Numerical and experimental investigation of an axial compressor flow with tandem cascade

Basing on a prototype of DCA airfoil and axial displacement overlap of 10% chord,seven kinds of tangential displacements are taken to simulate the flow conditions in tandem cascade with numerical methods to select a better geometry with higher performance.The configuration with tangential displacement b/t=0.83 would gain better flow performance than the others.On this basis,two configurations with tangential displacement b/t=0.67 and 0.83 among several configurations are chosen to take into experimental investigations by using TR-PIV system to capture the flow velocity instantaneously.The configuration with b/t=0.83 is observed a better flow field performance than b/t=0.67.Its injection flow in the gap zone is much stronger,wake zone area of the front and rear blade is smaller and the stream flow is more improved.It shows that the flow performance in experimental investigation is quite in the same trend as the numerical results predict.     

离心式压缩机蜗壳优化设计

基于蜗壳一维气动设计理论,经过参数修正后,获得等内径的不对称圆形蜗壳结构。应用计算流体动力学专业软件NUMECA对流动十分复杂的蜗壳内部流场进行了三维粘性数值计算分析。根据蜗壳内部气流流动特性分析,合理设计并改进蜗壳结构,改进后离心式压缩机整级性能得到提高。     

Effects of axial non-uniform tip clearances on aerodynamic performance of a transonic axial compressor

This paper presents a numerical investigation of effects of axial non-uniform tip clearances on the aerodynamic performance of a transonic axial compressor rotor （NASA Rotor 37）. The three-dimensional steady flow field within the rotor passage was simulated with the datum tip clearance of 0.356 mm at the design wheel speed of 17188.7 rpm. The simulation results are well consistent with the measurement results, which verified the numeri- cal method. Then the three-dimensional steady flow field within the rotor passage was simulated respectively with different axial non-uniform tip clearances. The calculation results showed that optimal axial non-uniform tip clearances could improve the compressor performance, while the efficiency and the pressure ratio of the com- pressor were increased. The flow mechanism is that the axial non-uniform tip clearance can weaken the tip leak- age vortex, blow down low-energy fluids in boundary layers and reduce both flow blockage and tip loss.     

Investigation on multiple cylindrical holes casing treatment for transonic axial compressor stability enhancement

Casing treatment is one possible way of regaining axial compressor operating range. However, most of casing treatments extend the operating range with the cost of efficiency penalty. A new form of multiple cylindrical holes casing treatment (MHCT) with pre-swirl blowing for the NASA Rotor-37 has been designed based on profound understanding of the stall inception. Unsteady numerical simulations have been performed for Rotor-37 with and without MHCT. Parametric studies of the total extraction holes area and their axial locations show that the compressor performance deteriorates as the area ratio increases but the stall margin is extended and there is an optimum extraction holes axial location for stall margin extending. The better configuration of MHCT could extend the stall margin by 6.2% with only 0.23% peak efficiency reduction. Detailed analysis of the physical mechanism behind the stall margin improvement shows that the casing treatment could eliminate the passage blockage by suppressing breakup of tip leakage vortex and decrease the blade load in tip region, which both contribute to improve stall margin of transonic axial compressors.     

The effect of variable stator on performance of a highly loaded tandem axial flow compressor stage

Increasing the aerodynamic load on compressor blades helps to obtain a higher pressure ratio in lower rotational speeds.Considering the high aerodynamic load effects and structural concerns in the design process,it is possible to obtain higher pressure ratios compared to conventional compressors.However,it must be noted that imposing higher aerodynamic loads results in higher loss coefficients and deteriorates the overall performance.To avoid the loss increase,the boundary layer quality must be studied carefully over the blade suction surface.Employment of advanced shaped airfoils (like CDAs),slotted blades or other boundary layer control methods has helped the designers to use higher aerodynamic loads on compressor blades.Tandem cascade is a passive boundary layer control method,which is based on using the flow momentum to control the boundary layer on the suction surface and also to avoid the probable separation caused by higher aerodynamic loads.In fact,the front pressure side flow momentum helps to compensate the positive pressure gradient over the aft blade's suction side.Also,in comparison to the single blade stators,tandem variable stators have more degrees of freedom,and this issue increases the possibility of finding enhanced conditions in the compressor off-design performance.In the current study,a 3D design procedure for an axial flow tandem compressor stage has been applied to design a highly loaded stage.Following,this design is numerically investigated using a CFD code and the stage characteristic map is reported.Also,the effect of various stator stagger angles on the compressor performance and especially on the compressor surge margin has been discussed.To validate the CFD method,another known compressor stage is presented and its performance is numerically investigated and the results are compared with available experimental results.     

