scholarly journals Axial Flow Compressor Stability Enhancement: Circumferential T-Shape Grooves Performance Investigation

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Marco Porro ◽  
Richard Jefferson-Loveday ◽  
Ernesto Benini
Keyword(s):  
Vortex Breakdown ◽  
Pressure Ratio ◽  
Axial Flow ◽  
Suction Side ◽  
Treatment Technique ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Stall Inception ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement

This work focuses its attention on possibilities to enhance the stability of an axial compressor using a casing treatment technique. Circumferential grooves machined into the case are considered and their performances evaluated using three-dimensional steady state computational simulations. The effects of rectangular and new T-shape grooves on NASA Rotor 37 performances are investigated, resolving in detail the flow field near the blade tip in order to understand the stall inception delay mechanism produced by the casing treatment. First, a validation of the computational model was carried out analysing a smooth wall case without grooves. The comparisons of the total pressure ratio, total temperature ratio and adiabatic efficiency profiles with experimental data highlighted the accuracy and validity of the model. Then, the results for a rectangular groove chosen as the baseline case demonstrated that the groove interacts with the tip leakage flow, weakening the vortex breakdown and reducing the separation at the blade suction side. These effects delay stall inception, improving compressor stability. New T-shape grooves were designed keeping the volume as a constant parameter and their performances were evaluated in terms of stall margin improvement and efficiency variation. All the configurations showed a common efficiency loss near the peak condition and some of them revealed a stall margin improvement with respect to the baseline. Due to their reduced depth, these new configurations are interesting because they enable the use of a thinner light-weight compressor case as is desirable in aerospace applications.

scholarly journals Stall Margin Improvement in a Centrifugal Compressor through Inducer Casing Treatment

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
V. V. N. K. Satish Koyyalamudi ◽  
Quamber H. Nagpurwala
Keyword(s):  
Mass Flow ◽  
Centrifugal Compressor ◽  
Pressure Ratio ◽  
Treatment Technique ◽  
Centrifugal Compressors ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Operating Range ◽  
Stable Operating ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement

The increasing trend of high stage pressure ratio with increased aerodynamic loading has led to reduction in stable operating range of centrifugal compressors with stall and surge initiating at relatively higher mass flow rates. The casing treatment technique of stall control is found to be effective in axial compressors, but very limited research work is published on the application of this technique in centrifugal compressors. Present research was aimed to investigate the effect of casing treatment on the performance and stall margin of a high speed, 4 : 1 pressure ratio centrifugal compressor through numerical simulations using ANSYS CFX software. Three casing treatment configurations were developed and incorporated in the shroud over the inducer of the impeller. The predicted performance of baseline compressor (without casing treatment) was in good agreement with published experimental data. The compressor with different inducer casing treatment geometries showed varying levels of stall margin improvement, up to a maximum of 18%. While the peak efficiency of the compressor with casing treatment dropped by 0.8%–1% compared to the baseline compressor, the choke mass flow rate was improved by 9.5%, thus enhancing the total stable operating range. The inlet configuration of the casing treatment was found to play an important role in stall margin improvement.

scholarly journals Recess Vane Passive Stall Control

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ziabasharhagh ◽  
A. B. McKenzie ◽  
R. L. Elder
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Axial Flow ◽  
Operating Efficiency ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Inlet Distortion ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement ◽  
Stage Characteristic ◽  
Stall Control

An experimental investigation has been carried out on the influence of a vaned recessed casing treatment on the stall margin improvement of axial flow fans with different hub to tip ratio, with and without inlet distortion. The inlet distortion tests were conducted on a 0.5 hub to tip ratio fan and significant increases in the flow range with only small drops in operating efficiency were observed. The clean flow tests were conducted on higher hub to tip ratio fans (0.7 and 0.9). In each case the stage characteristic was compared with the results obtained with a solid casing. Significant increases in the flow range, with only modest or no loss in operating efficiency, were observed for optimum configurations at both diameter ratios.

Stability Enhancement by Casing Grooves: The Importance of Stall Inception Mechanism and Solidity

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Houghton ◽  
Ivor Day
Keyword(s):  
Companion Paper ◽  
Rotor Blades ◽  
Stall Inception ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Stable Operating ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement ◽  
Prediction Techniques ◽  
Stability Enhancement

