scholarly journals Effect of Partial Span Aspiration on the Performance of a Transonic Axial Compressor Rotor: A Numerical Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Vijaykumar Jain ◽  
Quamber H. Nagpurwala ◽  
Abdul Nassar

Aspiration in an axial compressor is normally regarded as sucking out the low momentum boundary layer from blade suction surface, thus lowering the chances of flow separation and consequently that of stall under off-design operation. However, the suction mass flow does not take part in useful work and leads to loss of engine power output. This paper deals with a new concept of natural aspiration to energize blade suction surface boundary layer by injecting some fluid from pressure to suction side through a part span slot on the blade. The energized boundary layer has lesser tendency to separate, thus enhancing stall margin. Numerical simulations were carried out to study the effect of aspiration slot location and geometry on the performance and stall margin of a transonic axial compressor rotor. The computational results without aspiration slot were in fair agreement with the published experimental data. The modified rotor, with part span aspiration, showed ~3.2% improvement in stall margin at design rotational speed. The pressure ratio and efficiency of the aspirated rotor dropped by ~1.42% and ~2.0%, respectively, whereas the structural analysis did not indicate any adverse effect on the blade stress distribution in the presence of aspiration slot.

Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Suder

A detailed experimental investigation to understand and quantify the development of blockage in the flow field of a transonic, axial flow compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37) has been undertaken. Detailed laser anemometer measurements were acquired upstream, within, and downstream of a transonic, axial compressor rotor operating at 100%, 85%, 80%, and 60% of design speed which provided inlet relative Mach numbers at the blade tip of 1.48, 1.26, 1.18, and 0.89 respectively. The impact of the shock on the blockage development, pertaining to both the shock / boundary layer interactions and the shock / tip clearance flow interactions, is discussed. The results indicate that for this rotor the blockage in the endwall region is 2–3 times that of the core flow region, and the blockage in the core flow region more than doubles when the shock strength is sufficient to separate the suction surface boundary layer.


Author(s):  
S. Subbaramu ◽  
Quamber H. Nagpurwala ◽  
A. T. Sriram

This paper deals with the numerical investigations on the effect of trailing edge crenulation on the performance of a transonic axial compressor rotor. Crenulation is broadly considered as a series of small notches or slots at the edge of a thin object, like a plate. Incorporating such notches at the trailing edge of a compressor cascade has shown beneficial effect in terms of reduction in total pressure loss due to enhanced mixing in the wake region. These notches act as vortex generators to produce counter rotating vortices, which increase intermixing between the free stream flow and the low momentum wake fluid. Considering the positive effects of crenulation in a cascade, it was hypothesized that the same technique would work in a rotating compressor to enhance its performance and stall margin. However, the present CFD simulations on a transonic compressor rotor have given mixed results. Whereas the peak total pressure ratio in the presence of trailing edge crenulation reduced, the stall margin improved by 2.97% compared to the rotor with straight edge blades. The vortex generation at the crenulated trailing edge was not as strong as reported in case of linear compressor cascade, but it was able to influence the flow field in the rotor tip region so as to energize the low momentum end-wall flow in the aft part of the blade passage. This beneficial effect delayed flow separation and allowed the mass flow rate to be reduced to still lower levels resulting in improved stall margin. The reduction in pressure ratio with crenulation was surprising and might be due to increased mixing losses downstream of the blade.


Author(s):  
Yassine Souleimani ◽  
Huu Duc Vo ◽  
Hong Yu

The increase in compressor tip clearance over the lifespan of an aero-engine leads to a long-term degradation in its fuel consumption and operating envelope. A highly promising recent numerical study on a theoretical high-speed axial compressor rotor proposed a novel casing treatment to decrease performance and stall margin sensitivity to tip clearance increase. This paper aims to apply and analyze, through CFD simulations, this casing treatment concept to a representative production axial compressor rotor with inherently lower sensitivity to tip clearance increase and complement the explanation on the mechanism behind the reduction in sensitivity. Simulations of the baseline rotor showed that the lower span region contribute as much to the pressure ratio sensitivity as the tip region which is dominated by tip leakage flow. In contrast, the efficiency sensitivity is mainly driven by losses occurring in the tip region. The novel casing treatment was successfully applied to the baseline rotor through a design refinement. Although the casing treatment causes some penalty in nominal performance, it completely reversed the pressure ratio sensitivity (i.e. pressure ratio increases with tip clearance) and reduced the efficiency sensitivity. The reversed pressure ratio sensitivity is explained by a rotation in the core flow in the lower span region indirectly induced by the flow injection from the casing treatment. The lower efficiency sensitivity comes from a reduction in the amount of fluid that crosses the tip clearance of two adjacent blades, known as double leakage. The casing treatment’s beneficial effect on stall margin sensitivity is less obvious because of the stall inception type of the baseline rotor and its change in the presence of the casing treatment.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. L. Suder

A detailed experimental investigation to understand and quantify the development of blockage in the flow field of a transonic, axial flow compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37) has been undertaken. Detailed laser anemometer measurements were acquired upstream, within, and downstream of a transonic, axial compressor rotor operating at 100, 85, 80, and 60 percent of design speed, which provided inlet relative Mach numbers at the blade tip of 1.48, 1.26, 1.18, and 0.89, respectively. The impact of the shock on the blockage development, pertaining to both the shock/boundary layer interactions and the shock/tip clearance flow interactions, is discussed. The results indicate that for this rotor the blockage in the endwall region is 2–3 times that of the core flow region, and the blockage in the core flow region more than doubles when the shock strength is sufficient to separate the suction surface boundary layer.


Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 1416
Author(s):  
Baofeng Tu ◽  
Xinyu Zhang ◽  
Jun Hu

In order to investigate the influence of steam ingestion on the aerodynamic stability of a two-stage low-speed axial-flow compressor, multiphase flow numerical simulation and experiment were carried out. The total pressure ratio and stall margin of the compressor was decreased under steam ingestion. When the compressor worked at 40% and 53% of the nominal speed, the stall margin decreased, respectively, by 1.5% and 6.3%. The ingested steam reduced the inlet Mach number and increased the thickness of the boundary layer on the suction surface of the blade. The low-speed region around the trailing edge of the blade was increased, and the flow separation region of the boundary layer on the suction surface of the blade was expanded; thus, the compressor was more likely to enter the stall state. The higher the rotational speed, the more significant the negative influence of steam ingestion on the compressor stall margin. The entropy and temperature of air were increased by steam. The heat transfer between steam and air was continuous in compressor passages. The entropy of the air in the later stage was higher than that in the first stage; consequently, the flow loss in the second stage was more serious. Under the combined action of steam ingestion and counter-rotating bulk swirl distortion, the compressor stability margin loss was more obvious. When the rotor speed was 40% and 53% of the nominal speed, the stall margin decreased by 6.3% and 12.64%, respectively.


Author(s):  
K. Yamada ◽  
K. Funazaki ◽  
M. Furukawa

It is known that the tip clearance flow is dominant and very important flow phenomena in axial compressor aerodynamics because the tip clearance flow has a great influence on the stability as well as aerodynamic loss of compressors. Our goal is to clarify the behavior of tip clearance flow at near-stall condition in a transonic axial compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37). In the present work, steady and unsteady RANS simulations were performed to investigate vortical flow structures and separated flow field near the tip for several different clearance cases. Boundary layer separation on the casing wall and blade suction surface was investigated in detail for near-stall and stall condition. In order to understand such complicated flow field, vortex cores were identified using the critical point theory and a topology of the three-dimensional separated and vortical flows was analyzed. In the nominal clearance case, the breakdown of tip leakage vortex has occurred at a near-stall operating condition because of the interaction of the vortex with the shock wave, leading to a large blockage and unsteadiness in the rotor tip. On the other hand, the calculation with no clearance suggested that the separation on the suction surface was different from that with the nominal clearance. Since the shock wave induced the boundary layer separation on the blade suction surface in the transonic axial compressor rotor, focal-type critical points appeared on the suction surface near the tip at near-stall condition.


Author(s):  
Choon-Man Jang ◽  
Abudus Samad ◽  
Kwang-Yong Kim

Shape optimization of a transonic axial compressor rotor operating at the design flow condition has been performed using the response surface method and three-dimensional Navier-Stokes analysis. The three design variables, blade sweep, lean and skew, are introduced to optimize the three-dimensional stacking line of the rotor blade. The objective function of the shape optimization is adiabatic efficiency. Throughout the shape optimization of the rotor, the adiabatic efficiency is increased by reducing the hub corner and tip losses. Separation line due to the interference between a passage shock and surface boundary layer on the blade suction surface is moved downstream for the optimized blade compared to the reference one. Among the three design variables, the blade skew is most effective to increase the adiabatic efficiency in the compressor rotor.


Author(s):  
P. V. Ramakrishna ◽  
M. Govardhan

In the present numerical work, an axial compressor rotorstator stage is studied for three rotor sweep configurations (Unswept, 20° Tip chordline swept and 20° Axially swept) and for three stagger configurations (0°, + 3° and +5°). CFD results with the unswept rotor and the 20° TCS rotor are well validated with the experiments for the designed stagger angle case. Results show that sections near the tip are subjected to lower incidences and the opposite effect is observed with increasing the stagger angle. The included sweep and dihedral schemes in axial sweeping resulted in the AXS rotor to undergo high degree of variations in the performance with stagger angle. TCS passages are subjected to low loss levels when compared with the UNS rotor at the designed stagger. This ability is found to diminish with increase in the stagger angle. AXS rotor passages are subjected to the low loss levels always. The idea of employing positive dihedral in addition to forward sweeping is thus thoughtful with regard to the stagger variations as well. As the stagger angle is increased, the tipward centrifugation of the boundary layer fluid is reduced, but the hub endwall boundary layer migration is observed to increase towards the suction side corner for some rotors resulting in corner vortex like structure towards the hub trailing edge. These secondary flows are less with the true sweeping. The separation point is shifted to upstream locations on the blade at higher stagger angles due to low streamwise velocities and higher adverse pressure gradients.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weijia Kang ◽  
Zhansheng Liu ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Yanyang Dong ◽  
Yong Sun

A unique supersonic compressor rotor with high pressure ratio, termed the Rampressor, is presented by Ramgen Power Systems, Inc., (RPS). Based on the models of Rampressor inlet, the inlet flow field with bleed system is numerically studied. Validation of the employed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) scheme is provided through test cases. The effects of boundary layer bleed location and bleed amount on Rampressor rotor inlet start and flow performance are analyzed. The results indicate that the boundary layer bleed has a significant effect for start and flow performance of Rampressor inlet. Boundary layer bleed technique has been applied to eliminate the emerging flow separation zone for enhancing Rampressor rotor inlet performance and enlarging its stable working range. The starting ability and flow performance of Rampressor inlet are efficiently improved by bleeding system, but the improvement effect is different for Rampressor inlet with different bleed location. Along the position of bleeding system moves forward, the range of Rampressor inlet normal work rotation speed is enlarged. The flow performance of Rampressor inlet improves obviously with the increment of bleed flow rate, and exit stability of Rampressor inlet enhances. And in the same back pressure work condition of Rampressor inlet, bleed system has been shown to be effective that exit stability of Rampressor inlet ameliorates, but the loss of compressed air from the bleed system has a negative effect on overall Rampressor inlet efficiency.


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