ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSITION CONTROL AT TRANSONIC COMPRESSOR BLADES

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Alexander Hergt ◽  
Joachim Klinner ◽  
Sebastian Grund ◽  
Chris Willert ◽  
Wolfgang Steinert ◽  
...  

Abstract The flow through a transonic compressor cascade is characterized by high unsteadiness and a high loss level. In the case of a laminar shock wave boundary layer interaction the loss level is higher due to the occurrence of a laminar separation bubble below the shock wave compared to the shock wave interaction with a turbulent boundary layer. In addition, the oscillation of the shock position in both cases influences the working range concerning the point of stall onset as well as leading to an unsteady interaction with the blade, called buffeting. The reduction of losses and of unsteadiness in the shock wave oscillation, connected to a decrease of the blade buffeting effect, are the aims of the current investigation. Therefore, experimental investigations using a roughness patch as well as air jet vortex generators in order to control the transition in a transonic compressor cascade have been conducted at the transonic cascade wind tunnel of DLR at Cologne. At an inflow Mach number of 1.21 a loss reduction for both transition control cases is achieved. In spite of a nearly uninfluenced fluctuation range of the passage shock wave compared to the reference cascade, the oscillation spectra of the transition control cases show a reduction of the shock movement amplitude at a frequency below 500 Hz and above 1 kHz. In the closing section of the paper a detailed discussion on the reasons for the resulting flow behaviour based on PIV and High Speed Shadowgraphy data is given.

Author(s):  
A. Hergt ◽  
J. Klinner ◽  
S. Grund ◽  
C. Willert ◽  
W. Steinert ◽  
...  

Abstract The flow through a transonic compressor cascade is characterized by high unsteadiness and a high loss level. This results from the shock waves in the blade cascade and their interaction with the blade suction side boundary layer. In the case of a laminar shock wave boundary layer interaction the loss level is higher due to the occurrence of a laminar separation bubble below the shock wave compared to the shock wave interaction with a turbulent boundary layer. In addition, the oscillation of the shock position in both cases influences the working range concerning the point of stall onset as well as leading to an unsteady interaction with the blade, called buffeting. The reduction of losses and of unsteadiness in the shock wave oscillation, connected to a decrease of the blade buffeting effect, are the aims of the current investigation. Therefore, experimental investigations using a roughness patch as well as air jet vortex generators in order to control the transition in a transonic compressor cascade have been conducted at the transonic cascade wind tunnel of DLR at Cologne. At an inflow Mach number of 1.21 a loss reduction for both transition control cases is achieved. In spite of a nearly uninfluenced fluctuation range of the passage shock wave compared to the reference cascade, the oscillation spectra of the transition control cases show a reduction of the shock movement amplitude at a frequency below 500 Hz and above 1 kHz. In the closing section of the paper a detailed discussion on the reasons for the resulting flow behaviour based on PIV and High Speed Shadowgraphy data is given. The resulting conclusion of the study is that the consideration of transition control at transonic compressor blades is very important in order to reduce losses and flow unsteadiness which directly influences blade buffeting and the numerical prediction quality of the stall onset.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marcel Börner ◽  
Reinhard Niehuis

Abstract The results presented in this paper are based on experimental investigations on a generic transonic low pressure turbine profile at high subsonic exit Mach numbers. Here, the flow on the suction side reaches a maximum isentropic Mach number of approximately 1.2 and features a large separation bubble in a transonic flow regime characterized by Surface Hot-Film measurements. The measurements are supplemented by Schlieren images recorded with a high-speed camera at 19:2 kHz. A highly unsteady normal shock wave on the suction side is observable upstream of the trailing edge. It is interacting with laminar separated flow which is rarely documented in literature. The interaction of the normal shock with the boundary layer flow seems to amplifies the ongoing transition process over the separation bubble and the flow reattaches shortly downstream. A statistical analysis of the Schlieren images reveals characteristic low frequencies of the shock wave motions and a pulsation of the separation bubble. Additionally, the statistical information of the time-dependent signal from the Surface Hot-Film sensors demonstrate the instabilities influencing the boundary layer linked to the unsteadiness in the main flow.


