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THE first gas turbine propelled aircraft in this country were the result of Whittle's classic conception using a single‐stage centrifugal compressor. On the other hand the German turbo‐jets had, without exception, multi‐stage axial compressors. The two types are shown diagrammatically in FIG. 1 and the outstanding differences are apparent at a glance. The centrifugal is short and of large diameter and the air flow through the compressor is turned from the axial direction to the radial and then back to the axial. On the other hand, the axial compressor derives its name from the substantially unidirectional flow of the air. It is of relatively small diameter, but much longer because of its many stages, each stage consisting of a large number of moving blades and an equal number of fixed blades. Altogether there may be between one thousand and two thousand individual blades in the compressor. It is from these contrasting features that much argument has arisen.

An axial flow turbojet engine in which the mean direction of flow of working fluid past any moving blade is substantially free from radial components comprising a casing; an air intake in said casing; a low‐pressure axial‐flow compressor mounted in said casing, connected directly to said air intake to receive air through it and having a plurality of rows of moving blades whereof the first row has a hub tip ratio between 0·4 and 0·5; a high‐pressure axial flow compressor mounted in said casing, connected directly to said low‐pressure compressor to receive substantially the whole of the air compressed by said low‐pressure compressor and having a plurality of rows of moving blades; combustion equipment mounted in said casing and connected directly to said high‐pressure compressor to receive substantially the whole of the air compressed by said high‐pressure compressor; a single‐stage axial‐flow high‐pressure turbine mounted in said casing, connected directly to said combustion equipment to receive the products of combustion, and drivingly connected to said high‐pressure compressor, the power developed by said high‐pressure turbine being substantially wholly absorbed by said high‐pressure compressor; and a single‐stage axial‐flow low‐pressure turbine mounted in said casing, connected directly to said high‐pressure turbine to receive the exhaust from it and drivingly connected to said low‐pressure compressor, the power developed by said low‐pressure turbine being substantially wholly absorbed by said low‐pressure compressor; in which engine the ratio of the tip diameter of said low pressure turbine to the tip diameter of said first row of moving blades of said low pressure compressor is between 1 and 1·1; and the ratio between the power absorbed by the high‐pressure compressor and the power absorbed by the low‐pressure compressor is between 2 and 2·5 and the tip diameter of said first row of moving blades of said low pressure compressor is greater than the tip diameter of any other row of moving blades of either of said compressors, and the tip diameter of said low pressure turbine is greater than the tip diameter of said high pressure turbine.

This paper aims to validate and analyse the NASA35 axial compressor performance based on a numerical approach.

Knowledge about flow property change during compressor operation at high and relatively low speed is still limited. This work provides a numerical approach to address these problems. Validation of numerical methods is proposed to generate confidence the numerical approach adopted, and after that, analysis of compressor performance at different operation conditions is carried out.

The numerical methods proposed are proved capable in predicting compressor performance. Changes of flow property during compressor operation are discussed and explained.

The current numerical work is carried out based on the first stage of the NASA35 axial compressor, where the interactive effects from adjacent stage are not counted in. Furthermore, the steady-state simulation enforces an averaging of flow at rotor-stator interface, where the transient rotor-stator interaction is removed.

This work validates the numerical methods used in the prediction of NASA35 axial compressor performance, and a similar numerical approach can be used for other turbomachinery simulation cases.

This work reinforces the understanding of axial compressor operation and provides reliable results for further investigation of a similar type of compressor. In addition, details of flow field within the NASA35 compressor during operation are given and explained which experiments still have difficult to achieve.

For an axial-flow compressor rotor, the upstream inflow conditions will vary as the aircraft faces harsh flight conditions (such as taking off, landing or maneuvering) or the whole compressor operates at off-design conditions. With the increase of upstream boundary layer thickness, the rotor blade tip will be loaded and the increased blade load will deteriorate the shock/boundary layer interaction and tip leakage flows, resulting in high aerodynamic losses in the tip region. The purpose of this paper is to achieve a better flow control for tip secondary flows and provide a probable design strategy for high-load compressors to tolerate complex upstream inflow conditions.

