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 endwaU was designed by an endwall design optimi- zation 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 comer 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）.

Pressure Measurement on Suction Surface of a Single Vane Using Pressure-sensitive Paint

Global pressure distribution on the suction surface of a single vane in a transonic cascade wind tunnel is measured with the help of intensity-based pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique using a type of temperature-insensitive fluorescent paint and a self-made measurement system. This measurement is conducted at the outlet of the cascade wind tunnel at the Mach numbers 0.3 and 0.4, attack angle about –20°, ambient pressure 95.4 kPa and temperature 15 °C. The vane under study owns a large camber angle of ...