Experimental investigation of non-axisymmetric flow control in a low speed axial compressor

The non-axisymmetric feature of the compressor separated flow field should be considered when flow control technology is utilized to improve compressor performance. An experiment is performed to investigate the effectiveness of non-axisymmetric flow control using arc curve skewed slot casing treatment in the paper A simplified non-axisymmetric excitation model is presented with variable circumferential excitation extent and location. FFT analysis results indicate that the frequency spectrum of the non-axisymmetric excitation is similar with that of the whole circumferential excitation. The non-axisymmetric excitation possesses the same dominate frequency, smaller amplitude and wider frequency bandwidth compared to the whole circumferential excitation. A simplified circumferential non-axisymmetric arc curve skewed slot casing treatment is utilized to perform non-axisymmetric excitation on the separated flow field of a low speed single stage axial compressor under both uniform and distorted inlet conditions. Experimental results indicate that the non-axisymmetric slotted casing treatment presents strong flow control capability, which could improve compressor efficiency, total pressure rise coefficient and stall margin. For the distorted inlet condition, the stall margin, total pressure rise and efficiency of the compressor are respectively improved by 47.4%, 12.7% and 0.7% compared to the solid casing, and the compressor efficiency is improved by 1.4% compared to the whole circumferential excitation. For uniform inlet condition, the non-axisymmetric excitation can improve compressor efficiency by 1.0% and 1.5% respectively compared to the solid casing and the whole circumferential excitation. The whole circumferential excitation can also improve the compressor total pressure rise coefficient and stall margin, on the contrary, it decreases compressor efficiency. As a result, the non-axisymmetric slotted casing treatment can achieve more excellent compressor performance than the whole circumferential excitation does. Experimental results also indicate that the circumferential extent and location of the non-axisymmetric excitation can influence the effectiveness of the non-axisymmetric excitation. The best compressor performance can be achieved only when the non-axisymmetric excitation is tuned to match the asymmetric compressor separated flow field. Analysis on the experimental results indicates that compressor efficiency improvement achieved with the non-axisymmetric excitation can not simply attribute to the flow loss reduction induced by fewer casing slots. The flow loss reduction within undistorted sector, the circumferential flow exchange and the dynamic response induced by the non-axisymmetric excitation, the unsteady coupling between the non-axisymmetric excitation and the separated flow field might be the key flow factors to influence the compressor flow field structure, and hence influence the compressor performance.