Masato Furukawa

The Role of Tip Leakage Vortex Breakdown in Compressor Rotor Aerodynamics

The breakdown of tip leakage vortex has been investigated on a low-speed axial compressor rotor with moderate blade loading. Effects of the breakdown on the rotor aerodynamics are elucidated by Navier-Stokes flow simulations and visualization techniques for identifying the breakdown. The simulations show that the leakage vortex breakdown occurs inside the rotor at a lower flow rate than the peak pressure rise operating condition. The breakdown is characterized by the existence of the stagnation point followed by a bubblelike recirculation region. The onset of breakdown causes significant changes in the nature of the tip leakage vortex: large expansion of the vortex and disappearance of the streamwise vorticity concentrated in the vortex. The expansion has an extremely large blockage effect extending upstream of the leading edge. The disappearance of the concentrated vorticity results in no rolling-up of the vortex downstream of the rotor and the disappearance of the pressure trough on the casing. The leakage flow field downstream of the rotor is dominated by the outward radial flow, resulting from the contraction of the bubblelike structure of the breakdown region. It is found that the leakage vortex breakdown plays a major role in characteristic of rotor performance at near-stall conditions. As the flow rate is decreased from the peak pressure rise operating condition, the breakdown region grows rapidly in the streamwise, spanwise, and pitchwise directions. The growth of the breakdown causes the blockage and the loss to increase drastically. Then, the interaction of the breakdown region with the blade suction surface gives rise to the three-dimensional separation of the suction surface boundary layer, thus leading to a sudden drop in the total pressure rise across the rotor.

Analysis of Vortical Flow Field in a Propeller Fan by LDV Measurements and LES—Part I: Three-Dimensional Vortical Flow Structures

Three-dimensional structures of the vortical flow field in a propeller fan with a shroud covering only the rear region of its rotor tip have been investigated by experimental analysis using laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) measurements and by numerical analysis using a large eddy simulation (LES) in Part I of the present study. The propeller fan has a very complicated vortical flow field near the rotor tip compared with axial fan and compressor rotors. It is found that three vortex structures are formed near the rotor tip: the tip vortex, the leading edge separation vortex, and the tip leakage vortex. The tip vortex is so strong that it dominates the flow field near the tip. Its formation starts from the blade tip suction side near the midchord. Even at the design condition the tip vortex convects nearly in the tangential direction, thus impinging on the pressure surface of the adjacent blade. The leading edge separation vortex develops close along the tip suction surface and disappears in the rear region of the rotor passage. The tip leakage vortex is so weak that it does not affect the flow field in the rotor.

Analysis of vortical flow field in a propeller fan by LDV measurements and LES-Part II: Unsteady nature of vortical flow structures due to tip vortex breakdown

The unsteady nature of vortex structures has been investigated by a large eddy simulation (LES) in a propeller fan with a shroud covering only the rear region of its rotor tip. The tip vortex plays a major role in the structure and unsteady behavior of the vortical flow in the propeller fan. The spiral-type breakdown of the tip vortex occurs near the midpitch, leading to significant changes in the nature of the tip vortex. The breakdown gives rise to large and cyclic movements of the tip vortex, so that the vortex impinges cyclically on the pressure surface of the adjacent blade. The movements of the tip vortex cause the leading edge separation vortex to oscillate in a cycle, but on a small scale. The movements of the vortex structures induce high-pressure fluctuations on the rotor blade and in the blade passage

Unsteady flow behavior due to breakdown of tip leakage vortex in an axial compressor rotor at near-stall condition