配内燃机车离心风机的设计改型

利用商业软件Fluent对配内燃机车离心风机内部气流的流动情况进行了数值模拟。模拟结果与实验结果对比表明,两者能够较好的吻合,误差在5％以下。在此基础上,对风机内部的流场分布,尤其是沿叶高方向气流的流动情况进行了分析,找到了导致风机效率较低的原因,并有针对性地对风机进行了改型。改型后的模拟结果显示,风机的效率提高了6％左右,效率提升较为明显。     

Effects of probe support on the stall characteristics of a low-speed axial compressor

In order to investigate the effects of probe support on the stall characteristics of micro compressors, an experiment was carried out on a large-scale low-speed research compressor according to the principle of geometric similarity. A cylindrical probe support intruding to 50% blade span was mounted at 50% chord upstream from the rotor blade leading edge. The static pressure rise characteristic of the compressor is measured, with and without the probe support respectively. The dynamic compressor behavior from pre-stall to full stall was also measured. The results indicate that the stability margin of the compressor is lowered after installing the probe support. The stall inception is aroused by modal wave disturbances. The disturbances developed into two stall cells smoothly before installing the probe support, while the disturbances first developed into a single stall cell then splitting into two stall cells after installing the probe support. The presence of probe support lowers the initial intensity of the rotating stall of the compressor, while it doesn't alter the intensity of the rotation stall after the compressor enters into full stall.     

Structural optimal design of a swing vane compressor

In this paper, a novel swing vane rotary compressor (SVC) was introduced, which had significant advantages—simple mechanism, reduced frictional loss, reliable operation, and a comparatively higher compression ratio. Based on the swing vane compressor geometry model, thermodynamic model and kinetic model, the mathematical model of optimum design was established, and further theoretical and experimental studies were conducted. The length of the cylinder, radius of the rotor and cylinder were defined as design variables and the reciprocal of EER as objective function. The complex optimization method was adopted to study the structure of the swing vane compressor. The theoretical model could provide an effective method for predicting compressor performance, which would also contribute to structural optimization of the SVC. The study shows that the friction loss of the compressor are greatly reduced by optimized design in a given initial value, and the EER increased by 8.55%.     

Effects of suction side squealer tip on the performance of a low-speed axial compressor

This paper presents the investigation of the effects of suction side squealer tip on the performance of an axial compressor.The experiment is carried out in a single-stage large-scale low-speed compressor.The investigated tip geometries include flat tip as the baseline and suction side squealer tip.The tip clearance of the baseline is 0.5% of the blade span.The static pressure rise characteristic curves of both the rotor and the stage are measured.The flow field at the exit of the rotor is measured by a 5-hole probe under design and off-design conditions.The static pressure on the endwall of the rotor passage is also obtained.The results show that the pressure rise characteristic curves obtained by measuring the pressure on the end wall are almost unchanged by using the suction side squealer tip.The measuring results of the 5-hole probe show the static pressure and the total pressure in tip region is slightly greater than that of the flat tip at the design condition at the exit of the rotor.It also leads to greater av-eraged static pressure rise and total pressure.At the near stall condition,the averaged static pressure and total pressure is lower than the baseline which is related to the redistribution of the blade load caused by the suction side squealer tip.     

Investigation of non-axisymmetric endwall contouring in a compressor cascade

The current paper presents experimental and computational results to assess the effectiveness of non-axisymmetric endwall contouring in a compressor linear cascade. The endwall was designed by an endwall design optimization platform at 0° incidence(design condition). The optimization method is based on a genetic algorithm. The design objective was to minimize the total pressure losses. The experiments were carried out in a compressor cascade at a low-speed test facility with a Mach number of 0.15. Four nominal inlet flow angles were chosen to test the performance of non-axisymmetric Contoured Endwall(CEW). A five-hole pressure probe with a head diameter of 2 mm was used to traverse the downstream flow fields of the flat-endwall(FEW) and CEW cascades.Both the measured and predicted results indicated that the implementation of CEW results in smaller corner stall,and reduction of total pressure losses. The CEW gets 15.6% total pressure loss coefficient reduction at design condition, and 22.6% at off-design condition(+7° incidence). And the mechanism of the improvement of CEW based on both measured and calculated results is that the adverse pressure gradient(APG) has been reduced through the groove configuration near the leading edge(LE) of the suction surface(SS).     

