A Numerical Study of Flutter in a Transonic Fan

Abstract

The bending mode flutter of a modern transonic fan has been studied using a quasi-3D viscous unsteady CFD code. The type of flutter in this research is that of a highly loaded blade with a tip relative Mach number just above unity, commonly referred to as transonic stall flutter. This type of flutter is often encountered in modern wide chord fans without a part span shroud. The CFD simulation uses an upwinding scheme with Roe’s 3rd-order flux differencing, and Johnson and King’s turbulence model with the later modification due to Johnson and Coakley. A dynamic transition point model is developed using the en method and Schubauer and Klebanoff’s experimental data. The calculations of the flow in this fan reveal that the source of the flutter of IHI transonic fan is an oscillation of the passage shock, rather than a stall. As the blade loading increases, the passage shock moves forward. Just before the passage shock unstarts, the stability of the passage shock decreases, and a small blade vibration causes the shock to oscillate with a large amplitude between unstarted and started positions. The dominant component of the blade excitation force is due to the foot of the oscillating passage shock on the blade pressure surface.