The unsteady flow nature caused by the breakdown of the tip leakage vortex in an axial compressor rotor at near-stall conditions has been investigated by unsteady three-dimensional Navier-Stokes flow simulations. The simulations show that the spiral-type breakdown of the tip leakage vortex occurs inside the rotor passage at the near-stall conditions. Downstream of the breakdown onset, the tip leakage vortex twists and turns violently with time, thus interacting with the pressure surface of the adjacent blade. The motion of the vortex and its interaction with the pressure surface are cyclic. The vortex breakdown causes significant changes in the nature of the tip leakage vortex, which result in the anomalous phenomena in the time-averaged flow fields near the tip at the near-stall conditions: no rolling-up of the leakage vortex downstream of the rotor, disappearance of the casing wall pressure trough corresponding to the leakage vortex, large spread of the low-energy fluid accumulating on the pressure side, and large pressure fluctuation on the pressure side. As the flow rate is decreased, the movement of the tip leakage vortex due to its breakdown becomes so large that the leakage vortex interacts with the suction surface as well as the pressure one. The interaction with the suction surface gives rise to the three-dimensional separation of the suction surface boundary layer.© 2000 ASME

Unsteady Three-Dimensional Flow Phenomena Due to Breakdown of Tip Leakage Vortex in a Transonic Axial Compressor Rotor

Unsteady three-dimensional flow fields in a transonic axial compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37) have been investigated by unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations. The simulations show that the breakdown of the tip leakage vortex occurs in the compressor rotor because of the interaction of the vortex with the shock wave. At near-peak efficiency condition small bubble-type breakdown of the tip leakage vortex happens periodically and causes the loading of the adjacent blade to fluctuate periodically near the leading edge. Since the blade loading near the leading edge is closely linked to the swirl intensity of the tip leakage vortex, the periodic fluctuation of the blade loading leads to the periodic breakdown of the tip leakage vortex, resulting in self-sustained flow oscillation in the tip leakage flow field. However, the tip leakage vortex breakdown is so weak and small that it is not observed in the time-averaged flow field at near-peak efficiency condition. On the other hand, spiral-type breakdown of the tip leakage vortex is caused by the interaction between the vortex and the shock wave at near-stall operating condition. The vortex breakdown is found continuously since the swirl intensity of tip leakage vortex keeps strong at near-stall condition. The spiral-type vortex breakdown has the nature of self-sustained flow oscillation and gives rise to the large fluctuation of the tip leakage flow field, in terms of shock wave location, blockage near the rotor tip and three-dimensional separation structure on the suction surface. It is found that the breakdown of the tip leakage vortex leads to the unsteady flow phenomena near the rotor tip, accompanying large blockage effect in the transonic compressor rotor at the near-stall condition.Copyright

A zonal approach for Navier-stokes computations of compressible cascade flow fields using a tvd finite volume method

A new zonal approach for computation of compressible viscous flows in cascades has been developed. The two-dimensional, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are discretized spatially by a cell-centered finite volume formulation. In order to make the present approach robust, the inviscid fluxes at cell interfaces are evaluated using a highly accurate TVD scheme based on the MUSCL-type approach with the Roe’s approximate Riemann solver. The viscous fluxes are determined in a central differencing manner. To simplify the grid generation, a composite zonal grid system is adopted, in which the computational domain is divided into non-overlapping zones, and structured grids are generated independently in each zone. The zonal boundary between two zones is uniquely defined by cell interfaces of one zone, which ensures the uniqueness of the zonal boundary. The communication from one zone to the other is accomplished by numerical fluxes across the zonal boundary. It should be noted that the complete conservation of the numerical fluxes across the zonal boundary can be satisfied by directly evaluating the numerical fluxes using the finite volume method and by ensuring the uniqueness of the zonal boundary. In order to demonstrate the versatility of the present zonal approach, numerical examples are presented for viscous flows through a transonic turbine cascade.Copyright

Effect of tip clearance on stall evolution process in a low-speed axial compressor stage

Effect of the tip clearance on the transient process of rotating stall evolution has been studied experimentally in a low-speed axial compressor stage with various stator-rotor gaps. In the previous authors’ experiments for the small tip clearance, the stall evolution process of the rotor was sensitive to the gaps between the blade rows. For the large tip clearance, however, little difference is observed in the evolution processes independently of the blade row gap. In the first half process, it is characterized by gradual reduction of overall pressure-rise with flow rate decreasing, and the number of short length-scale disturbances is increasing with their amplitude increasing. In the latter half a long length-scale disturbance develops rapidly to result in deep stall. Just before the stall inception the spectral power density of the casing wall pressure reveals the existence of rotating disturbances with broadband high frequency near a quarter of the blade passing frequency. This is caused by the short length-scale disturbances occurring intermittently. A flow model is presented to explain mechanisms of the rotating short length-scale disturbance, which includes a tornado-like separation vortex and tip-leakage vortex breakdown. The model is supported by a result of a numerical unsteady flow simulation.Copyright

