In order to obtain measurement data for the detailed aerodynamic and aeroelastic investigation, extensive steady and unsteady instrumentation was applied. Besides transient measurements at the stability limit to determine the operating range and limiting phenomena, performance measurements were performed, presenting promising results with respect to the capabilities of blade count reduced rotors. Close to the stability limit, aerodynamic disturbances like radial vortices were detected for both rotors, varying in size, count, speed and trajectory. Comparing the rotor configurations results in different stability limits along the compressor map as well as varying aeromechanical behavior. Those effects can partially be traced to the variation in blade pitch and associated aerodynamics.

Author(s):  
Yanhui Wu ◽  
Zhiyang Chen ◽  
Guangyao An ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Guowei Yang

Rotating instability (RI) is an obvious unsteady flow phenomenon occurring in the tip region of compressors, which is potentially linked to tip clearance flow noise, blade vibration and rotating stall/surge. The existing investigations for RI indicate the origins of RI are closely related to unsteady flow behaviors in given blade passages in the rotating reference frame, which depend on the design specifics of axial machines. However, no efforts are made to set up a quantitative link between the time scale of unsteady behavior in a given passage and the characteristic parameters of RI, let alone to define the fluid dynamic processes/events which are causally linked with the RI inception. This is the motivation for the current investigations. In Part I, the experimental and numerical investigations are carried out to investigate tip flow unsteadiness in a subsonic axial compressor rotor. The measurement results show RI appears at operating points near the stability limit of the test rotor. It becomes more pronounced with mass flow rate decreased. The corresponding computational experiments show that flow unsteadiness in given passages also appears close to the stability limit with its initial origination confined to the tip region. The appearance of tip flow unsteadiness is accompanied by a phase lag pattern in different passages across the circumference similar to the detection of stall flutter. The well-developed Fourier-decomposed method is thus used to evaluate the mode characteristics of circumferential traveling waves. It turns out the circumferential traveling wave rotating against the rotor rotation direction with the mode order of 4 is prominent in the flow field with its frequency in the absolute frame equivalent to the mean frequency value of RI detected in measurements. The further analyses of the simulated flow fields indicate that tip flow unsteadiness in a given passage attributes to the periodic oscillation of “secondary clearance flow”, which induces a blockage tranfer across the passage. The mode order and propagation speed of RI depend on the blockage transfer induced by the periodic oscillation of “secondary clearance flow” between two neighbouring passages along the whole circumference. The investigation results presented in the paper implies that one of early ideas to interpret the origin of RI might be altered to such an extent that it contains any unsteady behavior associated with tip leakage flow, rather than limited to “periodical oscillation of tip leakage vortex”.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Fikri Mustaffa ◽  
Vasudevan Kanjirakkad

Purpose This paper aims to understand the aerodynamic blockage related to near casing flow in a transonic axial compressor using numerical simulations and to design an optimum casing groove for stall margin improvement using a surrogate optimisation technique. Design/methodology/approach A blockage parameter (Ψ) is introduced to quantify blockage across the blade domain. A surrogate optimisation technique is then used to find the optimum casing groove design that minimises blockage at an axial location where the blockage is maximum at near stall conditions. Findings An optimised casing groove that improves the stall margin by about 1% can be found through optimisation of the blockage parameter (Ψ). Originality/value Optimising for stall margin is rather lengthy and computationally expensive, as the stall margin of a compressor will only be known once a complete compressor map is constructed. This study shows that the cost of the optimisation can be reduced by using a suitably defined blockage parameter as the optimising parameter.


