Transition from Unsteady Flow Inception to Rotating Stall and Surge in a Transonic Compressor

Since the transition from rotating stall to surge in a transonic compressor at high speed is very quick,quite often there is no time to take measures to prevent the surge.Therefore,it is desired to find any rotating stall precursors,of which the occurrence can offer sufficient time for stall or surge prevention.In this study,a series of unsteady flow analyses were performed on a transonic compressor under operating conditions before rotating stall with unsteady results scrutinized to find rotating stall precursors.Particular attention is paid to the spatial modes and time modes of static pressure near the casing and around the blade leading and trailing edges.The results show that the characteristics of the precursor in both spatial and time domains can be used as rotating stall warnings.

Unsteady Flow Field under Surge and Rotating Stall in a Three-stage Axial Flow Compressor

The unsteady flow structure between rotor blade-to-blade passages in a three-stage axial flow compressor is experimentally investigated by detailed measurements of unsteady performance characteristics,casing wall pressure fluctuations and their wavelet analyses.The main feature of the test compressor is a capacity tank facility connected in series to the compressor outlet in order to supply compression and/or expansion waves from downstream of the compressor.Research attention is focused on the post-stall characteristics of the surge and rotating stall which occur simultaneously.The influence of the compressor operating point on the unsteady performance curve shows that the surge cycle changes irregularly depending on the steady-state resistance characteristics,and the results of the wavelet analyses of the wall pressure fluctuations suggest that the surge cycle may selectively be determined by the rotating stall cell structure within the rotor cascade.

Numerical Investigation of the Unsteady Tip Leakage Flow and Rotating Stall Inception in a Transonic Compressor

It is well known that tip leakage flow has a strong effect on the compressor performance and stability. This paper reports on a numerical investigation of detailed flow structures in an isolated transonic compressor rotor-NASA Rotor 37 at near stall and stalled conditions aimed at improving understanding of changes in 3D tip leakage flow structures with rotating stall inception.Steady and unsteady 3D Navier-Stokes analyses were conducted to investigate flow structures in the same rotor.For steady analysis,the predicted results agree well with the experimental data for the estimation of compressor rotor global performance.For unsteady flow analysis, the unsteady flow nature caused by the breakdown of the tip leakage vortex in blade tip region in the transonic compressor rotor at near stall condition has been captured with a single blade passage.On the other hand, the time-accurate unsteady computations of multi-blade passage at near stall condition indicate that the unsteady breakdown of the tip leakage vortex triggered the short length-scale-spike type rotating stall inception at blade tip region.It was the forward spillage of the tip leakage flow at blade leading edge resulting in the spike stall inception. As the mass flow ratio is decreased,the rotating stall cell was further developed in the blade passage.

Unsteady Behavior of Surge and Rotating Stall in an Axial Flow Compressor

Unsteady behaviors as well as unsteady cascade flow fields of a single-stage axial flow compressor were experi- mentally investigated by detail measurements of unsteady performance characteristics and casing wall pressure and internal flow velocity fluctuations. The main feature of the test compressor is a capacity tank connected di- rectly to the compressor outlet in series through slits and a concentric duplex pipe, and also jet nozzles in order to inject compressed air toward the rotor tip region. Research attention is focused on the post-stall characteristics of surge and rotating stall which occur simultaneously. When the compressor was connected to the capacity tank, surge was generated with rotating stall in accordance with the capacitance increment of whole compressor system The surge behavior changed irregularly with throttling valve installed behind the compressor, and several types of surge cycles were observed. In addition, the surge cycle changed by jet injection to the rotor tip region. The re- suits suggested that the blockages of the cascade flow which were generated by a stall cell play an important role in deciding the surge behaviors.

Coexisting Phenomena of Surge and Rotating Stall in an Axial Flow Compressor

The unsteady inner flow structure of a single-stage axial flow compressor under the coexisting conditions of surge and rotating stall was experimentally investigated via detailed measurements of the unsteady characteristics and the internal flow velocity fluctuations. The main relevant feature of the tested compressor is a shock tube with a capacity tank connected in series to the compressor outlet through slits and a concentric duplex pipe: surge and rotating stall can both be generated by connecting the shock tube. Research attention is focused on the unsteady behavior of a rotating stall during the surge cycle. The size of the rotating stall cell during the recovery process of an irregular surge cycle was experimentally determined by the circumferential flow velocity fluctuations ahead of the rotor blade. The results suggested that the size of the rotating stall cell at the switching point of the performance curve between large and small cycles is considered to be the key parameter in determining the following surge cycle. In addition, the surge cycle is largely influenced by the unsteady behavior of the rotating stall cell.