The Behavior of Tip Clearance Flow at Near-Stall Condition in a Transonic Axial Compressor Rotor

It is known that the tip clearance flow is dominant and very important flow phenomena in axial compressor aerodynamics because the tip clearance flow has a great influence on the stability as well as aerodynamic loss of compressors. Our goal is to clarify the behavior of tip clearance flow at near-stall condition in a transonic axial compressor rotor (NASA Rotor 37). In the present work, steady and unsteady RANS simulations were performed to investigate vortical flow structures and separated flow field near the tip for several different clearance cases. Boundary layer separation on the casing wall and blade suction surface was investigated in detail for near-stall and stall condition. In order to understand such complicated flow field, vortex cores were identified using the critical point theory and a topology of the three-dimensional separated and vortical flows was analyzed. In the nominal clearance case, the breakdown of tip leakage vortex has occurred at a near-stall operating condition because of the interaction of the vortex with the shock wave, leading to a large blockage and unsteadiness in the rotor tip. On the other hand, the calculation with no clearance suggested that the separation on the suction surface was different from that with the nominal clearance. Since the shock wave induced the boundary layer separation on the blade suction surface in the transonic axial compressor rotor, focal-type critical points appeared on the suction surface near the tip at near-stall condition.Copyright

A Zonal Approach for Navier–Stokes Computations of Compressible Cascade Flow Fields Using a TVD Finite Volume Method

A new zonal approach for computation of compressible viscous flows in cascades has been developed. The two-dimensional, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are discretized spatially by a cell-centered finite volume formulation. In order to make the present approach robust, the inviscid fluxes at cell interfaces are evaluated using a highly accurate TVD scheme based on the MUSCL-type approach with the Roe’s approximate Riemann solver. The viscous fluxes are determined in a central differencing manner. To simplify the grid generation, a composite zonal grid system is adopted, in which the computational domain is divided into nonoverlapping zones, and structured grids are generated independently in each zone. The zonal boundary between two zones is uniquely defined by cell interfaces of one zone, which ensures the uniqueness of the zonal boundary. Communication from one zone to the other is accomplished by numerical fluxes across the zonal boundary. It should be noted that the complete conservation of the numerical fluxes across the zonal boundary can be satisfied by directly evaluating the numerical fluxes using the finite volume method and by ensuring the uniqueness of the zonal boundary. In order to demonstrate the versatility of the present zonal approach, numerical examples are presented for viscous flows through a transonic turbine cascade.

Unsteady Navier-Stokes Simulation of transonic cascade flow using an unfactored implicit upwind relaxation scheme with inner iterations

An implicit upwind scheme has been developed for Navier-Stokes simulations of unsteady flows in transonic cascades. The two-dimensional, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are discretized in space using a cell-centered finite volume formulation and in time using the Euler implicit method. The inviscid fluxes are evaluated using a highly accurate upwind scheme based on a TVD formulation with the Roe’s approximate Riemann solver, and the viscous fluxes are determined in a central differencing manner. The algebraic turbulence model of Baldwin and Lomax is employed. To simplify grid generations, a zonal approach with a composite zonal grid system is implemented, in which periodic boundaries are treated as zonal boundaries. A new time-linearization of the inviscid fluxes evaluated by the Roe’s approximate Riemann solver is presented in detail. No approximate factorization is introduced, and unfactored equations are solved by a pointwise relaxation method. To obtain time-accurate solutions, 30 inner iterations are performed at each time step. Numerical examples are presented for unsteady flows in a transonic turbine cascade where periodic unsteadiness is caused by the trailing edge vortex shedding.Copyright