Author(s):  
Garth V. Hobson ◽  
Anthony J. Gannon ◽  
Scott Drayton

A new design procedure was developed that uses commercial-off-the-shelf software (MATLAB, SolidWorks, and ANSYS-CFX) for the geometric rendering and analysis of a transonic axial compressor rotor with splitter blades. Predictive numerical simulations were conducted and experimental data were collected in a Transonic Compressor Rig. This study advanced the understanding of splitter blade geometry, placement, and performance benefits. In particular, it was determined that moving the splitter blade forward in the passage between the main blades, which was a departure from the trends demonstrated in the few available previous transonic axial compressor splitter blade studies, increased the mass flow range with no loss in overall performance. With a large 0.91 mm (0.036 in) tip clearance, to preserve the integrity of the rotor, the experimentally measured peak total-to-total pressure ratio was 1.69 and the peak total-to-total isentropic efficiency was 72 percent at 100 percent design speed. Additionally, a higher than predicted 7.5 percent mass flow rate range was experimentally measured, which would make for easier engine control if this concept were to be included in an actual gas turbine engine.


Author(s):  
Stefan Schlechtriem ◽  
Michael Lötzerich

The breakdown of tip leakage vortices at operating points close to the stability limit of transonic compressor rotors has been detected. The aerodynamic phenomenon is considered to have a major impact on stall inception. Computations have been carried out and a detailed visualization of the phenomenon is given. In addition the connection of vortex breakdown to rotating instabilities and stall is discussed. Furthermore the tip flow field of the axial rotor is compared to the results for a centrifugal and a mixed flow compressor operating at similar tip speeds.


Author(s):  
Guang Wang ◽  
Wuli Chu

Abstract In order to weaken the negative effect of tip leakage flow and improve the tip flow condition, this paper introduces synthetic jet into the flow control field of axial compressor, and proposes a method of active flow control by arranging synthetic jet at the tip. A high-speed axial compressor rotor of the author’s research group is taken as the numerical simulation object. On the basis of keeping geometric parameters of the synthetic jet actuator unchanged, this paper studies the influence of applying tip synthetic jet on aerodynamic performance of the compressor rotor at three axial positions of −10%Ca, 0%Ca and 21.35%Ca respectively. The results show that when tip synthetic jet is in the above three positions, comprehensive stability margin of the compressor rotor increases by 2.62%, 3.77% and 12.46% respectively, and efficiency near stall point increases by 0.22%, 0.25 and 0.47% respectively. This shows that when tip synthetic jet is far away from blade, the aerodynamic performance improvement of the compressor rotor is limited, and when tip synthetic jet is just above the leading edge, the effect of expanding stability is the best and the efficiency is the most improved. The mechanism of tip synthetic jet can increase the stability of the compressor rotor is that when the actuator is in the blowing stage, it can blow the low-speed air flow of blade top to downstream, and when the actuator is in the suction stage, it can suck the low-speed air flow of blade top into slot, so as to alleviate the top blockage and realize the stability expansion. The mechanism of tip synthetic jet can improve the efficiency of compressor rotor is that the blowing and suction of actuator weaken the intensity of tip leakage flow, reduce the size of vortex core and also reduce the flow loss of the compressor rotor correspondingly.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Joly ◽  
Soumalya Sarkar ◽  
Dhagash Mehta

In aerodynamic design, accurate and robust surrogate models are important to accelerate computationally expensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based optimization. In this paper, a machine learning framework is presented to speed-up the design optimization of a highly loaded transonic compressor rotor. The approach is threefold: (1) dynamic selection and self-tuning among several surrogate models; (2) classification to anticipate failure of the performance evaluation; and (3) adaptive selection of new candidates to perform CFD evaluation for updating the surrogate, which facilitates design space exploration and reduces surrogate uncertainty. The framework is demonstrated with a multipoint optimization of the transonic NASA rotor 37, yielding increased compressor efficiency in less than 48 h on 100 central processing unit cores. The optimized rotor geometry features precompression that relocates and attenuates the shock, without the stability penalty or undesired reacceleration usually observed in the literature.


