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In this paper, the influence of a shallow reversed slot-type casing treatment on the performance of a tip-critical transonic compressor has been numerically investigated. Firstly, the complex flow fields in the rotor tip region are studied in details. It shows the severe blockage induced by suction surface boundary separation triggers compressor stall at 100% design speed, while the blockage due to tip leakage vortex dominates at 80% design speed. Secondly, the mechanism of stability extension is presented at different rotating speeds. The casing treatment alleviates greatly the tip blockage by manipulating the tip leakage flow, accompanied by the redistribution of aerodynamic loading and mass flux. As a result, the casing treatment is more efficient for the blockage induced by tip leakage vortex (at 80% design speed). Further analysis of the pressure field and passage shock distribution demonstrates that the passage shock intensity and its location will affect the effectiveness of casing treatment. Finally, the instability characteristics of compressor with casing treatment are revealed. The numerical results reflect when the mass flow approaching the instability boundary, the stator passage blockage presumably is dominant for triggering the compressor stall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casing treatment is an efficient technique that is used to increase the compressor stall margin with a minor reduction in efficiency. The interaction between the blade passage and the groove is the main cause of the stall margin improvement by various researches. A numerical study is conducted on a single circumferential casing groove using NASA rotor 37 in the current study. The performance of the two circumferential groove models is studied by discretizing RANS 3D equations using a finite volume technique. The inception of the stall is predicted according to the criteria of convergence. Two models of the circumferential groove have been suggested and numerically tested. A single passage simulation is selected for the two models. The performance of the smooth casing and the two models are analyzed. Moreover, the stall margin, total pressure ratio, and peak adiabatic efficiency of the normal casing, and the two models are analyzed to determine the influence of the groove on the axial compressor performance and stability. Models 1 and 2 stall margins are enhanced by 6.62 % and 4.45% respectively. The adiabatic efficiency of model 1 and model 2 are decreased by 0.79 % and 1.08 % respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical investigations are carried out in a single-stage subsonic axial flow compressor to unravel the influence of blade tip surface roughness on the tip leakage flow characteristics and hence the compressor performance. The studies were carried out at different tip clearance of 0.38τ, 0.77τ, 1.15τ, and 1.54τ and blade tip surface roughness of 0.31ε and 0.62ε. The tip clearance of 0.38τ with blade tip surface roughness of 0.62ε resulted in the highest stall margin and pressure rise of 20.3% and 4.3%, respectively. The compressor blade loading was found to be improved by 5.9% after incorporating the blade tip surface roughness. The isosurfaces of vorticity contour plotted using the Q-criterion showed the reduction in strength of the tip leakage vortex. The tip leakage trajectory was found to be shifted toward the suction surface of the blade for the blade tip with surface roughness. This positive alteration in the tip leakage flow structure led to the improved performance for the blade tip with surface roughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability range of the gas turbine engine compressors is being challenged in the modern days due to the intention of increasing per stage maximum loading. Casing treatment has been widely adopted as a realistic passive flow control means to improve the stall margin with a slight decrease of efficiency at the same time by various grooves of which shape (location, angles and so on) has a significant influence on controlling effect. However, the influence of some details in grooves is ignored in most of the case that may impact the specific flow field in the groove. A research on the impact of chamfer and fillet corners on the performance of casing treatment was proceeded by numerical simulation in this paper. The performance of different models of grooves on NASA Rotor 37 was investigated by discretizing 3D RANS based on finite volume method. Firstly, steady simulations were performed on NASA rotor 37 for validation. The CFD results and experimental data for adiabatic efficiency and pressure ratio were in good agreement. According to convergence criteria, the initiation of the stall was predicted. Few numbers of circumferential grooves casing treatment (CGCT) models have been proposed and tested numerically. Rectangular CGCT shape and smooth wall casing performances were analyzed. Moreover, the highest adiabatic efficiencies and stall margins of smooth wall casing, rectangular grooves and rectangular grooves with chamfer and fillet corners shapes models were compared to evaluate the influence of the shape of grooves on the stability and performance on axial flow compressor. The rectangular circumferential casing grooves and rectangular grooves with chamfer and fillet corners enhanced significantly stall margin and an operational range of the transonic axial flow compressor but adiabatic efficiency was slightly decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the