Effect of span range of variable-camber inlet guide vane in an axial compressor

Abstract

Inlet guide vanes (IGVs) affect compressor performance by characterizing the upstream flow of the rotor blade row. After operating a long period, the IGV may suffer from blade deformation and consequently influence the downstream flow fields. The deformation of IGV always occurs locally, and the deformed structure can be regarded as a partially-flapped variable-camber IGV. In the current study, six typical configurations, with different span ranges of variable-camber IGVs, were selected. The impact on the compressor performance was discussed through numerical simulations. The dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) approach was applied over the computational domain for investigating the dynamic features. Results show that the stall margin and the total pressure rise of the compressor rotor are sensitive to the span range of the variable-camber IGV. For the unsteady feature in the flow field, the variation of IGV has a limited effect on the IGV itself while significantly changes the dynamic characteristics over the rotor domain. Compared to the case with conservative non-variable IGV, the extension in the flapped span yields a stall margin ranging from −4.1% to 8.1% as well as a monotone drop in the total pressure ratio. The mechanism behind the effect of IGV on the stall margin and the total pressure rise is dependent on the particular range of the modified IGV span.