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Article history:
Received 18 January 2012
Received in revised form 7 June 2012
Accepted 7 July 2012
Available online 20 July 2012
Keywords:
Corner separation
Topological analyses
Oil-ow visualization
Stereoscopic PIV
Axial compressors
a b s t r a c t
Flow separations in compressor blade passages are common and can cause signicant ow blockage and
losses production in some instances. Because of the measurement difculties, most of the previous studies concerning the compressor 3D separations were conducted in cascades facilities. In this paper, 3D
separation ows were studied in the stator of a low-speed compressor test facility. In order to nd their
evolutionary processes, oil ow visualizations were conducted at four compressor operating conditions
from the design to near-stall conditions. The results showed that the corner separations appeared at even
the design condition; however, they were so weak causing very slight ow blockage until the maximum
static pressure rise condition arrived. By using topological analyses methods, exact 3D ow structures
inside the stator passage were reconstructed and their ow mechanisms were analyzed. It was found
that, as the mass ow rate decreased, the ow topologies of 3D separations became much more complex
and the evolutionary processes of the 3D ows were signicantly affected by both the owow interactions inside the stator passage and the rotorstator interactions between blade rows. However, the
complicated 3D ow structures in the tested stator passage always consist with four basic types of ows:
the corner vortex ow, the ow of the corner separation with/without the ring-like vortex, and the blade
surface separation ow. Finally, the results obtained based on the topological analyses of the oil-ow
visualization pictures were validated by using the measured results of stereoscopic particle image
velocimetry.
2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Three-dimensional separations in blade passages, especially for
the end-wall corner regions, are common in compressors, which
may cause signicant aerodynamic blockage and losses production,
and can even affect the compressor stability [13]. Hence, in the
past few decades, it was always a key ow phenomenon concerned
by compressor aerodynamicists. Great amount of researches were
conducted for clarifying the ow mechanisms and aerodynamic
features in turbomachinery by experimental, theoretical, and
numerical methods [410].
It is well known that there are two basic factors which affect the
formation of three-dimensional separations in compressor blade
passages: (i) the adverse pressure gradient in the streamwise direction and (ii) the secondary ow effects (skew of the endwall boundary layer, circumferential and radial ow migration in the near wall
regions) in blade passages [11,12]. Considering that the threedimensional separations in compressor test facilities or real engines
302
Nomenclature
Abbreviations
SS
blade suction surface
PS
blade pressure surface
LE
blade leading edge
TE
blade trailing edge
DE
compressor design condition
MID
compressor middle condition
MSPR
compressor maximum static pressure rise condition
NS
compressor near-stall condition
SL
separation line
AL
attachment line
F
focus point
N
node point
S
saddle point
SPIV
stereoscopic particle image velocimetry
ing streamlines on the endwall and blade surfaces at four compressor operating conditions along the compressor operating line. And
then, based on the topological analyses, detailed 3D separation
and vortex ow structures were reconstructed and their evolutionary processes and ow mechanisms were analyzed. Finally, the
reconstructed 3D ows based on the oil-ow visualization results
were validated by the results obtained by using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV).
2. Experimental setup
2.1. Compressor facility
The test facility is a single-stage axial compressor with inlet
guide vanes (IGVs). A large contraction ratio bellmouth with a
1.8 m outer diameter lemniscate prole equipped with ow
straightener is used to provide uniform and steady inlet ow. The
rotor and stator blades with C4-series airfoil are designed in terms
of the free vortex law. The stator blades are cantilevered with a
clearance of about 1.5 mm. More detailed design parameters are
summarized in Table 1, which were also introduced by Yu and Liu
[15]. In this study, measurements were conducted at the design
condition (DE, u = 0.58), the middle condition (MID, u = 0.51), the
maximum static pressure rise condition (MSPR, u = 0.43) and the
near-stall condition (NS, u = 0.38), as shown in Fig. 1.
Notation
L
rotor blade chord length at mid-span
Vtip
rotor tip speed
q
air density
l
air dynamic viscosity coefcient
Rec
Reynolds number=qVtipL/l
xz
out-of-plane vorticity
X
rotor rotational speed
w
out-of-plane velocity
Pin
compressor inlet static pressure
compressor outlet static pressure
Pout
Vaix
axial ow velocity
W
static pressure rise coefcient, Pout Pin =1=2qV 2tip
u
mass ow coefcient, Vaix/Vtip
X, Y
in-plane coordinates of SPIV measurement planes
Z
out-of-plane coordinates of SPIV measurement planes
Table 1
Representative design parameters of the compressor test facility.