This paper concerns the optimisation of casing grooves and the important influence of stall inception mechanism on groove performance. Installing casing grooves is a well known technique for improving the stable operating range of a compressor, but the wide-spread use of grooves is restricted by the loss of efficiency and flow capacity. In this paper, laboratory tests are used to examine the conditions under which casing treatment can be used to greatest effect. The use of a single casing groove was investigated in a recently published companion paper. The current work extends this to multiple-groove treatments and considers their performance in relation to stall inception mechanisms. Here it is shown that the stall margin gain from multiple grooves is less than the sum of the gains if the grooves were used individually. By contrast, the loss of efficiency is additive as the number of grooves increases. It is then shown that casing grooves give the greatest stall margin improvement when used in a compressor which exhibits spike-type stall inception, while modal activity before stall can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the grooves. This finding highlights the importance of being able to predict the stall inception mechanism which might occur in a given compressor before and after grooves are added. Some published prediction techniques are therefore examined, but found wanting. Lastly, it is shown that casing grooves can, in some cases, be used to remove rotor blades and produce a more efficient, stable and light-weight rotor.

Extensive Experimental Study of Circumferential Single Groove in an Axial Flow Compressor

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jichao Li ◽  
Feng Lin ◽  
Sichen Wang ◽  
Juan Du ◽  
Chaoqun Nie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Unsteady Flow ◽  
Axial Compressor ◽  
Axial Flow ◽  
Leakage Flow ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Tip Leakage

Circumferential single-groove casing treatment becomes an interesting topic in recent few years, because it is a good tool to explore the interaction between the groove and the flow in blade tip region. The stall margin improvement (SMI) as a function of the axial groove location has been found for some compressors, such a trend cannot be predicted by steady high-fidelity CFD simulations. Recent efforts show that to catch such a trend, multi-passage, unsteady flow simulations are needed as the stalling mechanism itself involves cross-passage flows and unsteady dynamics. This indicates a need to validate unsteady numerical simulation results. In this paper, an extensive experimental study of a total of fifteen single casing grooves in a low-speed axial compressor rotor is presented, the groove location varies from 0.4% to 98.3% of axial tip chord are tested. The unsteady pressure data both at casing and at the blade wake with different groove locations are measured and processed, including the movement of trajectory of tip leakage flow, the evolution of unsteadiness of tip leakage flow (UTLF), the unsteady spectrum signature during the stall process, and the outlet unsteady flow characteristic along the span. These data provide a case study for validation of the unsteady CFD results, and may be helpful for further interpretation on the stalling mechanism affected by circumferential casing grooves.

scholarly journals Flow mechanism of affecting an axial flow compressor performance and stability with cross-blade slot casing treatments

2018 ◽  
Vol 233 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
HaoGuang Zhang ◽  
XuDong Zhang ◽  
YanHui Wu ◽  
WuLi Chu ◽  
HaiYang Kuang
Keyword(s):  
Axial Flow ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Peak Efficiency ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Flow Loss ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Flow Compressor ◽  
Casing Treatments

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of cross-blade slot casing treatment on the stability and performance of an axial flow compressor rotor. The experimental and unsteady calculated results both show that cross-blade slot casing treatment can generate about 22% stall margin improvement, and the compressor peak efficiency is reduced by about 13%. The detailed flow-field analyses indicate that the sucked and injected flow caused by the slots of cross-blade slot casing treatment can restrain the rotor tip passage blockage, which is made by the low energy tip clearance leakage vortex. When cross-blade slot casing treatment is applied, not only the rotor wheel flange work becomes lower in most of the rotor blade span, but also the flow loss in the blade tip passage becomes fairly large due to the strong interaction between the mainstream and the injected flows made by the slots. As a result, the compressor total pressure ratio and efficiency for cross-blade slot casing treatment are reduced obviously. Three kinds of new cross-blade slot casing treatment were designed according to the previous successful experience and investigated in this paper. The numerical results show that the new three cross-blade slot casing treatments both generate about 54% stall margin improvement at the cost of minor peak efficiency. For one new cross-blade slot casing treatment (CSCT2), the compressor peak efficiency is reduced by about 0.3%. The low energy TLV, which is present for cross-blade slot casing treatment, is removed by the strong sucked flow made by CSCT2. Moreover, the interaction between the mainstream and the injected flows caused by CSCT2 becomes weak obviously, and the corresponding flow loss is reduced greatly. Hence, the compressor stability and performance with CSCT2 are higher than those with cross-blade slot casing treatment.

scholarly journals Recessed Casing Treatment Effects on Fan Performance and Flow Field

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Kang ◽  
A. B. McKenzie ◽  
R. L. Elder
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Axial Flow ◽  
Pressure Rise ◽  
Operating Efficiency ◽  
Flow Measurements ◽  
Blade Loading ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement ◽  
Blade Tip

An experimental investigation to examine the influence of the vaned recess casing treatment on stall margin, operating efficiency and the flow field of a low speed axial flow fan with aerospace type blade loading is presented. Different geometrical designs of the vaned passages were examined. The best configuration resulted in a stall margin improvement of 67%, a significantly higher pressure rise in the stall region and insignificant change in peak efficiency. Detailed 3-D flow measurements in the endwall region and in the casing recess were carried out with a slanted hot-wire, providing some insight to the operation of the device. The results revealed that the stall margin improvement was largely due to the removal of flow from the blade tip to the recess, and the elimination of the growth of the stall region at the tip, which occurs at stall in the solid casing build.