Author(s):  
M. W. Mu¨ller ◽  
H.-P. Schiffer ◽  
Melanie Voges ◽  
Chunill Hah

An experimental investigation on casing treatments in a one-stage transonic compressor is presented. The reference case consists of a radially staggered blisk and six circumferential grooves. Speedlines show that this axisymmetric treatment already provided a substantial increase in operating range with relatively small losses in efficiency. Since the onset of rotating stall in tip-critical high-speed compressors is always linked to the tip-leakage flow and the build-up of blockage within the blade passage. High-resolution measurement techniques have been employed to investigate the corresponding effects. Results with Particle Image Velocimetry show that the interaction between the tip leakage vortex and the shock front cause a blockage area. When throttled further, the blockage increases. The shock structure changes similar to the phenomena of vortex breakdown described by different researchers in the past, but a stagnation point is not present. Before reaching the stability limit, the interface line between the incoming flow and the blocked area moves towards the inlet plane of the rotor indicating spike-type stall inception. Wall pressure measurements confirmed this theory for the smooth wall, but with circumferential grooves applied, a part span stall cell develops prior to the stability limit. In order to assess the performance of circumferential grooves, two additional configurations are presented. The corresponding measurements addressed the questions whether circumferential grooves also provide an operating range extension when applied to an optimized rotor design with higher initial stall margin. Therefore, an identical casing treatment is applied to a forward swept rotor. The second question is, how circumferential grooves perform in direct comparison to a non-axisymmetric endwall structure. Axial slots have been applied to the radially staggered rotor. While the stall margin exceeds all other configurations, detrimential effects in efficiency are observed. A detailed anaylsis of probe data shows the changes of the radial profile at the rotor outlet which allows recommendations for more efficient CT designs. Parameters allowing to evaluate the CT influence are presented.


1980 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. W. McDonald ◽  
C. R. Bolt ◽  
R. J. Dunker ◽  
H. B. Weyer

The flow field within the rotor of a transonic axial compressor has been computed and compared to measurements obtained with an advanced laser velocimeter. The compressor was designed for a total pressure ratio of 1.51 at a relative tip Mach number of 1.4. The comparisons are made at 100 percent design speed (20,260 RPM) with pressure ratios corresponding to peak efficiency, near surge, and wide open discharge operating conditions. The computational procedure iterates between a blade-to-blade calculation and an intrablade through flow calculation. Calculated Mach number contours, surface pressure distributions, and exit total pressure profiles are in agreement with the experimental data demonstrating the usefulness of quasi three-dimensional calculations in compressor design.


Author(s):  
Christoph Brandstetter ◽  
Felix Holzinger ◽  
Heinz-Peter Schiffer ◽  
Sina Stapelfeldt ◽  
Mehdi Vahdati

The aerodynamic and aeroelastic performance of an advanced axial slot casing treatment (CT) was investigated on a modern one and a half stage transonic compressor test rig. It is generally accepted that a well designed CT can extend the aerodynamic stability range of a compressor to lower mass flows. The extension of stall margin of the compressor rotor blades by using CT has been the subject of numerous research articles but much less attention has been paid to the behavior of the compressor in direct vicinity of the stability limit. For the compressor investigated here, two different phenomena were repeatedly observed near stall: 1) self-excited blade vibration, and 2) low engine order fluctuations developing into rotating stall. The current investigation firstly aims to identify the triggers for each of these phenomena. It then focusses on the aerodynamic and aeromechanical mechanism which lead to the formation of low engine order fluctuations shortly before stall. In order to measure the unsteady and transient effects, the system was instrumented with unsteady wall pressure transducers, a capacitive tip-timing system and strain gauges on the rotor blades. The flow structure in the blade tip region was measured via Particle Image Velocimetry underneath the CT-Cavities. Measurements showed a strong correlation between CT activity and the development of the low frequency oscillations with associated blade vibrations. Using numerical simulations, presented and validated in this paper, this correlation was attributed to an aerodynamic coupling between rotor passages through the recirculation of fluid inside the cavities.


1983 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 596-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. V. Chima ◽  
A. J. Strazisar

Two-and three-dimensional inviscid solutions for the flow within a transonic axial compressor rotor at design speed are compared to laser anemometer measurements at maximum flow and near stall operating points. Computational details of the two-dimensional axisymmetric stream function solution and the three-dimensional full Euler solution are described. Upstream of the rotor, the two and three-dimensional solutions for radial distribution of relative Mach number and total pressure agree well with the data. Within the bow wave system and the blade row, the axisymmetric two-dimensional solution shows only qualitative agreement with the data.


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