Numerical investigation on the mechanism of impeller hub corner separation flow and induced energy loss in the bulb tubular pump

Impeller hub corner separation flow(IHCS)has a significant influence on energy conversion of the bulb tubular pump,and its unsteady characteristics are investigated with CFD-based method.The generation mechanism and power loss characteristics of IHCS are investigated by the entropy production method and pressure fluctuation analysis.The main cause can be attributed to the large transverse pressure gradient near the hub at the trailing edge of the impeller,which is aggravated by the circumferential movement trend and the diffuser reverse flow,while the IHCS is significantly weakened with increased flow rate.The undesirable flow behavior is more likely to cause a significant increase in energy loss near the hub region compared to that in the rim region.The relative vortex stretching induced by the velocity gradient is the main cause of the horn-like vortex(HLV),and its intensity and resulting energy loss tend to decrease along the vortex trajectory.The HLV changes the dominant frequency of the pressure fluctuations in the nearby flow field,the value of which increases from 1fr(the blade passing frequency)to 2fr with increased amplitude,mainly due to the lower pressure regions on the impeller suction surface(SS)and HLV vortex core.Due to the effect of rotor-stator interaction(RSI),the HLVs generated between two adjacent impeller blades are cut into several sections by the diffuser vanes and propagate and dissipate along the mainstream direction.

Influence of Cavity Leakage flow on Corner Separation in a Shrouded Stator Cascade

The impacts of the cavity leakage flow on the shrouded stator aerodynamic performance were investigated by modelling the annular cascade mainstream with the seal cavity flow path based on the validated numerical method.Meanwhile,the interactions between the cavity leakage and the mainstream were also determined in the current study.The development of hub corner separation under the action of leakage was discussed and the total pressure loss coefficient as well as the entropy-based loss coefficient was employed to evaluate the performance changes at different seal clearances and cavity rotational speeds.The results show that the cavity leakage flow induces a new vortex near the blade leading edge and plays an important role in the development of passage vortex and the size of concentrated shedding vortex.By increasing the seal clearance with more cavity leakage flow rate,an increase in the pitchwise extent of the separation region under 15%span is significant and the total pressure loss in the separation core increases.In addition,with the increase of cavity rotating speed,the starting point of corner separation moves backward,reducing the size and depth of the hub corner separation.The mainstream loss reduction in combination with the entropy increase in the seal cavity causes the entropy-based loss coefficient to perform a trend of decreasing first and then increasing with the cavity speed.

Numerical Study of Dual Sweeping Jet Actuators for Corner Separation Control in Compressor Cascade

Unsteady behaviors are important issues in flow control of turbomachinery.Pulsed excitation or suction is widely investigated in compressor cascades.This paper presents a discussion on the unsteady flow control realized by dual sweeping jet actuator(SJA)located on the blade suction surface.The unsteady numerical simulations were utilized to study the effect of applying dual SJAs on controlling the corner separation.With the numerical results,the following conclusions could be drawn with current compressor cascade.A maximum total pressure loss coefficient reduction of 6.8%was obtained.The analysis of the flow field pointed out that the regulation mechanisms of the corner separation were different with each SJA.The SJA ahead achieved an interruption of the suction side boundary layer development and the rear SJA enhanced the interaction and entrainment between the excitation stream and the secondary flows.Meanwhile,the different unsteadiness structures of the flow field frequency spectrum compared with single SJA cases were identified.The first peak frequency corresponded to the difference of the two SJAs and the rest frequencies could be regulated to a base frequency and its harmonic frequencies.

Parameter study on numerical simulation of corner separation in LMFA-NACA65 linear compressor cascade

Large-eddy simulation(LES) is compared with experiment and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes(RANS), and LES is shown to be superior to RANS in reproducing corner separation in the LMFA-NACA65 linear compressor cascade, in terms of surface limiting streamlines,blade pressure coefficient, total pressure losses and blade suction side boundary layer profiles. However, LES is too expensive to conduct an influencing parameter study of the corner separation.RANS approach, despite over-predicting the corner separation, gives reasonable descriptions of the corner separated flow, and is thus selected to conduct a parametric study in this paper. Two kinds of influencing parameters on corner separation, numerical and physical parameters, are analyzed and discussed: second order spatial scheme is necessary for a RANS simulation; incidence angle and inflow boundary layer thickness are found to show the most significant influences on the corner separation among the parameters studied; unsteady RANS with the imposed inflow unsteadiness(inflow angle varying sinusoidally with fluctuating amplitude of 0.92°) does not show any non-linear effect on the corner separation.