The Effects on Stability, Performance, and Tip Leakage Flow of Recirculating Casing Treatment in a Subsonic Axial Flow Compressor

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Wuli Chu ◽  
Haoguang Zhang ◽  
Yanhui Wu
Keyword(s):  
Axial Flow ◽  
Leakage Flow ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Tip Leakage Vortex ◽  
Stall Inception ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Tip Leakage ◽  
Axial Flow Compressor ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Flow Compressor

Recirculating casing treatment (RCT) was studied in a subsonic axial flow compressor experimentally and numerically. The RCT was parameterized with the injector throat height and circumferential coverage percentage (ccp) to investigate its influence on compressor stability and on the overall performance in the experimentation. The injector throat height varied from 2 to 6 times the height of the rotor tip clearance, and the ccp ranged from 8.3% to 25% of the casing perimeter. Various RCT configurations were achieved with a modular design procedure. The rotor casing was instrumented with fast-response pressure transducers to detect the stall inception, rotational speed of stall cells, and pressure flow fields. Whole-passage unsteady simulations were also implemented for the RCT and solid casing to understand the flow details. Results indicate that both the compressor stability and overall performance can be improved through RCT with appropriate geometrical parameters. The effect of injector throat height on the stability depends on the choice of ccp, i.e., interaction effect exists. In general, the RCT with a moderate injector throat height and a large circumferential coverage is the optimal choice. Phase-locked pattern of the casing wall pressure reveals a weakened tip leakage vortex under the effect of RCT compared with the solid casing. The numerical results show that the RCT has a substantial effect on tip blockage even when the blade passages break away from the domain of RCT. The reduction of tip blockage induced by the tip leakage vortex is the main reason for the extension of stable operation range. The unsteadiness of double-leakage flow is detected both in the experiment and in numerical simulations. The pressure fluctuations caused by double-leakage flow are depressed with RCT. This observation indicates reduced losses related with the double-leakage flow. Although the stall inception is not changed by implementing RCT, the stall pattern is altered. The stall with two cells is detected in RCT compared with the solid casing with only one stall cell.

Mechanism investigation of enhancing the stability of an axial flow rotor by blade angle slots

2019 ◽  
Vol 233 (13) ◽  
pp. 4750-4764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoguang Zhang ◽  
Wenhao Liu ◽  
Enhao Wang ◽  
Yanhui Wu ◽  
Weidong Yao
Keyword(s):  
Axial Flow ◽  
Maximum Efficiency ◽  
Smooth Wall ◽  
Blade Angle ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Flow Losses ◽  
Stable Operating ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement ◽  
The Stability

This paper seeks to reveal the mechanisms of enhancing the stability of a subsonic axial flow rotor by applying blade angle slots casing treatment (BSCT). When blade angle slots are applied, there is about 9% stall margin improvement for the experiment and about 8% stall margin improvement for the calculation, but the decrease in the rotor maximum efficiency is about 11% for the experiment and the calculation. The compared results between smooth wall and blade angle slots indicate that the backflow in the rotor top passage is weakened by the injected and sucked flows formed inside the slots of BSCT. Moreover, the injected flows inside the slots interfere with the flows in the rotor passage upstream, and this interference leads to large flow losses. Therefore, the rotor efficiency for blade angle slots is much lower than that for smooth wall. To confirm that the structural optimization of blade angle slots can effectively improve the compressor stability with small efficiency losses, optimized blade angle slots casing treatment (BSCT1) was designed according to the past experience of slot casing treatment. The calculated result shows that the optimized blade angle slots generate about 59% stall margin improvement, and the compressor maximum efficiency with the optimized blade angle slots is about 0.05% more than that for smooth wall. The flow field analyses show that the strong sucked flows formed inside the slots for BSCT1 can prevent the backflow, which exists in the rotor top passage for BSCT, from appearing. In addition, the level of interference of the flows in the rotor passage upstream for BSCT1 is much lower than that for BSCT, and the corresponding losses with BSCT1 become lower. Therefore, the rotor with BSCT1 has a larger stable operating range and better efficiencies than that with BSCT.

