A Theory of Rotating Stall of Multistage Axial Compressors: Part II—Finite Disturbances

1984 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. K. Moore

A small-disturbance theory of rotating stall in axial compressors is extended to finite amplitude, assuming the compressor characteristic is a parabola over the range of the disturbance. An exact solution is found which requires the operating point to be at the minimum or maximum of the parabola. If the characteristic is flat in a deep-stall regime, the previous harmonic solution applies with neither reverse flow or “unstalling.” If the characteristic is concave upward in deep stall, the disturbance has a skewed shape, steeper at the stall-zone trailing edge as experiment shows. Propagation speed is only slightly affected by this nonlinearity. Near stall inception, negative curvature in combination with multiple stall zones can limit the nonlinear oscillation, in the manner of “progressive” stall. If, as seems likely, lag at stall inception is negative (opposite to inertia), propagation speed exceeds 1/2 wheel speed, as experiments suggest.

Author(s):  
J. Chen ◽  
H. Hasemann ◽  
Li Shi ◽  
M. Rautenberg

In studying the stall inception process, while most results were reported for axial compressors, the present paper investigates the stall inception behavior typified in a centrifugal compressor. The test was conducted with a radially-bladed impeller and in a speed range of 8000–14000 rpm. Extensive pressure transducers were used to study the frequency characteristics of emerging stall waves. As a result, stall precursors were detected, all with clear mode seen from frequency analysis, but very much different by the behavior of their onset, existence and development. The first type, called the stable-amplitude precursor, exists in a time range of about 20–90 impeller revolutions, with unpredictable and different frequencies from the fully developed stall. Such perturbation, once appeared, may grow to the full stall straightly, or may appear for several times intermittently before finally reaching the full stall, thus acting as a pre-precursor in the whole stall inception process. The second type is the progressive-amplitude precursor when the perturbation emerges as long as 270 impeller revolutions prior to and progressively develops into the full amplitude stall with no change of frequency during this process. The third type, which has been detected for the rotating stall with evident reverse flow symptom, is the precursive pressure increase accompanied with the stable- or progressive-amplitude perturbation, before the full stall establishes. The inception process is also examined for surge during the test of the same compressor, in which the existence of rotating stall in front of every surge cycle and the low frequency precursive wave before surge cycles is demonstrated. Finally, the blade passage frequencies for precursor pressure signals are further analysed to address the monitoring strategy during stall inception process.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Margalida ◽  
Pierric Joseph ◽  
Olivier Roussette ◽  
Antoine Dazin

The present paper aims at evaluating the surveillance parameters used for early stall warning in axial compressors, and is based on unsteady pressure measurements at the casing of a single stage axial compressor. Two parameters—Correlation and Root Mean Square (RMS)—are first compared and their relative performances discussed. The influence of sensor locations (in both radial and axial directions) is then considered, and the role of the compressor’s geometrical irregularities in the behavior of the indicators is clearly highlighted. The influence of the throttling process is also carefully analyzed. This aspect of the experiment’s process appears to have a non-negligible impact on the stall warning parameters, despite being poorly documented in the literature. This last part of this research work allow us to get a different vision of the alert parameters compared to what is classically done in the literature, as the level of irregularity that is reflected by the magnitude of the parameters appears to be an image of a given flow rate value, and not a clear indicator of the stall inception.


Author(s):  
N. Gourdain ◽  
S. Burguburu ◽  
G. J. Michon ◽  
N. Ouayahya ◽  
F. Leboeuf ◽  
...  

This paper deals with the first instability which occurs in compressors, close to the maximum of pressure rise, called rotating stall. A numerical simulation of these flow phenomena is performed and a comparison with experimental data is made. The configuration used for the simulation is an axial single-stage and low speed compressor (compressor CME2, LEMFI). The whole stage is modeled with a full 3D approach and tip clearance is taken into account. The numerical simulation shows that at least two different mechanisms are involved in the stall inception. The first one leads to a rotating stall with 10 cells and the second one leads to a configuration with only 3 cells. Unsteady signals from the computation are analyzed thanks to a time-frequency spectral analysis. An original model is proposed, in order to predict the spatial and the temporal modes which are the results of the interaction between stall cells and the compressor stage. A comparison with measurements shows that the computed stall inception point corresponds to the experimental limit of stability. The performance of the compressor during rotating stall is also well predicted by the simulation.