Numerical analysis of flow in ultra micro centrifugal compressor -influence of meridional configuration

A single stage ultra micro centrifugal compressor constituting ultra micro gas turbine is required to operate at high rotational speed in order to achieve the pressure ratio which establishes the gas turbine cycle. As a consequence, the aerodynamic losses can be increased by the interaction of a shock wave with the boundary layer on the blade surface. Moreover, the centrifugal force which exceeds the allowable stress of the impeller material can act on the root of blades. On the other hand, the restrictions of processing technology for the downsizing of impeller not only relatively enlarge the size of tip clearance but also make it difficult to shape the impeller with the three-dimensional blade. Therefore, it is important to establish the design technology for the impeller with the two-dimensional blade which possesses the sufficient aerodynamic performance and enough strength to bear the centrifugal force caused by the high rotational speed. In this study, the flow in two types of impeller with the two-dimensional blade which have different meridional configuration was analyzed numerically. The computed results clarified the influence of the meridional configuration on the loss generations in the impeller passage.     

Design and optimization of a single stage centrifugal compressor for a solar dish-Brayton system

According to the requirements of a solar dish-Brayton system,a centrifugal compressor stage with a minimum total pressure ratio of 5,an adiabatic efficiency above 75% and a surge margin more than 12% needs to be designed.A single stage,which consists of impeller,radial vaned diffuser,90° crossover and two rows of axial stators,was chosen to satisfy this system.To achieve the stage performance,an impeller with a 6:1 total pressure ratio and an adiabatic efficiency of 90% was designed and its preliminary geometry came from an in-house one-dimensional program.Radial vaned diffuser was applied downstream of the impeller.Two rows of axial stators after 90° crossover were added to guide the flow into axial direction.Since jet-wake flow,shockwave and boundary layer separation coexisted in the impeller-diffuser region,optimization on the radius ratio of radial diffuser vane inlet to impeller exit,diffuser vane inlet blade angle and number of diffuser vanes was carried out at design point.Finally,an optimized centrifugal compressor stage fulfilled the high expectations and presented proper performance.Numerical simulation showed that at design point the stage adiabatic efficiency was 79.93% and the total pressure ratio was 5.6.The surge margin was 15%.The performance map including 80%,90% and 100% design speed was also presented.     

Application of high-turning bowed compressor stator to redesign of highly loaded fan stage

A redesign of a highly loaded fan stage by using high-turning bowed compressor stator was conducted. The original tandem stator was replaced by the highly loaded bowed stator which was applicable to highly subsonic flow conditions. 3D contouring technique and local modification of blade were applied to the design of the bowed blade in order to improve the aerodynamic performance and the matching of the rotor and stator blade rows. Performance curves at different rotating speeds and performances at different operating points for both the original fan stage and redesigned fan stage were obtained by numerical simulations. The results show that the highly loaded bowed stator can be used not only to improve the structure and the aerodynamic performances at various operating points of the compressor stage but also to provide high performances at off-design conditions. It is believed that the highly loaded bowed stator can advance the design of high-performance compressor. __________ Translated from Journal of Propulsion Technology, 2007, 28(1): 26–31 [译自: 推进技术]     

给定轴分速时轴流压气机级性能的解析优化

用一维理论对轴流压气机的初步设计作进一步的研究,导出了轴流压气机基元级的特性关系,建立了在给定轴向分速时最优化设计的数学模型,得到了解析关系,所得结论具有很好的普适性,并可进一步拓广用于多级轴流压气机优化中。     

Rotating stall and stall-controlled performance of a single stage subsonic axial compressor

Activities by various authors on aerodynamics and control dynamics of rotating stall in axial compressor are first traced. Then, a process of stall cell evolution in a subsonic stage is discussed based on a 2-D CFD. A few numbers of vortices grow ahead of the rotor accumulating vorticity ejected from lightly stalled blades, and eventually organize a cell of circumferentially aligned huge vortices, which merge and recess repeatedly during the rotation. Such stall disturbance is intensified on trailing side of a circumferential inlet distortion and decays on the leading side. Considering these features, a new algorithm for stall warning is developed based on a correlation between pressure waveforms at each passing of a fixed blade. A remarkable change in the correlation level at near-stall provides a warning signal prior to the stall onset with sufficiently large time margin. This scheme is applied to achieve rotating stall prevention by actuating flaps installed on the hub. The last issue is on characteristics of forward swept blade which has much increased throttle margin with decreased tip loss. A 3-D computation shows that a secondary vortex generated in suction surface mid span interacts to reduce the tip leakage vortex that initiates the stall.     