Design of Casing Treatment on a Mixed-Flow Compressor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Du ◽  
Joerg R. Seume
Keyword(s):  
Pressure Ratio ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Area Ratio ◽  
Open Area ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Mixed Flow ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Tip Leakage ◽  
Flow Compressor

Casing treatments (CTs) have been proved to beneficially affect the behavior of tip clearance flow and compressor stability. This paper presents the design of casing treatment for a mixed-flow compressor with a very small tip gap of 0.1mm. In the first part, the potential of applying two traditional types of casing treatments, i.e. circumferential grooves and axial slots, to enhance the stability of a mixed-flow compressor is investigated. The flow details in the reference compressor with smooth casing are examined first. It is found that a separating vortex is formed due to the reversed flow on the blade suction side near the rotor trailing edge at the near-stall point. It is supposed to be responsible for the decrease in total pressure ratio when the compressor approaches to stall. The numerical stall, i.e. the breakdown of the simulation, is initiated from the spillage of tip leakage flow over the rotor blade leading edge. The effect of circumferential grooves on the compressor performances is not remarkable. The implement of axial slots ameliorates the total pressure ratio and extend the flow range substantially, but with higher efficiency penalty than the circumferential grooves. The recirculation formed in the axial skewed slots eliminates the separation vortex near the trailing edge and suppresses the spillage of the tip leakage flow forward the rotor leading edge simultaneously. The axial skewed slots are further designed and optimized numerically by DoE (Design of Experiments). As DoE factors the axial length, the height, the open area ratio, and the number per blade passage of the slots are varied. Their effects on the two target values stall margin and polytropic efficiency are investigated. The plot of stall margin improvement (SMI) with a function of the peak efficiency improvement (PEI) indicates that the SMI changes reversely with the PE. There are two trends in the correlation curves of SMI with PE. For the configurations with the open area ratio of 20%, the SMI is changed from 9% to 23% with 1% decrease in PE by varying other three factors. For the CTs with the open area ratio of 60% the augment in SMI from 17.8% to 26.3% produces extra efficiency loss of 4.2%.

Numerical Investigation on Slot Casing Treatment in a Transonic Axial Compressor Stage: Part 1 — Casing Treatment Design

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingmin Zhu ◽  
Xiaoqing Qiang ◽  
Jinfang Teng
Keyword(s):  
Axial Compressor ◽  
Leakage Flow ◽  
Compressor Stage ◽  
Tip Leakage Flow ◽  
Suction Surface ◽  
Stall Margin ◽  
Rotating Speed ◽  
Casing Treatment ◽  
Tip Leakage ◽  
Stall Margin Improvement

Slot-type casing treatment generally has a great potential of enhancing the operating range for tip-critical compressor rotors, however, with remarkable efficiency drop. Part I of this two-part paper was committed to develop a slot configuration with desired stall margin improvement and minimized efficiency loss. Steady simulation was carried out in a 1.5 transonic axial compressor stage at part design rotating speed. At this rotating speed this compressor stage operated at a subsonic condition and showed a rather narrow operating range, which needed to be improved badly. Flow fields analysis at peak efficiency and near stall point showed that the development of tip leakage vortex and resulting blockage near casing resulted in numerical stall. Three kinds of skewed slots with same rotor exposure and casing porosity were designed according to the tip flow field and some empirical strategies. Among three configurations, arc-curved skewed slot showed minimum peak efficiency drop with considerable stall margin improvement. Then rotor exposure and casing porosity were varied based on the original arc-curved skewed slot, with a special interest in detecting their impact on the compressor stability and overall efficiency. Result showed that smaller rotor exposure and casing porosity leaded to less efficiency drop. But meanwhile, effectiveness of improving compressor stability was weakened. The relation between efficiency drop and stall margin improvement fell on a smooth continuous curve throughout all slots configurations, indicating that the detrimental effect of casing treatment on compressor was inevitable. Flow analysis was carried out for cases of smooth casing and three arc-curved configurations at smooth casing near stall condition. The strength of suction/injection, tip leakage flow behavior and removal of blockage near casing were detailed examined. Larger rotor tip exposure and slots number contributed to stronger injection flow. The loss generated within the mixing process of injection flow with main flow and leakage flow is the largest source of entropy increase. Further loss mechanisms were interpreted at eight axial cuts, which were taken through the blade row and slots to show the increase in entropy near tip region. Entropy distributions manifested that loss generations with smooth casing were primarily ascribed to low-momentum tip leakage flow/vortex and suction surface separation at leading edge. CU0 slot, the arc-curved slots with 50% rotor tip exposure, was capable of suppressing the suction surface separation loss. Meanwhile, accelerated tip leakage flow brought about additional loss near casing and pressure surface. Upstream high entropy flow would be absorbed into the rear portion of slots repeatedly, resulting in further loss.

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