Computation of turbulent flows and radiated sound from axial compressor cascade

Abstract

The losses at off-design points from a compressor cascade occur due to the deviation from a design incidence angle at the inlet of the cascade. The self-noise from the blade cascade at off-design points comes from a separated boundary layer and vortex sheddings. If the incidence angle to the cascade increases, stalling in blades may occur and the noise level increases significantly. This study applied Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) using deductive and deductive dynamic SGS models to low Mach-number, turbulent flow with each incidence angle to the cascade ranging from −40° to +20°, and compared numerical predictions with measured data. It was observed that the oscillating separation bubbles attached to the suction surface do not modify wake flows dynamically for cases of negative incidence angles. However, an incidence angle greater than 8° caused a separated vortex near the leading edge to be shed downstream and created stalling. The computed performance parameters such as drag coefficient and total pressure loss coefficient showed good agreement with experimental results. Noise from the cascade of the compressor is summarized as sound generated by a structure interacting with unsteady, turbulent flows. The hybrid method using acoustic analogy was observed to closely predict the measured overall sound powers and directivity patterns at design and off-design points of blade cascade.