Author(s):  
Marcel Börner ◽  
Reinhard Niehuis

Abstract The results presented in this paper are based on experimental investigations on a generic transonic low pressure turbine profile at high subsonic exit Mach numbers. Here, the flow on the suction side reaches a maximum isentropic Mach number of approximately 1.2 and features a large separation bubble in a transonic flow regime characterized by Surface Hot-Film measurements. The measurements are supplemented by Schlieren images recorded with a high-speed camera at 19.2 kHz. A highly unsteady normal shock wave on the suction side is observable upstream of the trailing edge. It is interacting with laminar separated flow which is rarely documented in literature. The interaction of the normal shock with the boundary layer flow seems to amplifies the ongoing transition process over the separation bubble and the flow reattaches shortly downstream. A statistical analysis of the Schlieren images reveals characteristic low frequencies of the shock wave motions and a pulsation of the separation bubble. Additionally, the statistical information of the time-dependent signal from the Surface Hot-Film sensors demonstrate the instabilities influencing the boundary layer linked to the unsteadiness in the main flow.


Author(s):  
A. Hergt ◽  
J. Klinner ◽  
J. Wellner ◽  
C. Willert ◽  
S. Grund ◽  
...  

The flow through a transonic compressor cascade shows a very complex structure due to the occuring shock waves. In addition, the interaction of these shock waves with the blade boundary layer inherently leads to a very unsteady flow behaviour. The aim of the current investigation is to quantify this behaviour and its influence on the cascade performance as well as to describe the occuring transonic flow phenomena in detail. Therefore, an extensive experimental investigation of the flow in a transonic compressor cascade has been conducted within the transonic cascade wind tunnel of DLR at Cologne. In this process, the flow phenomena were thoroughly examined for an inflow Mach number of 1.21. The experiments investigate both, the laminar as well as the turbulent shock wave boundary layer interaction within the blade passage and the resulting unsteady behaviour. The experiments show a fluctuation range of the passage shock wave of about 10 percent chord for both cases, which is directly linked with a change of the inflow angle and of the operating point of the cascade. Thereafter, RANS simulations have been performed aiming at the verification of the reproducibility of the experimentally examined flow behavior. Here it is observed that the dominant flow effects are not reproduced by a steady numerical simulation. Therefore, a further unsteady simulation has been carried out in order to capture the unsteady flow behaviour. The results from this simulation show that the fluctuation of the passage shock wave can be reproduced but not in the correct magnitude. This leads to a remaining weak point within the design process of transonic compressor blades, because the working range will be overpredicted. The resulting conclusion of the study is that the use of scale resolving methods such as LES or the application of DNS is necessary to correctly predict unsteadiness of the transonic cascade flow and its impact on the cascade performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Hergt ◽  
J. Klinner ◽  
J. Wellner ◽  
C. Willert ◽  
S. Grund ◽  
...  

The flow through a transonic compressor cascade shows a very complex structure due to the occurring shock waves. In addition, the interaction of these shock waves with the blade boundary layer inherently leads to a very unsteady flow behavior. The aim of the current investigation is to quantify this behavior and its influence on the cascade performance as well as to describe the occurring transonic flow phenomena in detail. Therefore, an extensive experimental investigation of the flow in a transonic compressor cascade has been conducted within the transonic cascade wind tunnel of DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology at Cologne. In this process, the flow phenomena were thoroughly examined for an inflow Mach number of 1.21. The experiments investigate both the laminar and the turbulent shock wave boundary layer interaction within the blade passage and the resulting unsteady behavior. The experiments show a fluctuation range of the passage shock wave of about 10% chord for both cases, which is directly linked with a change of the inflow angle and of the operating point of the cascade. Thereafter, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulations have been performed aiming at the verification of the reproducibility of the experimentally examined flow behavior. Here, it is observed that the dominant flow effects are not reproduced by a steady numerical simulation. Therefore, a further unsteady simulation has been carried out to capture the unsteady flow behavior. The results from this simulation show that the fluctuation of the passage shock wave can be reproduced but not in the correct magnitude. This leads to a remaining weak point within the design process of transonic compressor blades because the working range will be overpredicted. The resulting conclusion of this study is that the use of scale-resolving methods such as LES or the application of DNS is necessary to correctly predict unsteadiness of the transonic cascade flow and its impact on the cascade performance.


