A simplified method for the deposition rate assessment on the vanes of a multistage axial-flow compressor

Gas turbine particle ingestion may lead to the deposition of contaminants in the compressor section, inducing the performance losses of the whole engine. The economic losses derived from this issue push great interest in the investigation of such a phenomenon from a numerical and experimental standpoint. This paper describes a quantitative approach to predict particle deposition on the vanes of an axial compressor starting from the flow field obtained employing CFD simulations. The results are then compared to the experiments performed on the Allison 250 C18 compressor unit subject to particle ingestion under controlled conditions. The results derived from the experimental and numerical investigations are presented, providing insight into the mass deposited on the vanes and the corresponding zones most affected by the particle deposition issue. The numerical model showed good agreement in the estimation of the predicted values of the deposited mass and the corresponding patterns through the compressor stages. The low-complexity approach proposed here, helps the designer to predict the contamination of the stationary rows starting from a simple set of single-phase numerical results. Furthermore, with the implementation of this approach into the design path, the designer could reduce the impact of fouling, looking at the effects of their solutions under the fouling-reduction light.

Numerical Investigations on Aerodynamic Design Criteria for Low Speed Mixed Flow Compressor

A surge in the small jet engine market due to aero-propulsion purposes generates a requirement to develop compact and robust high-performance compressors. Mixed flow compressors can provide a comparatively higher pressure ratio compared to axial compressors and have less frontal area than centrifugal compressors. Rapid progress in manufacturing and computational capabilities has resulted in the successful design of mixed flow compressors in recent decades. In the present study, the mixed flow compressor was designed to operate at 3,000 rpm with a small total-to-total pressure ratio of 1.03 and a mass flow rate = 1.98 kg/s to carry at low-speed testing for university-level research. Meanline design for the compressor with air as working fluid was done. The blade geometry was developed using commercial Ansys® Bladegen module. The flow domain mesh was generated by the TurboGrid module. Ansys CFX was used as a solver and post-processing tool for the present numerical study. The present work describes the detailed design procedure, overall performance, and flow field features of a low-speed mixed-flow compressor with the special requirement of axial flow exit. The parametric analysis was carried out on splitter blade placement, wrap angle (10°, 20°, 30°, and 50°), and exit cone angle (30°, 40°, 50°, 60°, and 65°), at constant tip clearance and keeping the other parameters constant to observe their effect on performance and flow structure. The use of splitter blades smoothen the flow structure along both stream-wise and span-wise direction, which minimizes flow the separation issue and thereby helping in extending the overall operating range. Comparing the flow field characteristic and performance of each parametric variable, the optimum range of design values is exhibited. The numerical observation and analysis done on parametric variations in this paper can be used for the design of such a future low-speed mixed flow compressor for different performance expectations and installation requirements.

A Parametric Study on the Effect of Casing Treatment Slots on Performance Enhancement of a Single Stage Axial Flow Compressor

This paper numerically investigates the effect of slots on the performance of a highly subsonic axial flow compressor. The axial flow compressor consisting of 21 rotor blades with NACA 65 series blade profile was used for the simulations. The present results were obtained using different turbulence models and shear stress transport model was found to be the best one. Studies were conducted to determine the influence of length, depth and skew angle of the slot on the compressor performance. The slot width and centre-to-centre distance between the successive slots were maintained at 6.3% Ca and 11% Ca, respectively. The present study was carried out at different slot lengths (0 to 100% of axial chord, 20 to 100% of axial chord and 40 to 100% of axial chord), slot depths (7.9, 11 and 15.7% Ca) and skew angles (0°, 30°, 45° and 60°). The slot length of 20 to 100% of Ca, depth of 15.7% Ca and skew angle of 60° resulted in the best compressor performance leading to 22.1% stall margin improvement. Subsequently, flow characteristics were studied without and with slots.

Stall Warning Strategy Based On Fast Wavelet Analysis in a Multi-Stage Axial Flow Compressor

As a reliable stall warning strategy, the fast wavelet method was introduced to successfully predict the aerodynamic instability of a multi-stage axial flow compressor. One single sensor installed at each stage is proved to be sufficient to predict the stability status in a three-stage axial flow compressor. The whole prediction strategy includes the dynamic pressure signal capture, disturbance extraction using decomposition and reconstruction via fast wavelet transform, and stall warning index calculation based on statistical probability distribution. On this premise, the first occurrence of the stall in this three-stage axial flow compressor is predicted to be within the first stage, which is consistent with the stall route captured by the eight transducers around the casing wall. Thereafter, the stall warning index is used to monitor the stability status during the continuous throttling process. Furthermore, the validation using tip air injection and inlet radial distortion indicated that the stall warning index decreases as the compressor's stability improves. Conversely, the deterioration of stability causes the increase of the stall warning index. Thus, experimental results demonstrate that the stall warning method based on fast wavelet analysis can predict the aerodynamic instability in actual application.

Effect of Circumferential Single Casing Groove Location on the Flow Stability under Tip-Clearance Effect in a Transonic Axial Flow Compressor Rotor

Numerical simulations have been performed to study the effect of the circumferential single-grooved casing treatment (CT) at multiple locations on the tip-flow stability and the corresponding control mechanism at three tip-clearance-size (TCS) schemes in a transonic axial flow compressor rotor. The results show that the CT is more efficient when its groove is located from 10% to 40% tip axial chord, and G2 (located at near 20% tip axial chord) is the best CT scheme in terms of stall-margin improvement for the three TCS schemes. For effective CTs, the tip-leakage-flow (TLF) intensity, entropy generation and tip-flow blockage are reduced, which makes the interface between TLF and mainstream move downstream. A quantitative analysis of the relative inlet flow angle indicates that the reduction of flow incidence angle is not necessary to improve the flow stability for this transonic rotor. The control mechanism may be different for different TCS schemes due to the distinction of the stall inception process. For a better application of CT, the blade tip profile should be further modified by using an optimization method to adjust the shock position and strength during the design of a more efficient CT.