Numerical study of effect of compressor swirling flow on combustor design in a MTE

An effect of the swirling flow on the combustion performance is studied by the computational fluid dynamics(CFD) in a micro-gas turbine with a centrifugal compressor, dump diffuser and forward-flow combustor. The distributions of air mass and the Temperature Pattern Factor(as: Overall Temperature Distribution Factor-OTDF) in outlet are investigated with two different swirling angles of compressed air as 0° and 15° in three combustors. The results show that the influences of swirling flow on the air distribution and OTDF cannot be neglected. Compared with no-swirling flow, the air through outer liner is more, and the air through the inner liner is less, and the pressure loss is bigger under the swirling condition in the same combustor. The Temperature Pattern Factor changes under the different swirling conditions.     

Numerical investigation & comparison of a tandem-bladed turbocharger centrifugal compressor stage with conventional design

Extensive numerical investigations of the performance and flow structure in an unshrouded tandem-bladed centrifugal compressor are presented in comparison to a conventional compressor. Stage characteristics are explored for various tip clearance levels, axial spacings and circumferential clockings. Conventional impeller was modified to tandem-bladed design with no modifications in backsweep angle, meridional gas passage and camber distributions in order to have a true comparison with conventional design. Performance degradation is observed for both the conventional and tandem designs with increase in tip clearance. Linear-equation models for correlating stage characteristics with tip clearance are proposed. Comparing two designs, it is clearly evident that the conventional design shows better performance at moderate flow rates. However; near choke flow, tandem design gives better results primarily because of the increase in throat area. Surge point flow rate also seems to drop for tandem compressor resulting in increased range of operation.     

Performance and flow condition of small-sized axial fan and adoption of contra-rotating rotors

Small-sized axial fans are used as air coolers for electric equipments. But there is a strong demand for higher power of fans according to the increase of quantity of heat from electric devices. Therefore, higher rotational speed design is conducted, although it causes the deterioration of the efficiency and the increase of noise. Then the adoption of contra-rotating rotors for the small-sized axial fan is proposed for the improvement of the performance. In the present paper, the performance and the internal flow condition of the small-sized axial fan are shown as a first step of the research for the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan and the important points to apply contra-rotating rotors to the small-sized axial fan are discussed. Furthermore, the numerical flow analysis is conducted to investigate the performance of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan and internal flow conditions and pressure distributions are clarified and the effect of contra-rotating rotors is considered.     

Performance investigation of a multi-stage sorption hydrogen compressor

Among several thermodynamic applications of metal hydrides, sorption hydrogen compressor (SHC) is more attractive for real-time application due to ease of construction and operation. In the present study, a four-stage sorption hydrogen compressor is proposed with detailed working principle for the compression output of >500 bar pressure. By adopting the screening methodology, four metal hydrides, i.e. La_0.9Ce_0.1Ni₅, Ti_0.99Zr_0.01V_0.43Fe_0.99Cr_0.05Mn_1.5, MmNi₅ and TiCrMn are selected for stages – 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively with the supply temperature of 298 K and discharge temperatures of 373 K. The performance of sorption hydrogen compressor is estimated through finite volume approach and thermodynamic simulation in terms of variations in metal hydride bed pressure, temperature, hydrogen transmission, compressor work and efficiency. The numerical model is validated with experimentally measured metal hydride bed temperature and hydrogen concentration for single-stage hydrogen compressor, which are observed to be in good agreement. The cycle time of multi-stage SHC is predicted to be ~100 min with the maximum compression ratio of 73 with an overall efficiency of 10.62% employing 0.5 kg of each alloy and supply pressure of 9.5 bar. It is also observed that the discharge temperature greatly influences system performance. The dynamic performance of the system is also estimated with the implementation of simulation generated property data and observed that the performance parameters increased with the progression of hydrogen transmission.