Effects of casing treatment on behavior of tip leakage flow in an isolated axial compressor rotor blade row

Abstract

This article deals with enhancement in aerodynamic performance of an isolated axial compressor rotor blade row while applying treated casing. Three dimensional unsteady flow is assumed and a flow solver, utilizing Large Eddy Simulation (LES), is undertaken for the numerical calculations. Unsteady tip leakage flow and its propagation trajectory are simulated in detail for both smooth and treated casings. Oscillatory nature of tip leakage flow is depicted and its frequency is calculated by the calculation of pressure distribution along the rotor blade tip, for smooth and treated casings. For the smooth casing and in comparison with experimental data, results showed that in contrast with the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes method, the LES realizes dependency of frequency characteristics of the tip leakage flow on the blade tip clearance size, and also can recognize different frequency characteristics of the tip leakage flow along the blade chord. Results also demonstrated that performing casing treatment causes the amplitude of unsteadiness of tip leakage flow to reduce and its frequency to get closer to the blade passing frequency. This in turn, causes flow blockages and losses in total pressure to reduce.