Outer diameter (m)
Hub-to-tip ratio
Design speed (rpm)
Design mass ow rate (kg/s)
Design ow coefcient, u
Design static pressure rise coefcient, W
Rec
IGV-rotor space (mm)
Compressor conguration
Number of blades
Blade camber angle ()
Blade stagger angle ()
Blade height (mm)
Blade chord near hub (mm)
Blade chord at mid-span (mm)
Blade chord near casing (mm)
Solidity at mid-span
Rotor tip clearance (mm)
Stator near hub clearance (mm)
Rotorstator space (mm)
1.0
0.6
1200
22.4
0.58
0.48
6.6 105
41.9
IGV + rotor + stator
36 + 17 + 20
17.4 + 26.5 + 49.1
10.4 + 33.4 + 12.3
200 + 199 + 198
100 + 160 + 180
100 + 175 + 180
100 + 200 + 180
1.43 + 1.18 + 1.43
1.0
1.5
48.7
congured in the different sides conguration in Scheimpg condition. The elds of view inside the stator passages were about
200 100 mm, which covered nearly half of the whole blade passage. However, because of the combined effects of geometric
restriction of the blade passage and strong are light at the hub
surface, the effective eld of view covers only 5070% blade span
height. The layout of the measurement cross sections is shown in
Fig. 2. All of the 12 cross sections are nearly perpendicular to the
lateral surfaces at the blade tip. Detailed experimental setup and
data processing methods have been introduced by Yu and Liu [15].
303
casing wall results (not shown here for brevity), the ow visualization results can be interpreted with detailed critical points.
According to the topological theory of three-dimensional steady
ow patterns introduced by Perry et al. [17,18] and Surana et al.
[19,20], along a separation or attachment line, complex critical
points may appear, but the saddle type point and node type point
should appear alternatively. The separation line, usually appearing
as a converged limiting streamline, has four possible types in physical uid ows, i.e. (1) saddlestable spiral connections; (2) saddle
stable node connections; (3) saddlestable limit cycle connections
and (4) stable limit cycles. The attachment line, usually appearing
as a diverged limiting streamline, has also four possible types in
physical uid ows, i.e. (1) unstable spiralsaddle connections;
(2) unstable nodesaddle connections; (3) unstable limit cycle
saddle connections and (4) unstable limit cycles.
For the oil ow results, some critical points may not be distinguished clearly for the limited spatial resolution. Hence, the exact
topological interpretations of them should be deduced from the oil
patterns with the help of the above mentioned topological theory.
Figs. 47 show the results of the topological interpretations of the
oil-ow visualization photos obtained at different compressor
operating conditions. In these gures, the variation of the position,
scale and shape of the 3D separations can be seen easily. Hence, the
evolutionary processes of the 3D separations in the stator passage
can be established along the compressor operating line.
3.2. Evolution of three-dimensional separations along compressor
operating line
According to the topological interpretations of the oil-ow visualization results shown in Figs. 47, the evolutionary processes of
the 3D separations, particularly for the variation of the scale of
the separation patches in the streamwise, spanwise and circumferential directions, in the tested stator passage can be established
along the compressor operating line.
At the DE condition, see in Figs. 3a and 4, corner separation
ows appear at both the hub and casing endwall regions near
the blade trailing edge. In Fig. 4, the separation lines SL1 and SL2
bound the suction side near casing 3D corner separation and the
304
separation lines SL3 and SL4 bound the suction side near casing 3D
corner separation. It should be noted that because of the hub clearance of the cantilevered stator blade, the hub leakage ow interacts with the 3D hub corner separation ow, resulting complex
topological ow patterns with the appearing of attachment line
AL1 and a saddle point S4. Similar limiting streamline ow patterns can also be seen in the computational results obtained by
Gbadebo et al. [21]. Moreover, it can be seen clearly in Fig. 4 that
the suction side near casing 3D corner separation is just a very thin
layer adhere to the blade suction surface since SL2 is very close to
the blade suction surface. As for the near hub corner separation,
because of the interaction of the hub tip leakage ows, SL4 is far
away from the blade suction surface. Hence, the scale of the near
hub corner separation in the circumferential direction cannot be
Fig. 7. Topological interpretations of the oil-ow visualization results at the nearstall condition.