numerical analysis of blade tip geometry effect on the performance of a single-stage axial compressor has been the focus of attention. The studied geometries included a rotor with variable tip clearance. For the first model, the tip clearance increases as it moves toward the blade trailing edge. The tip clearance of the second model reduces as it approaches the trailing edge, whereas in the third model, the tip clearance remains constant. The results indicated that the tip clearance of the first sample, as the worst tip clearance case, creates a 10% reduction in the stall margin with respect to the third standard model, and the second sample tip clearance brings about a stall margin reduction of 4% efficiency with respect to the third standard model. Then, the effect of blade tip clearance geometry on outlet flow angle of the rotor was inspected. The results showed that in the first model, the outlet flow angle has the largest deviation than the third standard model and the second model performance places somewhere between the two other tip clearance geometries. Also evident from the result is that taking advantage of the variable blade tip clearance is not an appropriate method for improving compressor performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, the influence of blade tip clearance in different stages of a three-stage compressor is investigated. Performance diagrams of compressor were verified against experiment when there is no change in the tip clearance, after which the effect of tip clearance for the cases, 1, 1.5 and 2 mm, in the first, second and third stages of rotor was studied. The results indicated that the impact of tip clearance increase did not have any effect on choked flow rate value in the first and second stages, and only the change in the third stage tip clearance reduced the choked flow rate. For the same tip clearance value, the highest compressor performance loss occurs in the case of applying the tip clearance in the third stage, which is also the final stage and is highly sensitive to tip clearance changes. Moreover, modifying the tip clearance is effective on the flow angle in the trailing edge and as the tip clearance increases, the same thing happens about the flow angle. The maximum value of flow angle changes by modifying the tip clearance belongs to the third stage of the compressor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research investigates the effect of the location and the width of single shallow circumferential groove casing treatment on the flow field and the stability improvement of NASA Rotor 37 utilizing the help of computational fluid dynamics. At first, steady state simulation of Rotor37 was presented for smooth casing (without groove). Then, forty five various grooved casing were simulated and compared with the smooth casing. The results indicated that narrow grooves had slight effect on the adiabatic efficiency but as the width of the groove was increased, a decline in efficiency was observed. The investigation on the stall margin revealed that narrow grooves next to the leading edge could improve the stall margin by a reduction in the size of vortex breakdown zone. Medium-width grooves displayed an effective role in delaying the separation- produced by shock wave and boundary layer interaction- on the blade suction side near the casing. This type of grooves could improve the stall margin more than narrow grooves when located on the top of separation zone near the blade suction side. Wide grooves had negative effect on the stall margin and caused a significant drop in the efficiency and the total pressure ratio of the compressor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of the test results of discrete axial and blade angle slot casing treatment, a new type of casing treatment was designed for a subsonic axial flow compressor rotor by optimizing various geometry parameters. To obtain a wide operating range and to minimize penalties in terms of isentropic efficiency, seven compressor configurations incorporating casing treatments of 0, 16.6, 33.3, 50, 66.6, 83.3, and 100 per cent rotor exposures were experimentally investigated. The results showed that significant improvements in stall margin are possible in all exposures and insignificant isentropic efficiency sacrifices are recorded in some exposures. Nearly 21.43 per cent stall margin improvement in terms of the corrected mass flow-rate was achieved with 33.3 per cent rotor blade tip axial chord exposure. The compressor built with 16.6 per cent rotor exposure was the best configuration in terms of maximum isentropic efficiency gain.The second issue of the paper was to offer a contribution to the understanding of the physical mechanism by which bend-skewed slot-casing treatment improves stall margin under subsonic conditions. By applying a concept similar to ‘Domain scaling’ approach (as often used in multistage turbomachinery flow-fields) to the interface between the rotor blade passage and end-wall treatments, a time-dependent three-dimensional numerical simulation was performed for the subsonic axial-flow compressor rotor with bend-skewed slot-casing treatment. The numerical results agreed well with the available experimental results. Detailed analyses of the coupled flow through bend-skewed slot-casing treatment and rotor blade passage under subsonic conditions led to some preliminary conclusions as to the flow physics involved in the stall margin improvements afforded by the use of bend-skewed slot-casing treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]