This paper presents an analysis and application of shroud wall optimization to a typical transonic axial-flow compressor rotor by considering the inlet boundary layer (IBL). The design variables are selected to shape the shroud wall profile at the tip region with the purpose of controlling the tip leakage loss and the shock/boundary layer interaction loss. The objectives are to improve the compressor efficiency at the inlet-boundary-layer condition while keeping its aerodynamic performance at the uniform condition.

After the optimization of shroud wall contour, aerodynamic benefits are achieved mainly on two aspects. On the one hand, the shroud wall optimization has reduced the intensity of the tip leakage flow and the interaction between the leakage and main flows, thereby decreasing the leakage loss. On the other hand, the optimized shroud design changes the shock structure and redistributes the shock intensity in the spanwise direction, especially weakening the shock near the tip. In this situation, the shock/boundary layer interaction and the associated flow separations and wakes are also eliminated. On the whole, at the inlet-boundary-layer condition, the compressor with optimized shroud design has achieved a 0.8 per cent improvement of peak efficiency over that with baseline shroud design without sacrificing the total pressure ratio. Moreover, the re-designed compressor also maintains the aerodynamic performance at the uniform condition. The results indicate that the shroud wall profile has significant influences on the rotor tip losses and could be properly designed to enhance the compressor aerodynamic performance against the negative impacts of the IBL.

The originality of this paper lies in developing a shroud wall contour optimization design strategy to control the tip leakage loss and the shock/boundary layer interaction loss in a transonic compressor rotor. The obtained results could be beneficial for transonic compressors to tolerate the complex upstream inflow conditions.

This study aims to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to understand and quantify the overall blockage within a transonic axial flow compressor (AFC), and to develop an efficient collaborative design optimization method for compressor aerodynamic performance and stability in conjunction with a surrogate-assisted optimization technique.

A quantification method for the overall blockage is developed to integrate the effect of regional blockages on compressor aerodynamic stability and performance. A well-defined overall blockage factor combined with efficiency drives the optimizer to seek the optimum blade designs with both high efficiency and wide-range stability. An adaptive Kriging-based optimization technique is adopted to efficiently search for Pareto front solutions. Steady and unsteady numerical simulations are used for the performance and flow field analysis of the datum and optimum designs.

The proposed method not only remarkably improves the compressor efficiency but also significantly enhances the compressor operating stability with fewer CFD calls. These achievements are mainly attributed to the improvement of specific flow behaviors oriented by the objectives, including the attenuation of the shock and weakening of the tip leakage flow/shock interaction intensity.

CFD-based design optimization of AFC is inherently time-consuming, which becomes even trickier when optimizing aerodynamic stability since the stall margin relies on a complete simulation of the performance curve. The proposed method could be a good solution to the collaborative design optimization of aerodynamic performance and stability for transonic AFC.

Analyses a stage‐by‐stage model to simulate the dynamic response of compression systems operating with axial multistage compressors. The compressor model is coupled with two different downstream volume (plenum) representations: the first is zero‐dimensional and the second is one‐dimensional. Both dynamic models utilize complete stage performance curves (direct unstalled flow, stalled flow and back flow) obtained through experimental investigation, or from theoretical analysis based on turbomachinery geometry and semi‐empirical considerations. Analyses in depth the results of the dynamic simulations, obtained utilizing both methods, compared to the experimental data reported in the literature, and finally compares one to the other through a fast Fourier transformer (FFT) analysis.

This paper aims to understand the aerodynamic blockage related to near casing flow in a transonic axial compressor using numerical simulations and to design an optimum casing groove for stall margin improvement using a surrogate optimisation technique.

A blockage parameter (Ψ) is introduced to quantify blockage across the blade domain. A surrogate optimisation technique is then used to find the optimum casing groove design that minimises blockage at an axial location where the blockage is maximum at near stall conditions.

