Diagnosis of unsteady disturbance characteristics induced by the tip leakage vortex in a compressor based on data-driven modal decomposition methods

Abstract

The structural information about the tip leakage vortex at the design point remains largely unknown. Here, the dynamic mode decomposition method is utilized to visualize the main coherent structures corresponding to unsteady disturbance frequencies induced by the tip leakage vortex of an isolated rotor at the design point. The results show that the tip clearance size has a significant impact on unsteady disturbance characteristics at the blade tip region. The flow field within the blade tip region can be categorized into four distinct regions: the formation region of the main tip leakage vortex (MTLV), the formation region of the secondary tip leakage vortex (STLV), the merging zone where the MLTV and the STLV interact, and the vortex shedding zone induced by the leakage vortex breakdown. The disturbance peak in the frequency domain decreases from 121.3 RF to 70.96 RF as the tip clearance size increases from 1.5% blade height to 2%, resulting in a reduction of 41.36%. The increase in the tip clearance size amplifies unsteady disturbances caused by the MTLV and STLV. The STLV exhibits more pronounced oscillatory characteristics than the MTLV. The unsteady disturbance induced by the MLTV mainly occurs at around 0.5 blade passing frequency (BPF). In contrast, high-frequency unsteady disturbances (>1 BPF) in the flow field are caused by vortex shedding resulting from the interaction and collision between the STLV and the MTLV. A better understanding of the unsteady disturbance characteristics induced by leakage vortex benefits the study of stall warning technology.