Author(s):  
Joshua D. Cameron ◽  
Scott C. Morris ◽  
Sean T. Barrows ◽  
Jen-Ping Chen

Experimental studies of stall inception in axial compressors typically involve the measurement of basic flow variables (often pressure or velocity) with low spatial resolution. These measurements are used to make inferences about the fluid dynamics of stall. This experimental paradigm has been used by many investigators to great effect over the last several decades. However, several limitations remain which restrict the utility of these types of measurements for developing further insight into stall inception physics. Primary among these limitations is the impracticality of making measurements within the rotating blade passages. This is especially troublesome in light of recent computational studies which indicate that the generation of short length-scale rotating disturbances is related to the rotor tip clearance flow. This study utilized the results of a recent full annulus rotating stall simulation to investigate the relationships between the casing pressure field and less observable flow quantities which are believed to be causally related to the generation of rotating disturbances. The CFD results are assumed to represent the true flow physics within the compressor. To the extent that this approximation is true, these results can be used to interpret the meaning of experimental measurements of basic flow variables. These observations not only provide new insight into the interpretation of the large catalog of experimental stall measurements found in the literature, they also give directives for future measurements and numerical simulations.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. H. Garnier ◽  
A. H. Epstein ◽  
E. M. Greitzer

Stall inception has been studied in two low-speed compressors (a single-stage and a three-stage) and in a high-speed three-stage compressor, using temporally and spatially resolved measurements. In all three machines, rotating stall was preceded by a period in which small-amplitude waves were observed traveling around the circumference of the machine at a speed slightly less than the fully developed rotating stall cell speed. The waves evolved smoothly into rotating stall without sharp changes in phase or amplitude, implying that, in the machines tested, the prestall waves and the fully developed rotating stall are two stages of the same phenomenon. The growth rate of these disturbances was in accord with that predicted by current analytical models. The prestall waves were observed both with uniform and with distorted inflow, but were most readily discerned with uniform inflow. Engineering uses and limitations of these waves are discussed.


Author(s):  
Hanxuan Zeng ◽  
Xinqian Zheng ◽  
Mehdi Vahdati

Abstract The occurrence of stall and surge in axial compressors has a great impact on the performance and reliability of aero-engines. Accurate and efficient prediction of the key features during these events has long been the focus of engine design processes. In this paper, a new body-force model that can capture the three-dimensional and unsteady features of stall and surge in compressors at a fraction of time required for URANS computations is proposed. To predict the rotating stall characteristics, the deviation of local airflow angle from the blade surface is calculated locally during the simulation. According to this local deviation, the computational domain is divided into stalled and forward flow regions, and the body-force field is updated accordingly; to predict the surge characteristics, the local airflow direction is used to divide the computational domain into reverse flow regions and forward flow regions. A single-stage axial compressor and a three-stage axial compressor are used to verify the proposed model. The results show that the method is capable of capturing stall and surge characteristics correctly. Compared to the traditional fully three-dimensional URANS method (fRANS), the simulation time for multi-stage axial compressors is reduced by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude.


Author(s):  
H. Watanabe ◽  
S. Konomi ◽  
I. Ariga

This paper describes the process of rotating stall inception in a radial vaneless diffuser. Unsteady flow and rotating stall were investigated by measuring the wall static pressures and velocity distributions using X hot-wire probe. From the measurements of the velocity fluctuation, it is confirmed that the periodical disturbance in the reverse flow region as the prestall symptom occurs prior to the onset of stall and then the growth of that periodical disturbance leads to the rotating stall with fully developed non axisymmetric reversed flow. On the process of the rotating stall inception, reverse flow regions in the diffuser grow from the diffuser exit toward the inlet along the shroud and hub wall, and the rotating stall occurs when the reverse flow region on the shroud wall reaches to the impeller exit. In this paper, the effects of the diffuser exit blockage on the process of stall inception were also described. The flow rate of stall onset is moved to the lower side by the restriction of the diffuser exit width, however, this restriction does not affect the distribution of the reverse flow regions. That restriction suppresses the prestall disturbance in the reverse flow regions and then stabilize the flow in the diffuser.


2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiro Ishida ◽  
Daisaku Sakaguchi ◽  
Hironobu Ueki

By positioning the completely rough wall locally on the hub side diffuser wall alone in the vaneless diffuser, the flow rate of rotating stall inception was decreased by 42 percent at a small pressure drop of less than 1 percent. This is based on the fact that the local reverse flow occurs first in the hub side in most centrifugal blowers with a backswept blade impeller. The three-dimensional boundary layer calculation shows that the increase in wall shear component normal to the main-flow direction markedly decreases the skewed angle of the three-dimensional boundary layer, and results in suppression of the three-dimensional separation. It is also clarified theoretically that the diffuser pressure recovery is hardly deteriorated by the rough wall positioned downstream of R = l.2 because the increase in the radial momentum change, resulting from reduction in the skewed angle of the three-dimensional boundary layer, supports the adverse pressure gradient.


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