An optimised casing groove that improves the stall margin by about 1% can be found through optimisation of the blockage parameter (Ψ).

Optimising for stall margin is rather lengthy and computationally expensive, as the stall margin of a compressor will only be known once a complete compressor map is constructed. This study shows that the cost of the optimisation can be reduced by using a suitably defined blockage parameter as the optimising parameter.

This study aims at enhancing the performance of a 16-stage axial compressor and improving the operating stability. The adopted approaches for upgrading the compressor are artificial neural network, optimization algorithms and computational fluid dynamics.

The process starts with developing several data sets for certain 2D sections by means of training several artificial neural networks (ANNs) as surrogate models. Afterward, the trained ANNs are applied to the 3D shape optimization along with parametrization of the blade stacking line. Specifying the significant design parameters, a wide range of geometrical variations are considered by implementation of appropriate number of design variables. The optimized shapes are analyzed by applying computational fluid dynamic to obtain the best geometry.

3D optimal results show improvements, especially in the case of decreasing or elimination of near walls corner separations. In addition, in comparison with the base geometry, numerical optimization shows an increase of 1.15 per cent in total isentropic efficiency in the first four stages, which results in 0.6 per cent improvement for the whole compressor, even while keeping the rest of the stages unchanged. To evaluate the numerical results, experimental data are compared with obtained data from simulation. Based on the results, the highest absolute relative deviation between experimental and numerical static pressure is approximately 7.5 per cent.

The blades geometry of an axial compressor used in a heavy-duty gas turbine is optimized by applying artificial neural network, and the results are compared with the base geometry numerically and experimentally.

Numerical and experimental results for different oncoming base-flow conditions indicate that nonuniform trailing edge blowing (NTEB) can expand the performance range of compressors and reduce the thrust on the rotor, while the efficiency of the compressor can be improved by more than 2 per cent.

Relevant aerodynamic parameters, such as total pressure, ratio of efficiency and axial thrust, are calculated and analyzed under conditions with and without NTEB. Measurements are performed downstream of two adjacent stator blades, at seven equidistantly spaced reference locations. The experimental measurement of the interstage flow field used a dynamic four-hole probe with phase lock technique.

An axial low-speed single-stage compressor was established with flow field measurement system and nonuniform blowing system. NTEB was studied by means of numerical simulations and experiments, and it is found that the efficiency of the tested compressor can be improved by more than 2 per cent.

Unlike most of the previous research studies which mainly focused on the rotor/stator interaction and trailing edge uniform blowing, the research results summarized in the current paper on the stator/rotor interaction used inlet guide vanes for steady and unsteady calculations. An active control of the interstage flow field in a low-speed compressor was used to widen the working range and improve the performance of the compressor.

A stall model to predict the performance of a blade row operating under rotating stall conditions, is proposed.

The experiments were carried out on an isolated rotor row of an axial flow compressor of a radius ratio of 0.66 hub/tip. Wall static pressure tappings were used for measurement of blade row pressure rise. The mass flow rate through the machine was determined from the pressure drop at the intake. Detailed flow measurements were made using a hot wire “V” probe and transducers. An online data acquisition system was used in which data sampling was phase‐locked with respect to stall cell trailing edge.

Measurements indicate that a pressure depression occurs in the stalled region. The assumption of uniform static pressure at the exit of a stalled blade row is not supported by the present work. The assumption of uniform static pressure at the exit of a stalled row together with the assumption that flow in unstalled regions operates at fixed point on the unstalled characteristic leads to the conclusion that total‐to‐static pressure rise during stalled operation is independent of blockage. This view is not supported by the experiments carried out on an isolated rotor.

Additional experimental studies for axial compressors having different rotor and blade geometries and rotor speeds, are required.

The results can be used in the design and operation of axial compressor rotors.

A new stall model is presented in which the behavior during stalled operation with large blockage is different from that during, low blockage.