305
Fig. 8. Combined maps of ensemble-averaged measured results inside the stator passage at the design condition.
Fig. 9. Combined maps of ensemble-averaged measured results inside the stator passage at the near-stall condition.
separation line SL10 locates just before the leading edge of the
blade near hub end, which indicates the spillage of the tip leakage
ow and ow stall occurring herein, the same as that observed by
Saathoff and Stark [22] from the oil ow pictures at the endwall of
a cascade. Thus to say, the rst separation patch contains hub stall
ows, the ow blockage and losses caused by it should be very
serious. The second separation patch bounded by SL1 and SL7
starts from the near casing blade leading edge, indicating that it
should be caused by locally large incidence angle. Considering that
at small mass-ow-rate conditions the upstream rotor tip leakage
ow and corner vortex are very strong and can cause a mass of low
momentum ow stacking at the rotor tip region [15], the
306
Fig. 10. The evolution of the three-dimensional separation ows inside the stator passage along the compressor operating line.
signicant increase of the local incidence angle just near the casing
endwall is reasonable.
At the NS condition, see in Figs. 3d and 7 and compare Figs. 6
and 7, the topology of separation ow is nearly the same as that
at the MSPR condition, however, the scale of the separation regions
changes a little. At the NS condition, the two separation patches
appearing at the MSPR condition nearly link together resulting in
the degradation of the two spiral nodes patterns, F1 and F4 shown
in Fig. 6, to a single spiral node pattern, F1 shown in Fig. 7. The SPIV
result shown in Fig. 9 conrms this conjecture from the oil-ow
topology analysis. The near casing corner separation originates at
about 7% chord position and ends at about 50% chord position in
the streamwise direction. In the spanwise direction, it covers about
the near casing 20% span region. For the near hub large scale corner
stall, it covers about the after 50% chord in the streamwise direction and the near hub 80% span region in the spanwise direction.
Based on the above analyses, the evolutionary process of the 3D
separation ows in the tested stator passage can be drawn in the
gure shown in Fig. 10. Generally speaking, as the mass ow rate
decreases along the compressor operating line, the scales of the
3D separations are enlarged in both the axial and circumferential
directions. Although 3D separations are very common in compressors, they may cause no signicant detrimental effects, such as
signicant ow blockage and losses, unless ow stall occurs as that
concluded by Lei et al. [13] and Yu and Liu [14]. At the DE and MID
conditions, the separation ows are mild and has no signicant
inuence on the performance of the compressor. However, the
hub corner separation augments suddenly and the hub corner stall
occurs since the MSPR condition, which cause signicant detrimental effects of the ow inside the stator passage. As mentioned
above, also see in Fig. 10, the topology of the ow separation is
nearly the same at the MSPR condition and the NS condition; however, comparing the Fig. 3c and d, one can see that the separation
line of the near hub corner separation, i.e. the front edge of the reverse ow region located at the after part of the blade suction
307
Fig. 11. Flow topology of the corner vortex (ow type A).
Fig. 12. Flow topology of the corner separation with ring-like vortex (ow type B).
Fig. 13. Flow topology of the corner separation without ring-like vortex (ow
type C).
308
Fig. 14. Flow topology of the blade surface ow separation (ow type D).
saddle point and ends at a spiral node. As can be seen in Figs. 5 and
6, the ow separation on the blade suction surface occurs behind
two separation lines, SL5 and SL6, starting from the same saddle
point, S5, and terminating at two spiral nodes, F1 and F3 respectively. This type of ow separation is usually called as closed separation and has very stable ow topology and 3D ow structure as
shown in Fig. 14 [27]. The separation stream surface departs from
the blade surface at the separation line and curls up into a streamwise vortex incepting at the spiral node at the end of the separation line. Thus to say, in Figs. 5 and 6, a pair of counter-rotating
streamwise vortices should be observed downstream of the stator
near the mid-span region. For the NS condition, see Fig. 7, because
of the interaction of the blade surface ow and the near casing
leading edge 3D separation, the two spiral nodes topology F1 and
F4 degrades into the single spiral node topology F1, indicating
the link of the two separation patches as mentioned in Section
3.2. Hence, only a single streamwise vortex, originating from F3,
can be observed downstream of the stator near the mid-span
region.
leakage ow, both the pressure side and the suction side hub corner exist a corner vortex, i.e. ow type A. It seems that the formation mechanisms of these two corner vortex are not the same as
that of the so called horseshoe vortex observed often in turbines.