A high-order model of rotating stall in axial compressors with inlet distortion

In this paper,a high-order distortion model is proposed for analyzing the rotating stall inception process induced by inlet distortion in axial compressors.A distortion-generating screen in the compressor inlet is considered.By assuming a quadratic function for the local flow total pressure-drop,the existing Mansoux model is extended to include the effects of static inlet distortion,and a new high-order distortion model is derived.To illustrate the effectiveness of the distortion model,numerical simulations are performed on an eighteenth-order model.It is demonstrated that long length-scale disturbances emerge out of the distorted background flow,and further induce the onset of rotating stall in advance.In addition,the circumferential non-uniform distribution and time evolution of the axial flow are also shown to be consistent with the existing features.It is thus shown that the high-order distortion model is capable of describing the transient behavior of stall inception and will contribute further to stall detection under inlet distortion.

A Review of Rotating Stall in Vaneless Diffuser of Centrifugal Compressor

At present, off-design centrifugal compressor suffers from great instabilities, such as rotating stall and surge, which lead to work failure, strong pressure fluctuations, and violent vibrations of the entire system. One cause of these instabilities is the rotating stall occurring in vaneless diffuser. In this review, recent researches on rotating stall of vaneless diffuser in centrifugal compressor are reviewed, and its inductive mechanism and characteristic description are emphatically introduced. In vaneless diffuser, the rotating stall starts up and fully develops under non-design conditions with the characteristic of increasing pressure fluctuation amplitude. The negative effects of rotating stall include reverse flow and vortex, both of which have significant effects on the instability of centrifugal compressors. Some improvement methods of rotating stall are also introduced, and a lot of examples are given. Finally, some suggestions and discussions are put forward for the future work.

Numerical Simulation of Rotating Stall in a Centrifugal Compressor with Vaned Diffuser

This paper reports a numerical study on the process from normal operating conditions to rotating stall in a centrifugal compressor with vaned diffuser. The purpose is to better understand the flow characteristics near stall point under the interactions between centrifugal impeller and vaned diffuser. Numerical results show that under certain conditions just preceding stall point the tip leakage vortex begins to fluctuate at roughly half of the blade passing frequency. This phenomenon is similar to rotating instability in axial compressors. With the flow rate reduced further the impeller stalls and five stall cells propagating at a frequency of 85 percent of impeller rotation speed are found.

Investigation of the Unsteady Disturbance in Tip Region of a Contra-Rotating Compressor near Stall

The present study investigated the spectrum characteristics of unsteady disturbance and the tip leakage vortex evolution during pre-stall process for a contra-rotating axial compressor(CRAC). Transient numerical simulation was carried out in a single passage of the CRAC. The original transient fluctuation and oscillation of the tip leakage vortex structure with varying flow capacity of the CRAC were revealed using circle-like pattern figure and phase-locked root mean square(PLRMS). Additionally, the tip leakage flow in terms of vortex structure evolution was visualized for the sake of revealing the flow mechanism during pre-stall process. Results show that the unsteady fluctuation first appears at φ=0.3622, and the fluctuation frequency is 2.86 BPF. Unsteady disturbance source is mainly located at the tip side of the downstream rotor leading edge. From the choking point to the near stall condition, tip leakage vortex is always found in the tip leading edge of the upstream rotor. In addition, the tip leakage vortex of upstream rotor remains in the same place over time, i.e., no fluctuation, even when the downstream rotor entered into stall state. Such a phenomenon indicates that the stall point of the contra-rotating compressor is determined by the downstream rotor. Moreover, the maximum fluctuation position is mainly concentrated on the interface between the mainstream and the tip leakage vortex of the downstream rotor. By throttling the compressor, the angle between the main leakage vortex and the circumferential direction decreases gradually. When the main leakage vortex touches and continuously impacts on the leading edge of the adjacent blade, the unsteady disturbance, which is different from that of BPF, appears firstly.

A Model to Predict Stall Inception of Transonic Axial Flow Fan/Compressors

A stall inception model for transonic fan/compressors is presented in this paper. It can be shown that under some assumptions the solution of unsteady flow field consists of pressure wave which propagates upstream or downstream, vortex wave and entropy wave convected with the mean flow speed. By further using the mode-matching technique and applying the conservation law and conditions reflecting the loss characteristics of a compressor in the inlet and outlet of the rotor or stator blade rows, a group of homogeneous equations can be obtained from which the stability equation can be derived. Based on the analysis of the unsteady phenomenon caused by casing treatments, the function of casing treatments has been modeled by a wall impedance condition which has been included in the stability model through the eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenfunctions of the system. Besides, the effect of shock waves in cascade channel on the stability prediction is also considered in the stall inception model. Finally, some numerical analysis and experimental investigation are also conducted with emphasis on the mutual comparison.