Author(s):  
Jing-Lei Xu ◽  
You-Fu Song ◽  
Yang Zhang ◽  
Jun-Qiang Bai

AbstractTraditional turbulence models are initially formulated and calibrated under incompressible conditions. Thus, these models are always of low fidelity when extended to high speed, complex and compressible flows. In this work, a compressible von Kármán length scale is proposed for compressible flows considering the variable densities. The length scale is the ratio between the new vorticity and its gradient. The new length scale is actually based on phenomenological theory, which is then integrated into the KDO (turbulence Kinetic energy Dependent Only) turbulence model, arriving at a compressible model called CKDO (Compressible KDO). In the CKDO turbulence model, all the extra terms produced by compressibility are modeled as dissipation. Compression corners of 8, 16, 20 and 24 angles are studied within SST, SA, KDO and CKDO. These test cases are known as the typical shock wave–boundary layer interactions. The results show that the new length scale in CKDO is able to well capture the surface pressure and skin friction distributions. Besides, compared with the standard von Kármán length scale, the new length scale in CKDO can better capture the size and position of the separation bubble. With the increase of the corner angle, CKDO shows more prominent potential for describing compressible flows.


Author(s):  
Karsten Liesner ◽  
Robert Meyer

An experimental study is presented in which passive and active flow control are combined in a way that they complement and support one other. Secondary flow control using boundary layer fences is combined with a boundary layer suction in a compressor cascade at high Mach numbers. Inflow Mach number of 0.67 and Reynolds number (based on chord length) of 560.000 assure realistic conditions. The cascade, equipped with five stator vanes of NACA65 K48 type is used in an ambient condition measurement environment. Pressure measurements form the basis of the experimental investigations, flow visualization is used to obtain insight into the topology of the flow field. The boundary layer fences installed on the suction side of the vanes create a region of low-loss two dimensional flow in the center of the passage. A region of high flow loss is generated at the side wall between wall and BL fence. This region is treated with through-wall boundary layer suction as used in previous investigations. This helps stabilize the flow near the wall and prevent large separated areas. The total pressure loss is reduced remarkably and the outflow becomes more two-dimensional compared to the reference measurement and even compared to the measurement with suction applied without BL fences. The application of boundary layer fences on flow-suction experiments allows obtaining the same loss reduction gains by using lower amounts of suction.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4168
Author(s):  
Botao Zhang ◽  
Xiaochen Mao ◽  
Xiaoxiong Wu ◽  
Bo Liu

To explain the effect of tip leakage flow on the performance of an axial-flow transonic compressor, the compressors with different rotor tip clearances were studied numerically. The results show that as the rotor tip clearance increases, the leakage flow intensity is increased, the shock wave position is moved backward, and the interaction between the tip leakage vortex and shock wave is intensified, while that between the boundary layer and shock wave is weakened. Most of all, the stall mechanisms of the compressors with varying rotor tip clearances are different. The clearance leakage flow is the main cause of the rotating stall under large rotor tip clearance. However, the stall form for the compressor with half of the designed tip clearance is caused by the joint action of the rotor tip stall caused by the leakage flow spillage at the blade leading edge and the whole blade span stall caused by the separation of the boundary layer of the rotor and the stator passage. Within the investigated varied range, when the rotor tip clearance size is half of the design, the compressor performance is improved best, and the peak efficiency and stall margin are increased by 0.2% and 3.5%, respectively.


1988 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Rabe ◽  
A. J. Wennerstrom ◽  
W. F. O’Brien

The passage shock wave–endwall boundary layer interaction in a transonic compressor was investigated with a laser transit anemometer. The transonic compressor used in this investigation was developed by the General Electric Company under contract to the Air Force. The compressor testing was conducted in the Compressor Research Facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH. Laser measurements were made in two blade passages at seven axial locations from 10 percent of the axial blade chord in front of the leading edge to 30 percent of the axial blade chord into the blade passage. At three of these axial locations, laser traverses were taken at different radial immersions. A total of 27 different locations were traversed circumferentially. The measurements reveal that the endwall boundary layer in this region is separated from the core flow by what appears to be a shear layer where the passage shock wave and all ordered flow seem to end abruptly.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiuliang Gan ◽  
Toshinori Watanabe ◽  
Takehiro Himeno

Abstract The unsteady behavior of the shock wave was studied in an oscillating transonic compressor cascade. The experimental measurement and corresponding numerical simulation were conducted on the cascade with different shock patterns based on influence coefficient method. The unsteady pressure distribution on blade surface was measured with fast-response pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) to capture the unsteady aerodynamic force as well as the shock wave movement. It was found that the movement of shock waves in the neighboring flow passages of the oscillating blade was almost anti-phase between the two shock patterns, namely, the double shocks pattern and the merged shock pattern. It was also found that the amplitude of the unsteady pressure caused by the passage shock wave was very large under the merged shock pattern compared with the double shocks pattern. The stability of blade vibration was also analyzed for both shock patterns including 3-D flow effect. These findings were thought to shed light on the fundamental understanding of the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of oscillating cascade caused by the shock wave behavior.


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