Influence of Endwall Air Injection with Discrete Holes on Corner Separation of a Compressor Cascade

The aim of this study is to reveal the influence mechanism of endwall air injection with distributed holes on the corner separation of a highly loaded compressor cascade,so as to promote the application of injection in aero-engines.Single-hole and double-hole endwall injection schemes featuring different axial locations,pitchwise locations,injection mass rates and injection directions,were designed and investigated.Results showed that the corner separation was eliminated by endwall injection;the optimal single-hole injection scheme achieved an endwall loss coefficient reduction of 29.7%,with injection coefficient as low as 0.48%.The optimal axial location of single-hole endwall injection was at 82%axial chord,being the center of corner separation.However,as injection hole was located at upstream of it,endwall injection resulted in severer corner separation.The mid-span flow field was deteriorated after endwall injection,which was due to 3D flow effects,i.e.,AVDR(axial velocity density ratio)effect and low-momentum fluid spanwise migration effect.The optimal injection was achieved at low injection angle and from close to the suction surface on pitchwise.Double-hole injection exhibited inferior performance compared with single-hole,which was due to the interaction of the two injection streams and mixing of injection streams with the bulk stream.

In uence of Endwall Boundary Layer Suction on the Flow Fields of a Critically Loaded Di usion Cascade

Boundary layer suction is an e ective method used to delay separations in axial compressors. Most studies on bound?ary layer suction have focused on improving the performance of compressors,whereas few studies investigated the influence on details of the flow fields,especially vortexes in compressors. CFD method is validated with experi?mental data firstly. Three single?slot and one double?slot endwall boundary layer suction schemes are designed and investigated. In addition to the investigation of aerodynamic performance of the cascades with and without suction,variations in corner open separation,passage vortex,and concentration shedding vortex,which are rarely seen for the flow controlled blades in published literatures,are analyzed. Then,flow models,which are the ultimate aim,of both baseline and aspirated cascades are established. Results show that single?slot endwall suction scheme adjacent to the suction surface can e ectively remove the corner open separation. With suction mass flow rate of 0.85%,the overall loss coe cient and endwall loss coe cient of the cascade are reduced by 25.2% and 48.6%,respectively. Besides,this scheme increases the static pressure rise coe cient of the cascade by 3.2% and the flow turning angle of up to 3.3° at 90% span. The concentration shedding vortex decreases,whereas the passage vortex increases. For single?slot suction schemes near the middle pitchwise of the passage,the concentration shedding vortex increases and the passage vortex is divided into two smaller passage vortexes,which converge into a single?passage vortex near the trailing edge section of the cascade. For the double?slot suction scheme,triple?passage vortexes are presented in the blade passage. Some new vortex structures are discovered,and the novel flow models of aspirated compressor cascade are proposed,which are important to improve the design of multi?stage aspirated compressors.

An improved prediction model for corner stall in axial compressors with dihedral effect

Corner stall predictions are important and difficult in axial compressors.However,all of the prediction models have proved to be ineffective for advanced compressor blades,which tend to use the combined sweep and dihedral.As for the prediction parameter DL,although it effectively modeled the effects of the adverse pressure gradient and secondary flow,it failed to predict the corner stall of curved blades because the model failed to consider the intersection of the boundary layer at the corner region.In this paper,the shape factor gradientψof the boundary layer at the corner region was investigated by numerically studying specially shaped expansion pipes under different adverse pressure gradients.The improved prediction parameter DJ was presented based on the model of ψ and the circumferential pressure gradient ζ.A comparison of the critical range of the prediction parameters DL and DJ was investigated using the NACA65 cascade database,which was established by a numerical method.Then,the stall criterion was validated according to the experimental results of various test facilities with different blade geometries and experimental conditions.The results show that the improved prediction parameter is able to predict the corner separation/stall flows and is in good agreement with the experimental results for axial compressors with three-dimensional designed blades.

Numerical and experimental investigation of quantitative relationship between secondary flow intensity and inviscid blade force in axial compressors

The secondary flow attracts wide concerns in the aeroengine compressors since it has become one of the major loss sources in modern high-performance compressors.But the research about the quantitative relationship between secondary flow and inviscid blade force needs to be more detailed.In this paper,a database of 889 three-dimensional linear cascades was built.An indicator,called Secondary Flow Intensity(SFI),was used to express the loss caused by secondary flow.The quantitative relationship between the SFI and inviscid blade force deterioration was researched.Blade oil flow and Computation Fluid Dynamics(CFD)results of some cascades were also used to cross-validate.Results suggested that all numerical cascade cases can be divided into 3 clusters by the SFI,which are called Clusters A,B and C in the order of the increasing SFI indicator.The corner stall,known as the strong corner separation,only happens when the SFI is high.Both calculations and oil flow experiments show that the SFI would stay at a low level if the vortex core at the endwall surface does not appear.The strong interaction of Kutta condition and endwall cross-flow is considered the dominant mechanism of higher secondary flow losses,rather than the secondary flow penetration depth on the suction surface.In conclusion,the inviscid blade force spanwise deterioration is strongly related to the SFI.The correlation of the SFI and spanwise inviscid blade force deterioration is given in this paper.The correlation could provide a quantitative reference for estimating secondary flow losses in the design.