Because of the relative thin leading edge of the compressor blade,
the horseshoe vortex formed at the leading edge of the compressor
blade is so weak that dissipated soon after it propagates into the
blade passage. However, due to the appearance of the hub leakage
ow the suction side branch of the horseshoe vortex may merge
with the hub leakage vortex and thus a large scale suction side corner vortex can even be seen at the outlet of the blade passage.
Moreover, also owing to the hub leakage ow, the circumferential
migration of the endwall secondary ow (ow from the passage
pressure side to the suction side) may be blocked at about the middle of the blade passage. As a result the endwall secondary ow
will uplift there and intensies the pressure side branch of the
horseshoe vortex. This may be the reason for the formation of
the pressure side near hub corner vortex. As also can be seen in
Fig. 15, 3D corner separation appears at both the near casing and
near hub suction side corners, however, the topologies of these
two separation structures are not the same. The corner separation
near the casing has a topology of ow type B, while it appears as
ow type C at the near hub corner.
The reconstructed 3D ow structures at the MID condition are
shown in Fig. 16. It can be seen that besides the ow structures observed at the DE condition a closed 3D separation (ow type D) appears on the blade suction surface near the blade trailing edge,
resulting in the degradation of the two corner separations at the
blade trailing edge. It seems that the near hub corner separation
disappears (it may be still exists but very weak, since the topology
of the skin-friction lines here are not very clear in the oil-ow visualization results) and the near casing corner separation diminishes
and changes from the ow type B to the ow type C.
At the MSPR condition, the 3D ow separations intensify continually, as can be seen in Fig. 17. The closed separation on the
blade suction surface enlarges in both the spanwise and the
streamwise directions. Because of its spanwise enlargement, the
squeeze effect causes the thorough disappearing of the trailing
edge casing corner separation. As a result, the blade suction surface
separation extends from the near hub position to about 75% span
position, forming a very large scale of suction side near hub corner
separation at the aft 2/3 blade passage (see in Fig. 10). It should be
noted that, as the trailing edge casing corner separation disappears,
309
Fig. 19. Ensemble-averaged SPIV results for the cross planes near the suction surface measured at the near-stall condition (cross-plane streamlines with the contour of the
streamwise velocity).
310
Fig. 20. Ensemble-averaged SPIV results for the cross planes near the pressure surface measured at the near-stall condition (cross-plane streamlines with the contour of the
streamwise velocity).
a newly formed corner separation appears at the suction side casing corner near the blade leading edge and has the topology of ow
type B. As mentioned above, this ow separation may be caused by
the accumulating of signicant low momentum ows in the upstream rotor near the casing and the corresponding increasing of
the local incidence angle of the stator blade. Obviously, as the air
ows downstream of the leading edge casing corner separation,
the ring-like vortex will be tipped and stretched. Since the ow
velocity is lower near the casing wall than that away from casing
wall, the ring-like vortex will nally change into a clockwise
streamwise vortex (see from the outlet to the inlet) and form the
suction side near casing corner vortex, which can be seen at the
aft of the blade passage as shown in Fig. 17. Meanwhile, because
of theory of the conservation of the circulation, a counter-rotating
corner vortex should appear at the pressure side casing corner.
Fig. 18 shows the 3D ow structures in the stator passage at the
NS condition. As mentioned before, it seems that the ow
topologies of the 3D ow structures at the NS condition are nearly
the same as that at the MSPR condition. However, because of the
interaction of the blade surface ow and the near casing leading
edge 3D separation and the degradation of the critical points
around spiral node F1, only a single streamwise suction surface
separation vortex close to the hub of the blade passage can
be seen.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of National
Science Foundation of China, Grant Nos. 50976009 and 51006007.
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