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Blade Lean and Tip Leakage Flows in Highly Loaded Compressor Cascades

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Abstract

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.

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Abbreviations

AR:

aspect ratio

C:

chord

C P :

static pressure coefficient=\((P-P_1)/\frac{1}{2}(P_1^*-P_1)\)

D :

diffusion factor=\(1-\frac{V_2}{V_1}+\frac{\Delta{V}_y}{2V_1\tau}\)

E :

extra

i :

incidence angle/(°)

L:

linear

LE:

leading edge

m :

mass flow rate/kg·s−1

M:

moderate

Ma :

Mach number

P :

static pressure/Pa

P*:

stagnation pressure/Pa

PS:

pressure surface

Re :

Reynolds number (chord based)

SS:

suction surface

ΔS :

entropy generation/J·mol−1·K−1

TE:

trailing edge

T*:

stagnation temperature/K

TC:

tip clearance

TLF:

tip leakage flow

TLV:

tip leakage vortex

V :

Velocity/m·s−1

x :

spanwise coordinate

y :

pitchwise coordinate

z :

axial coordinate

α :

intersection angle between bulk flow and injected flow/(°)

β :

flow angle/(°)

β k :

blade geometric angle/(°)

γ :

stagger angle/(°)

λ :

blade leaned angle/(°)

μ :

dynamic viscosity/Pa·s

ρ :

density/kg·m−3

τ :

solidity

ω :

loss coefficient=\((P_1^*-P^*)/\frac{1}{2}(P_1^*-P_1)\)

1:

cascade inlet

2:

cascade outlet (0.4 axial chord downstream the cascade)

c:

injected flow

m:

bulk flow

t:

tip clearance

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51806174), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2019-JQ137), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. G2018KY0303), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51790512).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Zhiyuan Cao, Cheng Song, Xiang Zhang, Xi Gao & Bo Liu

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  1. Zhiyuan Cao
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  2. Cheng Song
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  4. Xi Gao
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Correspondence to Zhiyuan Cao.

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Cao, Z., Song, C., Zhang, X. et al. Blade Lean and Tip Leakage Flows in Highly Loaded Compressor Cascades. J. Therm. Sci. 30, 1388–1405 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1486-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-021-1486-4

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