Effect of Geometric Variation of Root Fillet on the Flow Characteristic of a Transonic Compressor Rotor

The effects of root fillet on the flow behavior of high loading compressor rotor tends to be much more crucial in practice,and it’s necessary to explore the internal relations between the geometric effects of root fillet and the flow behaviors of rotor blade.Therefore,eight types of root fillet with different radius were designed and installed around the blade root of NASA Rotor67.With the aids of fillet,the corner separation near suction side of blade root has been suppressed significantly in that the root fillet reconstructs the circumferential bending distributon of the suction-side curve from leading edge to trailing edge,and reduces the genmetric turning angle in the latter part of root section near trailing edge.However,apart from the improvement of corner flow characteristic caused by root fillet,both the tip flow deterioration and the decrease of stall margin occur in the new rotors,which indicates an indirect correlation between tip flow characteristic and root fillet exists indeed in the three-dimensional flowfields of transonic rotor.Actually,by means of the new radial pressure equilibrium affected by root fillet,a larger radius of root fillet contributes to much larger blade loading and stronger leakage flow in tip region of compressor rotor.As a result,a monotonic decrease of stall margin was present in the transonic rotor with increase of the root fillet radius.Subsequently,the positive bending of blade tip was introduced to deal with the negative effect caused by the root fillet indirectly.Combined with the effects of root fillet and positive tip-bending on the radial pressure equilibrium existing in channels,both the radial and streamwise loading distributions tend to be much more reasonable in new rotors,and the static pressure difference in former 1/3 chord of blade tip has decreased clearly which benefits to reduce the strength of leakage flow in tip region.Therefore,the flow deterioration in tip region of transonic rotor induced by root fillet has been well suppressed,with an obvious improvement of overall performance occurring in new rotors.

Influence of coupled boundary layer suction and bowed blade on flow field and performance of a diffusion cascade

Based on the investigation of mid-span local boundary layer suction and positive bowed cascade, a coupled local tailored boundary layer suction and positive bowed blade method is developed to improve the performance of a highly loaded diffusion cascade with less suction slot. The effectiveness of the coupled method under different inlet boundary layers is also investigated.Results show that mid-span local boundary layer suction can effectively remove trailing edge separation, but deteriorate the flow fields near the endwall. The positive bowed cascade is beneficial for reducing open corner separation, but is detrimental to mid-span flow fields. The coupled method can further improve the performance and flow field of the cascade. The mid-span trailing edge separation and open corner separation are eliminated. Compared with linear cascade with suction, the coupled method reduces overall loss of the cascade by 31.4% at most. The mid-span loss of the cascade decreases as the suction coefficient increases, but increases as bow angle increases. The endwall loss increases as the suction coefficient increases. By contrast, the endwall loss decreases significantly as the bow angle increases. The endwall loss of coupled controlled cascade is higher than that of bowed cascade with the same bow angle because of the spanwise inverse ‘‘C" shaped static pressure distribution. Under different inlet boundary layer conditions, the coupled method can also improve the cascade effectively.

Blade Lean and Tip Leakage Flows in Highly Loaded Compressor Cascades

Blade lean has been intensively utilized in axial compressors.In this study,three families of highly loaded compressor cascades featuring different aspect ratios(AR)with different levels of blade lean were designed and simulated with and without tip clearance.The influences of blade lean on corner separation and tip leakage flow(TLF)were investigated.Results show that blade lean can exert spanwise pressure gradient confined to the fore part,spanwise mass flow rate re-distribution exhibiting differently at fore and rear part of blade,and stage reaction variations.AR has a significant influence on blade lean.With the increase of AR,corner separation grows significantly and requires a higher lean level to be controlled.TLF eliminates corner separation of linear cascades but also increases the loss of leaned cascades;blade lean introduces 22%higher tip leakage mass flow,but exhibits 43%(blade M)and 38%(blade E)lower tip leakage loss.The flow mechanism can be mainly accounted by the reduction of bulk flow velocity,tip leakage velocity and the velocity difference near leading edge(LE).High AR cascade induces re-distribution of TLF along blade chord and reduces leakage loss compared with low AR counterpart.