Coexisting State of Surge and Rotating Stall in a Two-Stage Axial Flow Com-pressor using a Double-Phase-Locked Averaging Technique

The interaction between surge and rotating stall in an axial flow compressor was investigated from the viewpoint of an unsteady inner flow structure. The aim of this study was to identify the key factor that determines the switching phenomenon of a surge cycle. The main feature of the tested compressor is a shock tube connected in series to the compressor outlet through a diaphragm, slits, and a concentric duplex pipe: this system allows surge and rotating stall to be generated by connecting the shock tube with the compressor, or enables the compression plane wave injection. The unsteady characteristics and the internal flow velocity fluctuations were measured in detail, and the stall cell structure was averaged and visualized along the movement of the operation point under a coexisting state of surge. A coefficient of the cell scale fluctuation was calculated using the result of the averaging, and it confirmed that the processes of inner flow structure change differed from each other according to the next cycle of the surge. The result suggests that the key factor that determines the next cycle is the transformation of the internal flow structure, particularly between the stall cell and the entire circumferential stall, in both the recovering and stalling processes.

Evolution of Unsteady Flow near Rotor Tip during Stall Inception

Previously the features of circumferential propagation of self-induced tip leakage flow unsteadiness for a low speed isolated axial compressor rotor in the authors' laboratory were discovered and investigated via numerical simulation,which only occurs below a critical stable flow point that is close to but not yet at the stall limit.Further in this paper,the detailed investigation on evolution of tip leakage flow during the throttling process into spike rotating stall was conducted by adopting the valve-throttling model.During this process,the development of the circumferential propagation of tip leakage flow unsteadiness was especially focused on.According to the unsteady characteristics of pressure signals,the evolvement of compressor flow field can be classified into four stages.As compressor throttled,the oscillation frequency of self-induced unsteady tip leakage flow decreased gradually,and thus resulted in the decrease of its circumferential propagation speed.The circumferential propagation of self-induced tip leakage flow unsteadiness is closely related with rotating instability.When the forward spillage of tip leakage flow at the leading edge occurred,the spike type rotating stall was initiated.Its flow struc-tures were given in the paper.

Stall Inception Process and Prospects for Active Hub-Flap Control in Three-Stage Axial Flow Compressor

The possibility to apply the active hub-flap control method, which is a proven rotating stall control method for a single-stage compressor, to a 3-stage axial compressor is experimentally discussed, where complex rotating stall inception processes are observed. The research compressor is a 3-stage one and could change the stagger angle settings for rotor blades and stator vanes. Sixteen rotor blade/stator vane configuration patterns were tested by changing stagger angle for the stator vanes. By measurement of surface-pressure fluctuation, stall inception proc- esses are investigated and the measured pressure fluctuation data is used as a predictive signal for rotating stall. The experimental results show that the stall detection system applied to active hub-flap control in a single-stage compressor could be usefully applied to that in a 3-stage compressor with a more complex stall inception process.

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.

Natures of Rotating Stall Cell in a Diagonal Flow Fan

In order to clarify the natures of a rotating stall cell, the experimental investigation was carried out in a high specific-speed diagonal flow fan. The pressure field on the casing wall and the velocity fields at the rotor inlet and outlet were measured under rotating stall condition with a fast response pressure transducer and a single slant hot-wire probe, respectively. The data were processed using the “Double Phase-Locked Averaging (DPLA)”technique, which enabled to obtain the unsteady flow field with a rotating stall cell in the relative co-ordinate system fixed to the rotor. As a result, the structure and behavior of the rotating stall cell in a high specific-speed diagonal flow fan were shown.

Features of Rotating Stall Cell in a Diagonal Flow Fan (in Case of Mid-loading Rotor)

The structure and behavior of rotating stall cell were experimentally clarified in a diagonal flow fan. The specific-speed of the fan was 1140 （r/min, m^3/min, m）, and the total pressure-rise coefficient at design flow-rate was 0.345. The static pressure on outer casing wall and the total pressure at rotor inlet and outlet were measured using a high response pressure transducer. The measured data were processed by the use of DPLA technique, and the structure and behavior of rotating stall cell were obtained. As a result, the stall cell extent for circumferential and spanwise direction and the pressure distributions inside stall cell were clarified. The details of stall cell propagation were also shown.