Influence of sub boundary layer vortex generator height and attack angle on cross-flows in the hub region of compressors

It has been recently shown that Sub Boundary layer Vortex Generator(SBVG,abbreviated as VG hereafter)can suppress the Cross-Flow(CF),and therefore,can eliminate corner separation and increase aerodynamic loading when installed on the end wall inside middle-load compressor passages.However,when VGs are applied in high-load compressors,it is difficult to achieve ideal results.This is because the definition of the VG attack angle in the presence of CF in existing research is confusing,and the stronger CF in high-load compressors worsens the problem and results in an improper design and optimization range of VG attack angle.Therefore,this paper clarifies the definition of the VG attack angle in the presence of CF and reveals the CF controlling mechanism of VG on a flat plate.The differences in the flow phenomena around a VG both with and without CF are also studied.The numerical results show that a larger height or attack angle of the VG generates a greater CF suppression effect.However,the cross velocity increases when surmounting the primary vortex induced by the VG,except that this enhanced CF is less conspicuous for larger VG heights.Compared to the cases without CF,the VG suffers an additional loss because of the stronger separation and primary vortex loss caused by the CF.

Full blended blade and endwall design of a compressor cascade

In the current state-of-the-art,high-loss flow in the endwall significantly influences compressor performance.Therefore,the control of endwall corner separation in compressor blade rows is important to consider.Based on the previous research of the Blended Blade and End Wall(BBEW)technique,which can significantly reduce corner separation,in combination with a nonaxisymmetric endwall,the full-BBEW technique is proposed in this study to further reduce the separation in endwall region.The principle of the unchanged axial passage area is considered to derive the geometric method for this technique.Three models are further classified based on different geometric characteristics of this technique:the BBEW model,Inclining-Only End Wall(IOEW)model,and full-BBEW model.The most effective design of each model is then found by performing several optimizations at the design point and related numerical investigations over the entire operational conditions.Compared with the prototype,the total pressure loss coefficient decreases by 7%–9%in the optimized full-BBEW at the design point.Moreover,the aerodynamic blockage coefficient over the entire operational range decreases more than the other models,which shows its positive effect for diffusion.This approach has a larger decrease at negative incidence angles where the intersection of the boundary layer plays an important role in corner separation.The analysis shows that the blended blade profile enlarges the dihedral angle and creates a span-wise pressure gradient to move low momentum fluid towards the mainstream.Furthermore,the inclining hub geometry accelerates the accumulated flow in the corner downstream by increasing the pressure gradient.Overall,though losses in the mainstream grow,especially for large incidences,the full-BBEW technique effectively reduces the separation in corners.

Comparison of Flow Mechanism of Blade Sweep between a Transonic Single Rotor and a Rotor in Stage Environment

In order to reveal the different effect mechanisms of blade sweep on the aerodynamic performance when a transonic rotor operates alone or in fan stage environment,two series of forward and backward swept rotors were designed and utilized in the first stage of the dual-stage NASA CR-120859 fan.Results show that,the influence of sweep on the single rotor and the whole stage is different,indicating swept designs for rotor alone may not be suitable for the stage operations.The distinct effect of sweep is account for the difference of the flow field characteristic and stall mechanism of the single rotor and the rotor in the stage environment.The single rotor is tip limited and its stall mechanism is shock/tip leakage vortex(TLV)interaction,whereas the fan stage is hub limited and its stall mechanism is the severe corner separation at stage hub region.For the single rotor,forward sweep increases the stall margin(SM)for all sweep schemes,while backward sweep reduces it in general.For the fan stage,however,backward swept rotor significantly increases stall margin and the stall mechanism is changed to shock/TLV interaction.On the contrary,forward sweep reduces stall margin in general.The flow mechanism is that forward sweep reduces blade loading at tip region near leading edge(LE)and causes the shock to move downstream.Both the variations improve flow field at tip region,while backward sweep exerts an opposite effect.At hub region,backward sweep reduces radial flow tendency by varying radial pressure gradient,causing reduction of corner separation at rotor hub,while forward sweep enhances corner separation.Moreover,with increasing of swept height and swept angle,the chock mass flow,peak efficiency and total pressure ratio of forward sweep are reduced in general,while an opposite effect can be found for backward sweep.

Instability Inception of a Single Rotor Embedded in a Transonic Stage with Partial Surge Inception

Partial surge is a type of instability inception discovered in our previous studies.It has been confirmed that partial surge is localized in the blade hub region,and the flow oscillation it caused will lead to the stall cells in the rotor tip.While since all information about partial surge is obtained from the compressor stage experiments,what will happen to the stall process after the stators are removed is also an issue that worth investigating.So,in this paper,a series of experiments are carried out on the single rotor embedded in the transonic compressor stage with partial surge inception.First,the experimental results under uniform inlet conditions show that,although partial surge appears at high rotor speed in the stage case,it does not occur at any speed in the single rotor case.Then,it is found by numerical simulation that the absence of partial surge may be due to the insufficient rotor hub loading,so an experiment with increased hub loading is carried out,but still fails to trigger partial surge.Finally,the reason why partial surge doesn’t occur in the single rotor is discussed.From these results,it can be concluded that partial surge cannot occur in the single rotor case,and the large-scale comer separation in the stator hub is considered to play an important role in the formation of partial surge.