Prediction of stall inception in multi-stage compressors based on an eigenvalue approach

A stability model for multi-stage compressor is developed on the basis of the eigenvalue approach.This model assumes that the unsteady flow field can be decomposed into pressure,vortex and entropy waves.Besides,a linear cascade of blades is modeled by three-dimensional semi-actuator disk theory and the characteristics of steady flow field are also considered in the present model.The connection between the analytical solution for stator,rotor and gap can be established by applying mode matching approach,the relevant stability equation can be expressed in the form of matrix,while the compressor system stability can be judged by the imaginary part of the matrix eigenvalue.The capacity of the stall inception model to predict the stall inception point of multi-stage compressor is assessed against the experimental data of National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) two stage fan.The theoretical results show that this model can predict the stall onset points of a two-stage fan at different operating speeds with a reasonable accuracy.

Multi-scale nature of non-blade-order propagating flow disturbances in axial compressors

Non-blade-order flow disturbances, also referred to as pre-stall disturbances or tip flow unsteadiness, are closely related with compressor instabilities. The present work provides a comprehensive investigation on multi-scale nature of non-blade-order disturbances and the underlying flow physics in axial compressors. By applying full-annulus Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes(URANS) simulations, along with space–time correlation and spatial Fourier decomposition, to the disturbed pressure, the propagating feature of the non-blade-order disturbances is obtained. Further, a bridge between non-blade-order disturbances and the evolution of unsteady vortex has been set up. The results show that non-blade-order disturbances, featured as short-length-scale(35 modes across annulus), first appear as the occurrence of tip leakage vortex fluctuation, while the compressor still operates far from stall. Leading-edge radial vortex appears at near stall condition, and its movement induces a circumferential propagating disturbance overlaying on the one induced by oscillating tip leakage vortex. The interaction of the short-scale disturbances with a lowamplitude long-scale(of circumference) disturbance is observed, which results in disturbances with multiple scales of consecutive spatial modes, along with multiple frequency peaks in spectra. The compressor falls into stall as the circumferential nonuniform scattering of the leading-edge vortexes occurs. The densely-and sparsely-scattered leading-edge radial vortexes induce a high-amplitude long-scale(of circumference) disturbance , i.e. stall disturbance.

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Non-synchronous Blade Vibration Excitation in a Transonic Axial Compressor

The complex flow phenomenon of rotating instability(RI) and its induced non-synchronous vibration(NSV) have become a significant challenge as they continuously increase aerodynamic load.This study aims to provide an understanding of the non-synchronous blade vibration phenomenon caused by the rotating instability of a transonic axial compressor rotor.In this case,blade vibrations and non-synchronous excitation are captured by strain gauges and unsteady wall pressure transducer sensors.Unsteady numerical simulations for a full-annulus configuration are used to obtain the non-synchronous flow excitation.The results show that the first-stage rotor blade exhibits an NSV close to the first bending mode;NSV is accompanied by a sharp increase in pressure pulsation;amplitude can reach 20%,and unsteady aerodynamic frequency will lock in a structural mode frequency when the blade vibrates in a large-amplitude motion.The predicted NSV frequency aligns well with the experimental results.The dominant mode of circumferential instability flow structure is approximately 47% of the number blades,and the cell size occupies 2-3 pitches in the circumferential direction.The full-annulus unsteady simulations demonstrate that the streamwise oscillation of the shedding and reattachment vortex structure is the main cause of NSV owing to the strong interaction between the tip leakage and separation vortices near the suction surface.

Experimental and computational investigation on flow characteristics of rotating cavities with high inlet pre-swirl axial throughflow

As an integral part of the internal air system of aero-engines,the axial throughflow of the cooling air can interact with the cavity flow between the rotating compressor disks,forming a threedimensional,unsteady,and unstable flow field.The flow characteristics in an engine-like rotating multi-stage cavity with throughflow were investigated using particle image velocimetry,flow visualization technology and three-dimensional unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)simulations.The focus of current research was to understand the distribution of the mean swirl ratio and its variation with a wide range of non-dimensional parameters in the co-rotating cavity with high inlet pre-swirl axial throughflow.The maximum axial Reynolds number and rotational Reynolds numbers could reach 4.41×10^(4)and 1.24×10^(6),respectively.The velocity measurement results indicate that the mean swirl ratio is greater than 1 and decreases with an increase in the radial position.The flow structure is dominated by the Rossby number,and two different flow patterns (flow penetration and flow stratification) are identified and confirmed by flow visualization images.In the absence of buoyancy,the flow penetration caused by the precession of the throughflow makes it easier for the throughflow to reach a high radius region.Satisfactory consistency of results between measurements and numerical calculations is obtained.This study provides a theoretical basis and data support for toroidal vortex breakdown,which is of practical significance for the design of high-pressure compressor cavities.